Assign .LOCAL domain

What needs to be enabled (Avahi?) and configured to assign the Omnia .LOCAL domain? What are the costs and benefits of doing so? Will it conflict w/ the zeroconf services of the other computers on my network?

There’s the .lan domain built into dnsmasq. It’s not zeroconf/avahi, but it serves a similar purpose.

See this thread for more details:

and I would suggest using something else than “.local” to avoid conflicts. Either the default “.lan” used by dnsmasq or e.g. I use “.home” but it’s up to you.

Do you have an example of why .local might conflict, but .home might not?

…local is used for example by Avahi/ZeroConf.

Pardon the n00b question, but how do I enable this? The dnsmasq service is enabled and running (in the ‘Services’ section).

If I use .LAN, how will it affect the .LOCAL name assigned by Apple’s bonjour service? Would I be able to reach a computer by both names (e.g. Pippin.lan and Pippin.local)?

If I use .LOCAL will it override the Bonjour settings?

Will using a HOSTS file (https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts) work w/ this architecture?

.lan and .local have two different ways to resolve a name. As long as Bonjour/mDNS is setup properly, they should both work.

I’m not sure if .local domains are sent to the resolver, they might only do mDNS so using that domain might not work in dnsmasq.

Using that hosts file will require additional configuration of kresd. I’ll let someone else figure that part out.

Assuming that dsnmasq is working, shouldn’t I be able to ping any hostname listed in the Active DHCP Leases?

I have a NAS called Media which is one of the listed hosts. If I attempt to ping it from another host on the list Pippin, I get an error:

admin@Pippin:~$ ping media.lan
ping: cannot resolve media.lan: Unknown host 

Similarly, if I attempt to do so from the Turris, I get the same results:

root@turris:~# ping media.lan
ping: bad address 'media.lan'

A ping of the IP address from either machines works properly.

What am I not understanding?

Yes, you should. See the thread I linked - it has instructions on how to setup the .lan domain.

I followed the instructions at the top of the ‘Dnsmasq .lan domain while still using knot resolver…’ thread, then restarted the router. I was not able to resolve .LOCAL or .LAN address, nor was I able to resolve external addresses (e.g. google.com).

I change the port to 5353 in Luci’s UI and in the /etc/kresd/custom.conf file, restarted kresd and resolver. I was able to resolve all domains internal and external as desired.

Hopefully, a reboot or a system upgrade won’t erase the changes.

I’m using “homelocalan” in my home local area network :slight_smile:

1 Like

The collisions are a real risk, even if not too likely. RFCs/IANA currently make no suitable reservations for such purpose, including RFC 6761, and there have been recent discussions about it on IETF dnsop WG. Most (Omnia) users don’t want to use a “real” domain, just because it would be too long – they often even want to omit the .lan suffix :-/

When/if IANA delegates lan. those new names won’t work for the people using Omnia for DNS. That seems an acceptable risk. We’ll know before it happens, most likely, so we will be able to act on it somehow.

2 Likes