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Postmaster already has code to announce its services via DNS-SD
(ZeroConf) by using Apple's Bonjour API. This series of patches
implements that capability on top of the Avahi library[1] which
is free software, available for a wider variety of platforms.

I've separated the change set into smaller pieces for easy review. Also
I don't know, if the 4th patch adding subtypes describing Postgresql's
capabilities is wanted by the Postgresql community. Being a desktop guy,
using Postgresql as embedded database, I'd really like to see all of the
patches merged, but I could imagine some opposition against the verbose
nature of the subtypes patch.

Each of the patches as a short description of its purpose.

I couldn't find any ChangeLog files in the repository, and also I didn't
invest much time in investigating how the HISTORY file of distribution
tarballs is assembled. So if the repository contains file I should have
modified for documenting my changes, I apologize for not updating them.

[1] http://www.avahi.org/
--
Mathias Hasselmann <mathias@openismus.com>
www.openismus.com


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This has been saved for the 8.4 release:

http://momjian.postgresql.org/cgi-bin/pgpatches_hold

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mathias Hasselmann wrote:
> Postmaster already has code to announce its services via DNS-SD
> (ZeroConf) by using Apple's Bonjour API. This series of patches
> implements that capability on top of the Avahi library[1] which
> is free software, available for a wider variety of platforms.
>
> I've separated the change set into smaller pieces for easy review. Also
> I don't know, if the 4th patch adding subtypes describing Postgresql's
> capabilities is wanted by the Postgresql community. Being a desktop guy,
> using Postgresql as embedded database, I'd really like to see all of the
> patches merged, but I could imagine some opposition against the verbose
> nature of the subtypes patch.
>
> Each of the patches as a short description of its purpose.
>
> I couldn't find any ChangeLog files in the repository, and also I didn't
> invest much time in investigating how the HISTORY file of distribution
> tarballs is assembled. So if the repository contains file I should have
> modified for documenting my changes, I apologize for not updating them.
>
> [1] http://www.avahi.org/
> --
> Mathias Hasselmann <mathias@openismus.com>
> www.openismus.com

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>
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--
Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> http://momjian.us
EnterpriseDB http://postgres.enterprisedb.com

+ If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +

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TIP 2: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster

Hello,

Congratulations to the 8.3 release. No, that pre-release stress is over
I'd really like to put attention on my Avahi patches again.

Avahi/Bonjour/DNS-SD support[1] is very important, for integrating
Postgresql with modern desktop environments like OSX, GNOME, KDE: It's
very convenient to choose active DBMS servers in your local network from
a list, instead of memorizing "cryptic" connection parameters.

In Glom[2] we use Postgresql as DBMS of choice. This application would
greatly benefit from the possibility to choose central Postgresql
servers from an automatically updated list.

For OSX builds Postgresql already has DNS-SD support via Apple's Bonjour
library. For Linux Avahi[3] is the library of choice. Modern distribu-
tions ship it as main package, since both GNOME and KDE make use of it.
Since DNS-SD is a published IETF standard [4] client applications
choose whatever DNS-SD implementation they like.

Applying this patche series would bring Postgresql's Linux port on par
with the OSX port in terms of desktop integration.

People not wanting DNS-SD support for their server can easily control
that feature via the "--with-avahi" configure scripts.

Thank your for attention,
Mathias

[1] http://www.dns-sd.org/
[2] http://www.glom.org/
[3] http://www.avahi.org/
[4] http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2782.txt

Am Dienstag, den 27.11.2007, 11:19 +0100 schrieb Mathias Hasselmann:
> Postmaster already has code to announce its services via DNS-SD
> (ZeroConf) by using Apple's Bonjour API. This series of patches
> implements that capability on top of the Avahi library[1] which
> is free software, available for a wider variety of platforms.
>
> I've separated the change set into smaller pieces for easy review. Also
> I don't know, if the 4th patch adding subtypes describing Postgresql's
> capabilities is wanted by the Postgresql community. Being a desktop guy,
> using Postgresql as embedded database, I'd really like to see all of the
> patches merged, but I could imagine some opposition against the verbose
> nature of the subtypes patch.
>
> Each of the patches as a short description of its purpose.
>
> I couldn't find any ChangeLog files in the repository, and also I didn't
> invest much time in investigating how the HISTORY file of distribution
> tarballs is assembled. So if the repository contains file I should have
> modified for documenting my changes, I apologize for not updating them.
>
> [1] http://www.avahi.org/
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--
Mathias Hasselmann <mathias@openismus.com>
http://www.openismus.com/ - We can get it done.


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Am Samstag, den 23.02.2008, 21:08 +0100 schrieb Peter Eisentraut:
> Mathias Hasselmann wrote:
> > Congratulations to the 8.3 release. Now, that pre-release stress is over
> > I'd really like to put attention on my Avahi patches again.
>
> I've added your item to the patch list
> (http://developer.postgresql.org/inde...o:PatchStatus). It would help
> if you could include or point to your actual patch.

Thanks a lot.

