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• Allocate addresses without a DHCP server.
• Translate between names and IP addresses without a DNS server.
• Find services, like printers, without a directory server.
• Allocate IP Multicast addresses without a MADCAP server.

actually, get this right. rendezvous is based on (and quite heavily supported) by the zeroconf working standards group. yes, it can even work on winblows, theoretically speaking, of course.

Actually it all started with games.

Specifically a Mac game named Bolo based on a serverless ring topology and written by a fellow named Stuart Cheshire. He also happens to be a "Wizard without Portfolio" at Apple and the Co-chairman of the IETF Zeroconf Working Group.

You can still play it. Watch out - it can get pretty addicting.

FYI, here is a FAQ on Apple Rendezvous and Zeroconf

it really is no different an idea than a dhcp router

just look at the zeroconf official site to find out the whole scoop. rendezvous is just the Apple brand for the technology they created, like firewire is to ieee 1394.

as for users, there isn't alot of bad things you can say about them that i'll disagree with, but someone will always have a job to teach them how to push the power button and plug in their speakers. however, IMHO more zeroconf would be awful nice to have around.

• Rendezvous page at zeroconf.org
• Apple's Rendezvous page
• JRendezvous - Strangeberry's implementation of Rendezvous in Java

I'm seeing a lot of knee-jerk reactions about Rendezvous and security. People are assuming that because the protocol is about making certain types of network configuration dynamic and simple, it is necessarily insecure. Well, I've got news for you: any type of connection from one computer to another is creating security issues. I mean...duh. Now, clearly using something like the zeroconf protocol is going to require stuff like...passwords and encryption and all the usual nonsense we need to make things secure. Oh, and a competent sysadmin administrating the system. So can we cool it with the frothing?

Now, if someone had some good comments on the security issues involved with the zeroconf protocol itself, I'd like to read about it.

I'm seeing a lot of features but where is the security? This looks a lot like how older versions of windows used to share the contents of your drive over ethernet but not dialup without asking and theres a good reason they stopped doing that. Or have I missed something?

Yes. You have missed something: Rendevous/ZeroConf auto assigns link-local addresses in 168.254.x.x range. These IPs are intended only for lans and will be filtered by any router/firewall. More info here

It's important to remember that Zeroconf is not Apple property, it is an open protocol. Rendezvous is just Apple's implementation of it (yes, the source code is available)

Apple Developer Site Apple Developer Site

SourceForge SourceForge

Strangeberry Java implementation

International University and Sun Microsystems supported a collaborative research program. Java source code

Is Rendezvous code available for Linux? Didn't Apple release the source for it? Shouldn't be too hard to port if it hasn't been yet...?

Apple no longer "creates" standards, it simply implements them, ...

Actually, they do-- in cooperation with the appropriate standards bodies. Apple was/is heavily involved in IETF zeroconf, widely known as Apple's Rendezvous (bringing the ease of AppleTalk to IP networks).

Which is exactly what they ought to do!

... it may possibly improve apon them if it is possible to give back to the open source community.

Right'o.

[Rendezvous] won't change nothing if it's proprietary and doesn't play nice with other OS's (Windows included).

Your Apple-bashing posts lately have ticked me off, and now it's payback time-- I get to expose you as an ignorant dumbass:

Rendezvous is Apple's brand name for Zero Configuration IP Networking, better known as ZeroConf. It is hardly proprietary.

If Rendezvous turns out to not 'play nice' with Windows, that will be because Microsoft did their trademark "pollute the open standard with Windows-specific shit" move, not because of anything Apple did.

It won't change nothing if it's proprietary and doesn't play nice with other OS's (Windows included).

Fortunately it ISN'T PROPRIETARY! It is an open standard that is also called zeroconf. Apple has also released source code.

Why isn't there an open source package that just makes it easy to share folders/files/printers across all platforms? Like Samba, but without being a cloned MS tech?

Grab Apple's code and get working ;)

Hopefully this has ZeroConf or it could be added. Imagine having an 802.11 DVD player, seamlessly networked with your Panasonic Plasma TV.

It really seams like we are going to see a revolution in networked aplicances, finally, and it dosen't look like bluetooth is going to be the springboard.

So far, if I recall, Panasonic and at least 2 other companies have jumped onto the ZeroConf bandwagon. This includes some stero equipment along with TVs from Panasonic which support slide shows sent from the TV.

Are you excited?

I hate to break it to you, but OS X is so slow on the G3 that you might as well not bother.

Not at all. Time to drop your FUD. I just recently aquired a used 400 Mhz G3 PowerBook with 256MB RAM, and things are running on it quite well. iTunes, iCal, Mozilla, AOL, etc all at once. I've even been doing a lot of remote work with OroborOSX running apps from my Linux box remotely, including Mozilla and full-bore developer stuff.

(I'm quite interested in looking into Rendezvous also, given that it's a Zeroconf implementation.)

"I don't think Rendezvous is overrated at all. I think it's the way things should have been done 10 years ago, and it's almost sad that it wasn't."

Yeah, it was called NetBIOS.

On Windows PCs, Microsoft NETBIOS provides a similar ease-of-use

There's nothing particularly original about rendezvous.

