title: Python service discovery: Advertise a service across a local network
body: <p>I have a "server" python script running on one of the local network machines, which waits for clients to connect, and passes them some work to do. The server and client code have both been written, and are working as expected...</p>
  
  <p>The problem is, this server might be running from any machine in the local network, so I can't hard code the address in the script... I immediately wondered if I can make a machine advertise about its existence, and clients can respond to that. Is that doable in Python with the standard library? I really don't have time to download twisted or tornado and learn about them, unfortunately, so I need something simple.</p>
  
  <p>I tried to think more about it, and realized I can have a single static IP machine where servers register/unregister from and clients can look for servers from there. Kind of like a torrent tracker, I think. This'll have to do if I can't do the service advertising approach easily.</p>