On 1/11/2012 6:10 PM, Florin Andrei wrote: > On 01/11/2012 06:03 AM, Les Mikesell wrote: >> >> 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. > > Wait a sec, I have that setup (just mediatomb instead of ps3mediaserver) > and there's no avahi on my network. Yet the PS3 is perfectly capable of > discovering and using the DLNA server. You're talking about the inverse case of Les. An MDNS server on your Linux box lets it find services on the network via MDNS. So, you could store movies on the PS3 and maybe play them on the Linux desktop without knowing the PS3's IP address, if you used an mdns/avahi-aware player program. The plug-and-play nature of MDNS would evaporate if you had to set up a Linux box on the LAN just to act as MDNS server.