Re: Add Network Neighborhood to Nautilus

[Bruce Robert Pocock <brpocock 10east com>]

On Fri, 2002-07-26 at 11:50, A-J Ulvestad wrote:
> On Fri, 2002-07-26 at 17:21, John Palmieri wrote:
> > You also bring up another interesting issue.  For now most of the talk
> > has been about file sharing protocols but any one computer, once they
> > were discovered, could export multiple protocols.  Another question
> > would be, "why do I care about protocols? I just want to know what
> > services are available and from where."  In this case a list of all
> > computers that export service I can use, be it file, print, fax, or
> > others, should be listed in a browser.  Clicking on them would report
> > the services available for that computer.  If I just wanted file servers
> > I would be able to filter for that.  This would be sort of like a
> > virtual LDAP server.  This is what I would like to see - the ability to
> > drop a GNOME desktop into a network and with zero configuration I can
> > see all services available to me.  Extream wishlist :-)
> 
> Yeah, that is a kinda extreme wishlist, but it isn't impossible. One
> possibility would be to gather NFS, SMB, Appleshare, coda, inter-mezzo,
> etc, etc as one to the user. Scanning for this would however involve a
> massive portscan of the entire network.. I don't see a problem on a
> 100Mbit lan for that, however - but people stuck on slower networks
> would be stuck with an extremely sluggish system the first time it
> starts...

Portscan != necessary, not entirely.

KDE project "Lisa" actually operates this way, to find
"non-co-operating" servers. However, NMB, NBP, Lisa servers will already
answer queries and provide pre-assembled "browse lists;" and SLP and DNS
WKS records can also be assembled for GNOME- / ZeroConf- compatible
systems. (This is already being done in Mac OS Jaguar = 10.2 coming out
in a few days. We could probably hijack some nice BSD-licensed code
within the next week or so :-) )

Ideally, just scan our domain's DNS for WKS records and possibly a
pre-configured LDAP server (for the "managed" networks, e.g. at a
corporate office), and broadcast SLP / mcDNS queries for the "zeroconf"
environment (especially laptops, handhelds, &c). We could also look for
a Lisa server, if one's around, but one big problem is establishing the
IP range to be scanned. (EG: My LAN uses the 10.0.0.0/8 private-use
area... that might mean a portscan of 2**24 (+/-) possible addresses!)