Free avahi software for linux

Ekiga is a SIP and H.323 application, supporting audio and video, and is the successor of GnomeMeeting.
Main features:
- Call Forwarding on busy, no answer, always (SIP and H.323)
- Call Transfer (SIP and H.323)
- Call Hold (SIP and H.323)
- DTMFs support (SIP and H.323)
- Basic Instant Messaging (SIP)
- Text Chat (SIP and H.323)
- Possibility to register to several registrars (SIP) and gatekeepers (H.323)
- Possibility to use an outbound proxy (SIP) or a gateway (H.323)
- Message Waiting Indications (SIP)
- Audio AND Video (SIP and H.323)
- STUN support (SIP and H.323)
- DTMFs support
- LDAP support
Enhancements:
- MJPEG support (V4L1) was added.
- Workarounds were added for broken qspca driver (V4L1).
- The account strings check procedure was fixed.
- Auto build scripts were added for Win32.
- A Win32 installer was added.
- Unregistration from SIP registrars running on non standard ports was fixed.
- A possible problem with H.323 calls was fixed.
- Possible Avahi crashes were fixed.
- A possible routing problem for incoming calls initiated through uncompliant SIP INVITE PDUs was fixed.
- A crash on Win32 when exchanging SIP text messages was fixed.

apt-zeroconf is a distributed apt-cacher for local networks.
Concept
When running more than one Debian box in a LAN with slow internet access the most often used solution to prevent downloading the same Debian package twice is running apt-cacher or the like on one single machine, a centralized server.
The problem with this solution is, that every machine in the network needs to be configured for this proxy. If it is down, no one can update. If you go to another network, you must tweak your sources.list or apt.conf in order to upgrade, which is quite common nowadays with notebooks and wifi technology.
We would therefore be interested in an automatic and peer-to-peer solution. When there is no apt caching daemon in the LAN, we want to fetch the packages directly from the internet. But if there is one or even more available, apt should automatically use it, without any configuration from the user. This is by the way the reason we called it apt-zeroconf in the first place.
The next question is: Who runs an apt caching daemon? In our first implementation, everyone running apt-zeroconf also shares his apt package cache in /var/cache/apt/archives to everyone in the network.
Now, one might think this could potentially pose a security threat as everyone can offer and distribute debs without any authentication whatsoever. This is not the case as we are not yet caching the package lists or pdiffs, which are PGP-signed and contain MD5, SHA1 and SHA256 checksums of the packages. But due to the trusted PGP signatures, caching package lists shouldnt be an issue.
Technical Details
Apt-zeroconf consists of two parts: a http server and the avahi-related stuff. Avahi is used to let everyone else in the network know that you have an apt-zeroconf caching service installed and running. The httpd does act as http server if used in fake-mirror-mode, but also as http proxy if youre using it as such with apt. It uses port 1618 by default.
In every mode, apt-zeroconf is provided with a fallback mirror by apt, so if there are no apt-zeroconf instances on the LAN offering your deb, your regular Debian mirror will be used to provide apt with the necessary files. See Configuration for details.
Configuration
Configuration is done automatically by installing apt-zeroconf. You can disable apt-zeroconf through debconf (dpkg-reconfigure apt-zeroconf) and configure it to your liking. The default configuration is Proxy Mode.
Please note that you just need to carry out the following steps if you didnt activate apt-zeroconf through debconf. These modes are just listed for advanced usage.
Proxy Mode
Add the following line to your /etc/apt/apt.conf:
Acquire { http { Proxy "http://127.0.0.1:1618"; } }
This way every mirror listed in your sources.list will be cached. If you dont want this use the second method.
Fake Mirror Mode
Change in your /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://your.mirror.debian.org/debian sid main
to
deb http://127.0.0.1:1618/your.mirror.debian.org/debian sid main
e.g. deb http://127.0.0.1:1618/ftp.de.debian.org/debian sid main
With this method, you can select only specific mirrors to be patched through apt-zeroconf.
NOTE: This mode is to be removed! Can also be configured through apt.conf!
Enhancements:
- A new and improved initscript was written.
- Permissions of the logfile and runfile were fixed.
- avahi restarts are handled properly.

