Avahi: Design to resolve service name and hostname conflicts
In a network where there are multiple OpenBMC machines, avahi keeps
getting the hostname conflict and the service name conflict. Hence,
the problem is to find a solution that resolves these conflicts.
Signed-off-by: Asmitha KR <asmithkr@in.ibm.com>
Change-Id: Id4d6804bc64ee950dfb290d24504091cf8909cc7
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+# Setting a unique hostname to the BMC machine on first boot
+
+Primary assignee:
+ Asmitha KR
+
+Other contributors:
+ None
+
+Created:
+ 2019-05-07
+
+## Problem Description
+In OpenBMC, the hostname discovery is done by the avahi Dbus service at the
+startup. In a network where there are multiple OpenBMC machines, avahi keeps
+getting the hostname conflict and the service name conflict. Hence, the
+problem is to find a solution that resolves these conflicts.
+
+## Background and References
+The detailed issue regarding the hostname and service name conflicts is
+described in the following links.
+
+https://github.com/openbmc/openbmc/issues/1741.
+https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/avahi/2018-January/002492.html
+https://github.com/lathiat/avahi/issues/117
+
+## Requirements
+None.
+
+## Proposed Design
+To solve this, we are proposing a service which assigns a unique hostname to
+the BMC and runs on the very first boot. one of the ways to generate the unique
+hostname is to append the Serial Number retrieved from Inventory Manager to the
+existing default hostname.
+
+## Alternatives Considered
+None.
+
+## Impacts
+None.
+
+## Testing
+None.