Apple Releases Bonjour for Windows 1.0.3

MacDailyNews is reporting that Apple has released Bonjour for Windows 1.0.3. From the article: "Bonjour, also known as zero-configuration networking, enables automatic discovery of computers, devices, and services on IP networks. Bonjour uses industry standard IP protocols to allow devices to automatically discover each other without the need to enter IP addresses or configure DNS servers."

Umm, wow.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a moron. Read about ZeroConf a little bit before you troll, kay?

Not very useful

[Smack]

I don't see the point of this. The stuff is already built into the Apple Windows products.

It would be nice if it was an actual zeroconf windows client, with Samba support or something. But it's not.

Re:I bet network engineers

[ktappe]

why do I need this product? We already have wireless routers with built-in DHCP

This isn't the same thing as DHCP. DHCP hands out IP addresses on a lease basis. Bonjour is a discovery protocol that lets users easily find peripherals without needing to know their addresses. Under Windows without Bonjour (ZeroConf) you still have to manually type in the addresses of IP-based printers whereas Macs with Bonjour find those same devices automatically. It's actually pretty sweet technology that brings to the IP era what AppleTalk supplied back in the late 80's to Macs. And it's peer-to-peer so you don't need any other services (AD, LDAP) providing lookup for you; it's plug & play and it simply works.

-Kurt

Re:I bet network engineers

[Mikey-San]

When my neighbor's daughter launches iTunes, her library shows up in my iTunes, and I can play them. Note that my network is WEP-enabled and MAC filtered, and I'm not part of her network

You might be WEP-enabled and MAC-filtered, but that doesn't mean you aren't on the same network. (WEP and MAC filtering have nothing to do with Bonjour services specifically.) Bonjour works on a subnet, not over a WAN; getting it to work across separate subnets requires special configuration.

You two are on the same network.

Re:Wild guess...

[Kadin2048]

It's kind of one of those products that you don't think you have a use for, until you use it accidentally. Then it strikes you as being really handy.

I didn't remember that it existed when a friend brought a PowerBook over to my house and was sitting in the living room, plugged into my LAN; a while later he asked to print something. I said "sure, go for it" figuring he'd put it on a flash drive or something and I'd print it for him, or he'd email it to me. But no, he just sent it to my shared laser printer.

It's also how Apple products do a lot of their "sharing" magic, i.e., seeing other people's photo and audio libraries on your computer.

It's kind of a subtle technology, it's not going to wow people (my friend didn't even understand why what he did was interesting, he just selected the printer from the list in the dialog box), but it works pretty well.

I'd love to see it get better supported on Linux.

Re:Bonjour vs UPnP

[Anonymous Coward]

Enabling UPnP on your router for use with UPnP-aware applications like Xbox Live, MSN Messenger, Azureus, Media Center Extenders, etc, is perfectly safe.

Sure. Until your kid installs a trojaned game he got from a buddy at school on his PC, and the trojan asks your router to please open some outbound ports that you wanted to keep shut down. Because you can do that with UPnP, without authentication.

Re:Windows 1.0.3?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have used Bonjour (formally known as Rondezvous) and it is great. The simpliest and most useful application we us it for is printers. I can plug my computer onto any of the 32 subnets on my network and immedieatly print to any printer on the network without having to configure or install anything. Compare the two network printing experiences in a workgroup environment.

1. Windows way
plug computer into network
go to printers and faxes - add printer
wonder around building looking for closest printer
grab IP information off printer in building
go back to computer
create "local printer" printer port
find printer drivers
finnish the createing the printer using the wizard (and found drivers) and tie it to created printer port
open word document
hit print
print

2. Mac way (Using Bonjour)
plug computer into network
open word document
hit print (it will now list all printers on network)
select closest printer
print

There are many other examples from iChat (auto-populate all iChat users on lan) to iTunes (can share all songs every iTunes user on lan has with no configuration they just appear)

BEST of all to get it working you need two things -
one enable Bonjour(rondezvous) on networked printers (a matter of selecting enable)
two enable Bonjour on client computer (a matter of checking a box which is on by default)

Buh...

[obeythefist]

This is amazing. Am I the only guy here who actually likes controlling his network in an orderly and well managed manner?

Maybe, just maybe, I don't want devices jumping onto my network and configuring themselves any way they like.

Re:How is this different than...

[mrchaotica]

And that's why you're supposed to fill in the "location" field when you use CUPS to share the printer (presumably other protocols have a similar thing).

Re:How is this different than...

[amper]

No, they were absolutely *wrong* to do so.

I myself am in the process of replacing one of these poor design decisions with a brand new AD in a company that is about 50% Mac OS X and 50% Windows 2K/XP/2K3. The arrogant asshats who built the original AD never consulted with the people responsible for over half the computers in the company that run Mac OS X. Not to mention the fact that just about every networkable printer that's come out in the past couple of years supports mDNS/Rendezvous/Bonjour/Zeroconf right out of the box, and will also have problems with using a ".local" AD.

It's interesting that you claim the usage of ".com" addresses for AD causes problems, especially since the ".com" root DN convention is not only recommended by Microsoft, but has been in common usage for LDAP directories for quite a bit longer than Active Directory has been available on the market.

Pointing the Macs at the AD's DNS system doesn't solve the problem, because mDNS assumes that anything ".local" will be found through the Multicast DNS system (at least, prior to 10.3.4), so the ".local" request never makes it to the specified AD server's DNS. Apple had to go out of their way to work around the problem because of so many MCSE asshats who don't know an fscking thing about interoperability...which is to say, most of them.