Linux Mints purpose is to produce an elegant, up to date and comfortable GNU/Linux desktop distribution.
Is Linux Mint suitable for companies?
Yes. Linux Mint offers paid commercial support to companies and individuals. Free community support is also available from the forums and the IRC channel. The main purpose of Linux Mint is to innovate and constantly bring the best desktop solutions to its users. For this reason, the release cycle is fast and a new version of Linux Mint can be released every month or every two months. All released versions of Linux Mint are actively supported and some of the releases (possibly Bianca or Cassandra) will come with a Long Term Support guarantee (a guarantee that our Support Center will support these releases for the years to come).
Is Linux Mint suitable for individuals?
Yes, definitely. We believe Linux is the best operating system on the market. There are more than 300 active Linux distributions and were working hard at becoming the best alternative for your desktop. This is a tough competition as there are other great desktop operating systems and distributions out there. We have faith in the quality of our desktop and a lot of great ideas. If your computer is a PC and you have more than 512MB RAM you should try Linux Mint and see what you think about it. If youre running a 5 years old non-free operating system such as Microsoft Windows XP you should definitely be impressed. We like hearing about your experience and taking your suggestions onboard so please give us your feedback.
Why is there a Light Edition and a Full Edition?
Linux Mint respects the GPL and it also respects the copyrights and licenses of the proprietary software it distributes. However it uses technologies that have been patented in some parts of the World. Most countries do not recognize the legitimacy of software patents so for most of our users this is not a problem. But if youre unlucky and you live in a country where software patents are legally enforcable, you need a version of Linux Mint which is free of patented technologies, and this is what the Light Edition is about.
Why does Linux Mint include proprietary drivers?
It doesnt. If it did, it would be legally wrong (because it would violate the GPL) or ethically wrong (if some dirty trick was used for the user to link the code to the kernel for instance).
What about proprietary software?
We believe in open source and release all our work with the corresponding source code. We owe a lot to the Free Software movement and to the GPL but we also owe a lot to all the developers who contributed ideas and tools and who made software better and better throughout the years. Some of them released their source code as well and thus granted us more freedom and more flexibility. Others released their software with proprietary licenses and although this didnt give us the freedom we would have liked it still contributed to make software better. We like Software in general, Free Software even more, but we do not believe in boycotting Proprietary Software.
Enhancements:
- The brand new "mintInstall" and the "Linux Mint Software Portal": http://www.linuxmint.com/software
- Gnome 2.18 (speed improvements)
- Kernel 2.6.20 (better hardware support)
- Ubuntu Feisty innovations (restricted-manager, desktop-effects, windows migration assistant, avahi)
- OpenOffice 2.2 (complete suite)
- Thunderbird replaces Evolution as the default email reader
- Pidgin replaces Gaim as the default messenger
- Sunbird is now installed by default
- The Gimp is installed by default
- Gnome-control-center replaces mintConfig as the default control center application
- Both mintDisk (for internal drives) and NTFS-Config (for external drives) are present for NTFS support
- Support for Gnome Templates in mintDesktop
- mintInstall replaces gnome-app-install and the upcoming Clickn Run.
- Drag & Drop support in mintMenu with many other improvements
- Sun Java 6 replaces Sun Java 5
- Compiz, Beryl and Emerald installed by default
- New artwork

pybonjour provides a pure Python interface (via ctypes) to Apple Bonjour and compatible DNS-SD libraries (such as Avahi).

The application allows Python scripts to take advantage of Zero Configuration Networking (Zeroconf) to register, discover, and resolve services on both local and wide-area networks.

Since pybonjour is implemented in pure Python, scripts that use it can easily be ported to Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, and other systems that run Bonjour.

Examples

The following scripts are included in the examples directory of the pybonjour source distribution.

Registering a Service

register.py Script
import select
import sys
import pybonjour


name = sys.argv[1]
regtype = sys.argv[2]
port = int(sys.argv[3])


def register_callback(sdRef, flags, errorCode, name, regtype, domain):

if errorCode == pybonjour.kDNSServiceErr_NoError:
print Registered service:
print name =, name
print regtype =, regtype
print domain =, domain


sdRef = pybonjour.DNSServiceRegister(name = name,
regtype = regtype,
port = port,
callBack = register_callback)

try:
try:
while True:
ready = select.select([sdRef], [], [])
if sdRef in ready[0]:
pybonjour.DNSServiceProcessResult(sdRef)
except KeyboardInterrupt:
pass
finally:
sdRef.close()

Example Output

$ python register.py TestService _test._tcp 1234

Registered service:

name = TestService
regtype = _test._tcp.
domain = local.

Browsing for and Resolving Services

browse_and_resolve.py Script
import select
import sys
import pybonjour

regtype = sys.argv[1]
timeout = 5
resolved = []

def resolve_callback(sdRef, flags, interfaceIndex, errorCode, fullname,
hosttarget, port, txtRecord):
if errorCode == pybonjour.kDNSServiceErr_NoError:
print Resolved service:
print fullname =, fullname
print hosttarget =, hosttarget
print port =, port
resolved.append(True)

def browse_callback(sdRef, flags, interfaceIndex, errorCode, serviceName,
regtype, replyDomain):
if errorCode != pybonjour.kDNSServiceErr_NoError:
return

if not (flags & pybonjour.kDNSServiceFlagsAdd):
print Service removed
return

print Service added; resolving

resolve_sdRef = pybonjour.DNSServiceResolve(0,
interfaceIndex,
serviceName,
regtype,
replyDomain,
resolve_callback)

try:
while not resolved:
ready = select.select([resolve_sdRef], [], [], timeout)
if resolve_sdRef not in ready[0]:
print Resolve timed out
break
pybonjour.DNSServiceProcessResult(resolve_sdRef)
else:
resolved.pop()
finally:
resolve_sdRef.close()


browse_sdRef = pybonjour.DNSServiceBrowse(regtype = regtype,
callBack = browse_callback)

try:
try:
while True:
ready = select.select([browse_sdRef], [], [])
if browse_sdRef in ready[0]:
pybonjour.DNSServiceProcessResult(browse_sdRef)
except KeyboardInterrupt:
pass
finally:
browse_sdRef.close()

Example Output

$ python browse_and_resolve.py _test._tcp
Service added; resolving
Resolved service:
fullname = TestService._test._tcp.local.
hosttarget = bumble.local.
port = 1234
...