Understanding Zeroconf and Multicast DNS

Source: O'Reilly Network

Zeroconf, and its direct competitor UPnP, provide for automatic configuration and address allocation. This can be accomplished on both Ethernet and wireless networks, but we think it's a good bet that this protocol will become wildly popular in the wireless world. You walk into a room with your laptop, it discovers a printer, you send a print command, paper emerges.

This article delves into Zeroconf (also branded as Rendezvous by Apple Computer), compares it to UpnP, and shows you how these protocols might finally make networking logical and easy to administer.