The patches were in my initial mail, but now I've also uploaded them to
my personal site for convenience:

http://taschenorakel.de/files/pgsql-avahi-support/

I just failed to update the Wiki page:

This page has been locked to prevent editing.
You can view and copy the source of this page:

Ciao,
Mathias
--
Mathias Hasselmann <mathias@openismus.com>
http://www.openismus.com/ - We can get it done.


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Am Dienstag, 27. November 2007 schrieb Mathias Hasselmann:
> I don't know, if the 4th patch adding subtypes describing Postgresql's
> capabilities is wanted by the Postgresql community. Being a desktop guy,
> using Postgresql as embedded database, I'd really like to see all of the
> patches merged, but I could imagine some opposition against the verbose
> nature of the subtypes patch.

I am not convinced about the usefulness of the subtypes patch. The examples
you cite -- FTP, bittorrent, distcc -- are cases where a client could pick
the most appropriate server from a set of equivalent instances. I don't see
how this can be useful in a PostgreSQL setting, at least not based on the
parameters server version and protocol version that you implemented.

--
Peter Eisentraut
http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/

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Mathias Hasselmann wrote:

> The patches were in my initial mail, but now I've also uploaded them to
> my personal site for convenience:
>
> http://taschenorakel.de/files/pgsql-avahi-support/

Hmm, a quick look at the third patch reveals that it is using the
"threaded" Avahi client. That's a showstopper. Please consider using
some other approach -- writing our own handlers for AvahiPoll would seem
apropos.

--
Alvaro Herrera http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc.

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Am Dienstag, 27. November 2007 schrieb Mathias Hasselmann:
> Postmaster already has code to announce its services via DNS-SD
> (ZeroConf) by using Apple's Bonjour API. This series of patches
> implements that capability on top of the Avahi library[1] which
> is free software, available for a wider variety of platforms.

One thing I found curious: The Bonjour code uses service
type "_postgresql._tcp." whereas your code uses "_postgresql._tcp" (note the
dot). Is that an expected difference?

--
Peter Eisentraut
http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/

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Am Samstag, 23. Februar 2008 schrieb Mathias Hasselmann:
> The patches were in my initial mail, but now I've also uploaded them to
> my personal site for convenience:
>
> http://taschenorakel.de/files/pgsql-avahi-support/

I have reworked the first three of your patches (mostly formatting and some
refactoring) and published them here:

http://git.postgresql.org/?p=~petere...=avahi-support

--
Peter Eisentraut
http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/

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Am Montag, den 25.02.2008, 15:45 +0100 schrieb Peter Eisentraut:
> Am Dienstag, 27. November 2007 schrieb Mathias Hasselmann:
> > Postmaster already has code to announce its services via DNS-SD
> > (ZeroConf) by using Apple's Bonjour API. This series of patches
> > implements that capability on top of the Avahi library[1] which
> > is free software, available for a wider variety of platforms.
>
> One thing I found curious: The Bonjour code uses service
> type "_postgresql._tcp." whereas your code uses "_postgresql._tcp" (note the
> dot). Is that an expected difference?

Oh, that difference is really interesting. I didn't even see it.

DNS-SD uses the convention "_<protoname>._<type>" to describe services,
and that's the convention Avahi follows. I don't know why the Bonjour
API uses that trailing dot, but it seems wrong:

"a trailing dot indicates the root domain. so bonjour is clearly
wrong, since there's no ._tcp top-level domain."

-- James Andrewartha on #avahi today

Avahi's maintainer Sjoerd Simons agreed, that the trailing dot seems to
be wrong.


Ciao,
Mathias
--
Mathias Hasselmann <mathias@openismus.com>
http://www.openismus.com/ - We can get it done.


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Am Montag, den 25.02.2008, 15:27 +0100 schrieb Peter Eisentraut:
> Am Dienstag, 27. November 2007 schrieb Mathias Hasselmann:
> > I don't know, if the 4th patch adding subtypes describing Postgresql's
> > capabilities is wanted by the Postgresql community. Being a desktop guy,
> > using Postgresql as embedded database, I'd really like to see all of the
> > patches merged, but I could imagine some opposition against the verbose
> > nature of the subtypes patch.
>
> I am not convinced about the usefulness of the subtypes patch. The examples
> you cite -- FTP, bittorrent, distcc -- are cases where a client could pick
> the most appropriate server from a set of equivalent instances. I don't see
> how this can be useful in a PostgreSQL setting, at least not based on the
> parameters server version and protocol version that you implemented.

Well, I could imagine certain cases, where applications only want to
list Postgresql servers newer than release x.y - since they depend on
certain new features of that release.

But you could be right, that the approach I've implemented only allows
filtering for "revision == x.y", but not the intended "revision >= x.y".

So maybe the release number, or a feature list (similar the capability
list of SMTP) should be put into the announcement's TXT record.

Well, but I do not consider that sub-type feature that important.

Ciao,
Mathias
--
Mathias Hasselmann <mathias@openismus.com>
http://www.openismus.com/ - We can get it done.


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