Hey Fred11, hey all,
Why does addressing the Onefinity Controller with the name ‘onefinity.local’ work with Linux and Apple computers, but not with many Windows computers?
Many of you read in Onefinity’s help document FAQ: How to directly connect your Onefinity CNC to a computer/laptop (no screen present) that you could simply connect the Onefinity Controller to a computer, notebook or tablet and address the Onefinity Controller by typing ‘http://onefinity.local’ into the address bar of your web browser. However, it has been frequently reported that this doesn’t work on some computers / operating systems, while addressing with the IP address still works.
As far as a little overview of the matter Name Service Discovery in conjunction with zeroconf shows me, Microsoft Windows Version<10 allows addressing with a hostname (like ‘onefinity.local’) through the LLMNR service (RFC 4795), while Apple and Linux use the mDNS service (RFC 6762) to implement this capability. While mDNS has been approved as a standard by the IETF, Microsoft’s LLMNR has not. That’s probably why Microsoft finally in 2022 planned to switch from LLMNR and NetBIOS to mDNS, but that obviously doesn’t apply to all the legacy windows machines.
The issue with the Onefinity Controller here is that zeroconf (automatic creation of a ‘link-local’ IP address and Name Service Discovery to resolve addressing with the name ‘onefinity.local’) is offered on the Onefinity controller with the Linux common implementation “Avahi” that uses mDNS. Linux and Apple computers support the Name Service Discovery via mDNS and resolve the name “onefinity.local” correctly, while the LLMNR service used on Windows <10 is not supported by Avahi, which is why addressing with the name “onefinity.local” is not supported, and only addressing with the IP address remains.
Furthermore, a second practical problem here is that when connecting the Onefinity Controller to a Windows <10 machine, it will not report its IP address unless you have a display on the Onefinity controller which shows you the IP address, or you do a portscan (nmap) which can take a while. So even if the solution remains to address the Onefinity Controller with its IP address, the latter remains unknown to the user if they want to connect remotely exclusively.
But there is a solution.
The package that allows Name Service Discovery via mDNS on Apple computers is called Bonjour. This is the implementation which uses mDNS just like Avahi on Linux. The good thing is, Apple Bonjour can also be installed on Windows ← click here to download. By the way, @Matticustard already suggested this the other day.
I just installed it on the windoze computer and tested it, it works:
On the windows computer, the network connection is set to requesting IP address automatically.
PS: With the link above, you can download Bonjour for Windows 2.0.2. However there is a newer version 3.0, of which it is said:
Microsoft Windows:
Windows doesn’t have Zeroconf support out of the box, but a few popular applications slip it in for their own needs, including Skype, Apple’s iTunes and Adobe Photoshop CS3 or later. So you might not need to add anything at all!
Otherwise, it’s most easily installed using Bonjour Print Services for Windows 2.0.2.
The newest-and-shiniest version 3.0 is only available in the iTunes installer. So one option is to simply install iTunes, even if you don’t plan to use it.
Some users are understandably reluctant to install unneeded software. In that case, Bonjour 3 can still be installed with a little trick: download the iTunes installer but don’t run it. Using an archive utility like 7-Zip or WinRAR, you’ll discover there’s a separate Bonjour installer inside. Just extract and run that one piece, and you’re done!
Once installed, Zeroconf systems on the local network can then be accessed by name instead of numbers…in a web browser, for example, one might reach a Raspberry Pi hosting OctoPrint at http://octopi.local
– Source: Bonjour (Zeroconf) Networking for Windows and Linux – Adafruit Learning Services