In DoIP, a discovery mechanism is needed for devices to be able to discover eachother. Although any discovery mechanism could be used, current implementations are based on DNS-SD/mDNS (commonly known by the Apple trademark name 'Bonjour'). In a network, devices can support multiple discovery mechanisms (as long as the devices that have to communicate with eachother support the same mechanisms and that devices take special care to make sure that devices are not doubly discovered).

To allow for flexibility in adding or removing intelligent nodes from/to the network, auto-discovery mechanisms should also support mediation.

Any discovery protocol used in DoIP should comply to the following requirements:

• Services can be uniquely identified; even when multiple services are run on the same node
• There should be a notification when devices leave or enter the network; entering the network while other devices are already active should also be possible.
• If the underlying protocol supports attributes, they should be used in the same way as in the DNS-SD/mDNS-based discovery component (i.e. use the same attribute names).
• Discovery components that run over IP should be usable on both IPv6 and IPv4.
• The discovery protocol provides a caching mechanism to prevent network flooding by discovery query packets (like mDNSResponder/mdnsd in DNS-SD/mDNS-based discovery).
• The discovery component also takes care of resolving advertised services to network addresses.
• The discovery mechanism supports mediation.

• DNS-SD/mDNS-based discovery