[CentOS] Is avahi essential?

[Les Mikesell]

On Wed, Jan 11, 2012 at 7:40 AM, Timothy Murphy <gayleard at eircom.net> wrote:
> John R Pierce wrote:
>
>> its part of multimedia home network plug and play, I believe...  lets
>> media boxes find media servers, and such.    if you were to serve up
>> streaming media on a home network, it would be a useful thing to have.
>> otherwise?   meh.
>
> Could you give a concrete example of such a setup, please?
>
> I must admit I'm rather confused by UPnP.
> Is it intended for devices that don't have an IP address?
> Or how does it fit in with dhcpd?

It is for devices with IP, but to find names that aren't officially
registered in a DNS server.  For example if you have a Playstation 3,
or a newer blu-ray player that supports network streaming it will use
DHCP to get an address.  But then suppose you install your own DLNA
media server like ps3mediaserver (or have windows 7 home premium which
includes one).   Without registering your new server name in DNS, the
device will be able to find the service if it is on the same lan.  I
think Macs use it to find printers too.

-- 
  Les Mikesell
     lesmikesell at gmail.com