solution for a quick/robust/secure broadcast issue

Monday, 13 October 2014

Hi.

For a test network, internal 192.168..x subnet, I've got some boxes
that are connected to a dhcp server that I have no control of.

I'm looking to test/play with some services on the different boxes,
but would like to have other boxes be able to reference the boxes
running the services. My issue, the box running service X could have
ip1 which could then change to ip2 the next day..

I'm considering some sort of cheap/fast broadcast process where the
machines running the given services, broadcast out to the network "i'm
boxA running service Foo on ipXX" and the listening machine would then
decouple the message, and update the resolve.conf file, or whatever
the required file is to then be able to use the required name/ip for
the service..

Thoughts/comments??

Would nc be good for this, would there be a better solution?

Should I create a limited user on each box, and have a process
attached to the user listen, and process the messages?

Thanks guys..