Accessing remote DAAP servers from iTunes

This trick may be well know by Mac guru's but it was new to me. I used to access my remote daap servers (where I share my music between my Macs) using "Network Beacon". It's a great tool, but running a GUI application (that can't be hidden in any way) is a bit overkill, and there's a much simpler way to do it:

1. Download the mDNSResponder package from Apple (no login required!)
2. Unpack it, chdir into mDNSResponder-XXX.X/mDNSPosix and type "make os=tiger" (you probably need Xcode 'n' stuff for this)
   
3. You only need build/prod/mDNSProxyResponderPosix - check that it's build properly, you should be able to invoke it. I wouldn't bother polluting my system using a "make install" if you don't need any of the other stuff.
   

Using mDNSProxyResponderPosix, you can now let iTunes find your remote DAAP server through bonjour on your local network, as follows:

mDNSProxyResponderPosix remoteserver.org locallabel servicename _daap._tcp. 3689

where "remoreserver.org" is the remote server running the DAAP service, "locallabel" is a local hostname you want to bind it to (can be anything, but it need to be distinct per service, i,e, "mymusic"), servicename is a readable identification of the service (i.e "My music collection"). The rest is just protocol. So, for example,

mDNSProxyResponderPosix example.com mymusic "My music collection" _daap._tcp. 3689

You don't need any further tunneling for this to work - the service should popup in your iTunes! You can run as many of these commands as you like, just make sure you use a unique locallabel each time (this bit me at first - I thought it had to be an existing local hostname such as localhost)

I've copied the mDNSProxyResponderPosix binary to my ~/bin, wrote a small shellscript that configures two remote DAAP servers and added it to my startup items - done!