Network Configuration & Service Discovery

Sources:

• Documentation/source/MDNS_IMPLEMENTATION_SUMMARY.md
• Documentation/source/MDNS_LIFECYCLE_AND_SHUTDOWN.md
• Documentation/source/MULTI_IP_MDNS_ENHANCEMENT.md
• Documentation/source/MULTI_IP_TYPE_LABELING.md
• Documentation/source/TTL_AND_SHUTDOWN_IMPLEMENTATION_SUMMARY.md
• Documentation/source/NETWORK_FALLBACK_IMPLEMENTATION.md
• Documentation/source/DIAGNOSTIC_SCRIPTS_README.md

Connecting to an Accordion Device

Every Accordion device has a static IP address configured during provisioning. If a DHCP server is available on the network, the device also picks up a DHCP address. Both addresses are active simultaneously.

Default WebApi port: 5000

mDNS / Bonjour Service Discovery

Accordion devices advertise themselves on the LAN using mDNS/DNS-SD (the same protocol used by Apple Bonjour and Avahi on Linux). No configuration is required on the client side — any device on the same LAN subnet will see the advertisement automatically.

Service Record

TXT Record Metadata

controller=AGENTQ2          # or AGENTMINI, Undefined
fw_version=<firmware>
app_version=<assembly version>
hostname=<machine name>
user=<username>
started=<ISO 8601 timestamp>
mode=normal                 # or programming
port_app_module=10000
port_channel_config=10001
port_resource_values=10002
port_telemetry=10003

Lifetime & Re-announcement

The mDNS record remains live indefinitely while the device is running. When the application shuts down gracefully, it sends goodbye packets (TTL=0) so clients immediately remove the device from their cache.

Implementation Note

The mDNS library used is Makaretu.Dns.Multicast. The advertiser lives in HAL/MdnsAdvertiser.cs and is started by ApplicationEngine after all modules are loaded.

Dual-Connection Network Fallback

A single NetworkManager connection cannot simultaneously support DHCP and manual static IP fallback. The solution is two connections per interface with different autoconnect priorities.

Connection Pair

Failover Timeline

0 s     → NetworkManager tries ESharp-eth0-DHCP (priority 100)
0–10 s  → DHCP request in progress (10-second timeout)
10 s    → If DHCP fails, connection marked as failed
10–12 s → NetworkManager activates ESharp-eth0-Direct (priority 10)
12 s    → Device reachable at static IP

Previous behaviour required 100+ seconds (multiple 25 s DHCP retry cycles). The new design reduces failover to 10–12 seconds.

Dual-Address Mode

When DHCP succeeds, the device has two active IP addresses simultaneously:

• Static IP (e.g. 192.168.0.222) — always present, known ahead of time
• DHCP IP (e.g. 192.168.0.55) — dynamic, obtained from DHCP server

This allows both IT-managed networks (where DHCP is expected) and direct-connect benches (where static is required) to work without reconfiguration.

boot.config Parameters

dhcpTimeoutSeconds: 10
dhcpPriority:       100
directPriority:     10

Diagnostic Tools

Shell scripts in ../../scripts/ (relative to repo root):

IP Type Labeling

The diagnostic tools and mDNS TXT records label each IP address as:

• static — manually configured in boot.config
• DHCP — dynamically assigned by DHCP server

This labeling is visible in the TXT record metadata and in the show-all-ips.sh output.