# Does avahi need reverse DNS in a LAN?

## VinzC

Hi all.

I wanted to give Avahi a try and installed nss-mdns for I don't need the whole Avahi implementation on my laptop. My home network has a .local domain name suffix. I have noticed when I change the hosts: line in nsswitch.conf (hosts:       files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4), name resolution no longer works at home. Now I'm at work with avahi-daemon service started and it seems to work.

Strangely enough, when I'm home, tools like dig and host return results while ping <host> returns it can't find the host. When I'm at work everything seems to function normally and I have no time out.

The only one thing I'm thinking of at home is that my Wifi/DSL router has no local DNS, i.e. it is only a DNS forwarder with no local name resolution based on the leases, like dnsmasq, for instance. As a matter of fact, so far, everytime I lookup for a host (dig or host commands) on my local network, for instance, the lookup operation fails with a time-out (which is logical since my router forwards the NS requests to my ISP DNS serverrs)...

So my question is: is my issue linked with the absence of a proper name resolution server in my local network?

Thanks in advance for any hint or suggestion.

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## Ant P.

 *Quote:*   

> My home network has a .local domain name suffix

 

mDNS uses this suffix. You need to either change your domain or edit the .local default in every avahi config file used on the network.

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## VinzC

 *Ant P. wrote:*   

> You need to either change your domain or edit the .local default in every avahi config file used on the network.

 

Thanks Ant P. There must be something I don't get however... I think I read the .local suffix was for local network where you have no official domain... Will, for example, .localdomain work then? What should be the domain name for local networks?

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## Jaglover

AFAIK you can make up anything.

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