08:37 am, 2 Sep 07
zeroconf / windows
On Linux, Avahi hooks into the DNS resolver so that even stuff like
ping can resolve .local addresses. On Windows with Bonjour, this appears to not be the case -- applications (maybe?) must query Bonjour's mDNSResponder service. Is this a limitation of Apple's implementation or can you not hook DNS resolution on Windows? (Another way of asking that question: is there a way to make this Just Work, perhaps with someone else's implementation, or is it fundamentally not possible?)
Windows does have various different ways to resolve names (DNS, NetBIOS broadcasts, WINS, hosts file), so I have to assume that architecturally speaking they can support additional mechanisms. However, as far as I can tell there is no API exposed for third-parties to add additional resolution mechanisms.
There is a knowledge-base article about the resolution order and another about how to configure it, and that latter one is quite telling: the configuration isn't which mechanisms to run, but rather what order each of the four predefined mechanisms should run in.
So to answer your question, I think this is Microsoft's fault, not Apple's. Bonjour on Windows isn't really good for anything other than setting up network printers.
Surely in that case the remote nameservers just get added to the normal DNS resolver? VPN connections are normally just PPP tunnelled inside something, right?
But I think jdev's suggestion below sounds best. :)
You also might be able to write something that listens to DNS traffic and fakes responses, but that won't be much prettier.
I can ping my .local hosts, and IE will resolve and browse to a local web server using its zeroconf address. I rely on that so synergy can find the host sharing my keyboard and mouse (it's on DHCP and moves about).
nslookup won't resolve .local names -- it seems to bypass the name resolver library and do everything itself -- but everything else works as it should, AFAICT.