Zeroconf

Courtesy of the IETF Zeroconf Working Group, by way of AppleTalk, NETBIOS, IPX and countless other nonstandardized protocols, Zero Configuration Networking attempts to simplify and automate local area networking (especially in the absence of suitable UIs). On UNIX, Avahi provides the mainstream Zeroconf implementation; it is known as Bonjour on Apple products. Zeroconf's primary technologies include:

• Uni- and multicast address autoconfiguration via Link-Local Addressing (typically static, or managed via DHCP)
• Name translation via Multicast DNS (mDNS) (typically static, or managed via DNS)
• Service discovery via DNS Service Discovery (DNS-SD) (typically managed via a directory server)