zeroconf name resolution does not mean necessarily DNS

[Alain Durand <Alain.Durand@sun.com>]

To follow up on the DNSext discussion on mdns/zeroconf.

What is needed is something to map local names to IP addresses
in a zeroconf environment (no DNS server)
This does mean that whatever we design has to be integrate in the
general name resolution process of operating system and does not
mean it has to be integrated in the DNS itself.

As I said earlier, there is usually a switch to say in what order to
do name resolution: example: first FILES, then NIS then DNS
What is needed is just another local scope name service.

When a web browser tries to resolve a name like mylapto-at-the-airport
it calls a library function like getnameinfo(), it does not call DNS directly.
The library function goes to the switch and decide how to retrieve the 
information.

So, my point is that whatever we design does not need to look like DNS at all.
It may, but is not required and it may or may not be desirable.

	- Alain.



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