Multicast Scouting

Scouting is the mechanism by which Zenoh nodes discover each other without pre-configured addresses.

How It Works

1. A new node sends a Scout multicast on 224.0.0.224:7446
2. Existing nodes reply with a Hello containing their transport endpoints
3. The new node establishes direct connections

Configuration

{
  scouting: {
    multicast: {
      enabled: true,
      address: "224.0.0.224:7446",
      interface: "auto",
      ttl: 1,
    },
    gossip: {
      enabled: true,   // peers gossip discovered nodes to each other
    },
  },
}

Disabling Scouting

For production WAN deployments, disable scouting and configure explicit endpoints:

{
  scouting: {
    multicast: { enabled: false },
  },
  connect: {
    endpoints: ["tcp/router.prod.example.com:7447"],
  },
}