> Do we want applications caching mDNS replies into configuration files?
> I think not, and I think the DNS people will shout loudly about that.

Hm... I'm a DNS people, but I'm not sure I object to this.  You'd want
some mechanism for clearing old records out after the devices had been
gone from the network for a long-enough time, but that's not intrinsically
hard.

> I regularly print to both my work and home printer remotely (yes, over
> IPv6. The CUPS server speaks IPv6 even if my home printer speaks only
> USB).

I'm of the opinion that "remote access from offsite" should be a service
you can configure your printer to provide, but which is not the default.

In my ideal world (please indulge me in a moment of handwaving), you plug
in your printer, and tell it what its name is (or let it pick its own
default such as "LaserPrinter-3"); it announces itself to the local network
as providing local printing, and its name is placed in the .sitelocal
domain.

*If* you check the box for "let the outside world print to me" -- which you
and I might want to do but most people wouldn't -- then it announces itself
as providing both local and remote printing, and its name is placed in
.sitelocal and then mirrored into the globally addressable domain that
you'd previously configured for your network: by preference, that would be
your private domain name, but if you don't have one of those then it could
mirror into a namespace controlled by your ISP, Apple, DynDNS or whatever.

If you were printing something, and you a found a printer via service
discovery which indicate that it could provide remote access, then you'd be
given the option to bookmark its global name and use it when you're away;
if it isn't configured for remote access then you woulnd't be given that
option.

A similar mental model could apply to the "fridge" and "lamp" examples
we've been kicking around as well -- you won't normally *want* them to be
globally accessible, but if you do, you should tell them so and let them
work it out with your network.  (This is the point I was trying to make at
the mic yesterday, but I'm not sure it came across.)

-- 
Evan Hunt -- [email protected]
Internet Systems Consortium, Inc.
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