Introduction

Problem: How does an OSLO member lookup another members nearby server?

Answer: Using DNS.

Location Server Discovery

Servers discovered using DNS SRV Service Types (RFC 2782). SRV records are similar to MX records used to specify a domain's email server. They specify which server performs a certain function for a domain. Wikipedia has a DNS SRV primer for those unfamiliar with the record type.

An example

Rummble wants to talk to aka-aki's location server:

Rummble's location server does a DNS lookup:

dig SRV _location._tcp.aka-aki.com

aka-aki's DNS server answers with:

;; ANSWER SECTION:
_location._tcp.aka-aki.com. 6611 IN SRV 10 0 6666 nearby.aka-aki.com.

Now aka-aki knows that it talks to nearby.aka-aki.com for all location based queries.