avahi-daemon(8)

📦
version 0.9_rc4 · 2 versions
, in alpine 3.24, centos-stream 10, fedora 43, fedora 44

💖 avahi-daemon — the Avahi mDNS/DNS-SD daemon, bestie edition 💖

okay so like, this is the manual page for avahi-daemon, part of the System Manager's Manual, and honestly? she's iconic. let's get into it 🫶

✨ NAME ✨

avahi-daemon — The Avahi mDNS/DNS-SD daemon

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

avahi-daemon [options]
avahi-daemon --kill
avahi-daemon --reload
avahi-daemon --check

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So the Avahi mDNS/DNS-SD daemon is out here implementing Apple's Zeroconf architecture — which, for the uninitiated, is also known as "Rendezvous" or "Bonjour". iykyk 💅

What she does: registers local IP addresses and static services using mDNS/DNS-SD, and she provides two IPC APIs so local programs can make use of the mDNS record cache the avahi-daemon maintains. no cap, two whole APIs.

First up, there's the so called "simple protocol" — used exclusively by avahi-dnsconfd (a daemon which configures unicast DNS servers using server info published via mDNS) and nss-mdns (a libc NSS plugin, providing name resolution via mDNS).

And finally, there's the D-Bus interface, which provides a rich object oriented interface to D-Bus enabled applications. main character energy fr fr ✨

Upon startup, avahi-daemon interprets its configuration file /etc/avahi/avahi-daemon.conf and reads XML fragments from /etc/avahi/services/*.service which may define static DNS-SD services.

And bestie, if you enable publish-resolv-conf-dns-servers in avahi-daemon.conf, the file /etc/resolv.conf will be read, too. 👑

💅 OPTIONS 💅

  • -f | --file= FILE — Specify the configuration file to read. (default: /etc/avahi/avahi-daemon.conf)
  • -D | --daemonize — Daemonize after startup. Implies --syslog.
  • -s | --syslog — Log to syslog instead of STDERR. Implied by --daemonize.
  • --debug — Increase verbosity to debug level. 🔍
  • --no-rlimits — Don't enforce resource limits as specified in the configuration file. (See setrlimit(2) for more information)
  • --no-drop-root — Don't drop root privileges after startup and don't require daemon to be started as root. > We recommend not to use this option. (she's saying it for a reason, bestie 🚩)
  • --no-chroot — Don't chroot(2) the daemon. This option is only available when compiled with chroot() support.
  • --no-proc-title — Don't change the process name while running. Unless this option is specified avahi-daemon will reflect its current state and the selected host name in the process title.
  • -k | --kill — Kill an already running avahi-daemon. (equivalent to sending a SIGTERM)
  • -r | --reload — Tell an already running avahi-daemon to reread /etc/resolv.conf (in case you enabled publish-resolv-conf-dns-servers in avahi-daemon.conf) and the files from /etc/avahi/services/. > Please note that this will not reload the /etc/avahi/avahi-daemon.conf. (equivalent to sending a SIGHUP)
  • -c | --check — Return 0 as return code when avahi-daemon is already running.
  • -h | --help — Show help
  • -v | --version — Show version information

🎀 FILES 🎀

  • /etc/avahi/avahi-daemon.conf: the default configuration file for avahi-daemon, see avahi-daemon.conf(5) for more information.
  • /etc/avahi/hosts: additional static hostname mappings to publish in mDNS, see avahi.hosts(5) for more information.
  • /etc/avahi/services/*.service: static service definitions, see avahi.service(5) for more information.

🌈 SIGNALS 🌈

  • SIGINT, SIGTERM: avahi-daemon will shutdown. (Same as --kill).
  • SIGHUP: avahi-daemon will reload unicast DNS server data from /etc/resolv.conf and static service definitions from /etc/avahi/services/. (Same as --reload)
  • SIGUSR1: avahi-daemon will dump local and remote cached resource record data to syslog. 📝

👑 AUTHORS 👑

The Avahi Developers <avahi (at) lists (dot) freedesktop (dot) org>; Avahi is available from http://avahi.org/

💜 SEE ALSO 💜

avahi-daemon.conf(5), avahi.hosts(5), avahi.service(5), avahi-dnsconfd(8), avahi-set-host-name(1)

http://avahi.org/wiki/AvahiAndUnicastDotLocal documents the problems when using Avahi in a unicast DNS zone .local. (ngl that one's worth a read 🫶)

🙈 COMMENTS 🙈

This man page was written using xml2man(1) by Oliver Kurth.

and that's the whole vibe, bestie — Manuals, User, avahi-daemon(8), that's the version and date info, mwah 💋✨

📦 where this page comes from