I think you should read the referenced document more carefully, and follow the links in the post above yours you'd find that the IP auto-configuration method used by Apple Rendezvous and Microsoft UPnP is identical. It's all based on what the zeroconf guys did.

Yes both Apple's and Microsoft's solutions go further, but at the low level this stuff does interoperate.

Also note that MS isn't the only folks supplying UPnP, Intel also developed a lot which is now Open Sourced.

Rendevous & Zeroconf information:

• IETF Zero Configuration Networking (Zeroconf) Group
• IETF Zeroconf on Apple Rendezvous and Zeroconf
• Apple's Customer-pitch for Rendezvous
• Apple's Developer-pitch for Rendezvous

• Service Location Protocol Project
• Service Location Protocol Overview

Finally, for completeness here is UPnP:

• Universal Plug and Play Forum
• MS's Developer kit
• Intel's Developer info
• Intel-developed SDK, Open Sourced.

Also note that MS isn't the only folks supplying UPnP, Intel also developed a lot which is now Open Sourced.

Rendevous & Zeroconf information:

• IETF Zero Configuration Networking (Zeroconf) Group
• IETF Zeroconf on Apple Rendezvous and Zeroconf
• Apple's Customer-pitch for Rendezvous
• Apple's Developer-pitch for Rendezvous

• Service Location Protocol Project
• Service Location Protocol Overview

Finally, for completeness here is UPnP:

• Universal Plug and Play Forum
• MS's Developer kit
• Intel's Developer info
• Intel-developed SDK, Open Sourced.

• IETF Zero Configuration Networking (Zeroconf) Group
• IETF Zeroconf on Apple Rendezvous and Zeroconf
• Apple's Customer-pitch for Rendezvous
• Apple's Developer-pitch for Rendezvous

• Service Location Protocol

Finally, for completeness here is UPnP:

• Universal Plug and Play Forum
• MS's Developer kit
• Intel's Developer info
• Intel-developed SDK, Open Sourced.

• IETF Zero Configuration Networking (Zeroconf) Group
• IETF Zeroconf on Apple Rendezvous and Zeroconf
• Apple's Customer-pitch for Rendezvous
• Apple's Developer-pitch for Rendezvous

• Service Location Protocol

Finally, for completeness here is UPnP:

• Universal Plug and Play Forum
• MS's Developer kit
• Intel's Developer info
• Intel-developed SDK, Open Sourced.

Apple has proposed Zeroconf has an internet standard. It's still only in draft form: http://www.zeroconf.org/

If you're pushing for an Internet standard, it certainly helps to have an open source implementation of the standard. Check out the RFC describing the Internet Standards Process. You'll note that a proposed standard: A Proposed Standard specification is generally stable, has resolved known design choices, is believed to be well-understood, has received significant community review, and appears to enjoy enough community interest to be considered valuable.

This doesn't state that you have to release open source, but it helps the case when you want to can get other people to look at your code and see what you've done.

Also note that a draft standard requires: A specification from which at least two independent and interoperable implementations from different code bases have been developed, and for which sufficient successful operational experience has been obtained, may be elevated to the "Draft Standard" level. Yes, they are independent implementations, but it can help other people develop theirs if they can see your source code. When my implementation doesn't interoperate with Apple's, I can actually figure out why, and whose fault it is.

So yes, releasing the source code is good if Apple wants this to become a standard.

-alain

All you're doing is repeating yourself. You haven't actually made your case at any point.

You really ought to read this before getting your panties (even more) in a wad about the whole thing. Summary: people smarter than us have excellent reasons for believing it's a good thing.

Oh yeah, there's now a webpage for the usbnet driver.

That basically tells how to do USB host-to-host networking over USB today. Special devices that talk to two different hosts, and switch between them. Sure, you could build switches that talk to even more, but this is where it starts ... :)

When this all works with zeroconf IP it'll be easy to set up a peer-to-peer LAN with speeds of several hundred Mbit/sec. Until then, you've got to set the net up by hand ... :)

Before encountering this article I had no idea in the world what Zeroconf was.

Here's their web site. They give a description on the main page.

In his keynote, Steve Jobs said that Rendezvous would be an open standard

s/would be/is/

Rendezvous is just Apple's marketing name for their Zeroconf implementation, just as FireWire is just their marketroid-friendly name for IEEE1394. What's in a name? Think different!

My parallel port laplink cable had NO TROUBLE keeping up with it.

I guess that would be very useful to connect 10 computers. Don't you think you are confusing interfacing with networking? Anyways, Appletalk was a very nice protocol for the time. It has features still unmatched by IP (automatic discovery and negotiation). Hopefully Zero Configuration Networking will provide this one day.

It has links to a lot of papers on the topic, including the one Wesley Felter posted.

There are standardised ways of doing this well - have a look at http://www.zeroconf.org

First of all it's not the "Windows" random assignment. The 169.254 stuff is a public spec, and so far both Windows and MacOS support it. It's called "Dynamic Configuration of IPv4 Link-Local Addresses" and you can read about it here. (Microsoft's implementation is called APIPA and you can read about it here).

Have you ever actually seen an address conflict happen? It's not supposed to under the spec. Each box after picking a proposed address is supposed to ARP it. If it gets a reply, it then tries again. And so on. Works kind of like a hash table.