Link-Local Messaging Goes Wide-Area

by Peter Saint-Andre

2008-03-05

Stuart Cheshire recently pointed out to me that zero-configuration networking (in the Apple world, known as Bonjour) is not limited to local networks but can also work over wide-area networks, which means it's possible to run a wide-area XMPP service using the protocol we used to call link-local messaging (just today the XMPP Council approved a revised version, which we now call serverless messaging). So I'm thinking it might be an interesting experiment to run such a service at xmpp.com, which is a spare domain we have lying around (right now it just redirects to xmpp.org). The DNS standards allow this kind of setup, I've tested that our DNS provider enables it, and iChat supports wide-area communication, so now I just need to figure out all the right DNS bits and server configurations. There are a lot of options involved so it's good that someone has written a HOWTO...


Peter Saint-Andre > Journal