avahi-daemon(8) System Manager's Manual avahi-daemon(8)

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

avahi-daemon [options]

avahi-daemon --kill

avahi-daemon --reload

avahi-daemon --check

The Avahi mDNS/DNS-SD daemon implements Apple's Zeroconf architecture (also known as "Rendezvous" or "Bonjour"). The daemon registers local IP addresses and static services using mDNS/DNS-SD and provides two IPC APIs for local programs to make use of the mDNS record cache the avahi-daemon maintains. First there is the so called "simple protocol" which is 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). Finally there is the D-Bus interface which provides a rich object oriented interface to D-Bus enabled applications.

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

Specify the configuration file to read. (default: /etc/avahi/avahi-daemon.conf)
Daemonize after startup. Implies --syslog.
Log to syslog instead of STDERR. Implied by --daemonize.
Increase verbosity to debug level.
Don't enforce resource limits as specified in the configuration file. (See setrlimit(2) for more information)
Don't drop root privileges after startup and don't require daemon to be started as root. We recommend not to use this option.
Don't chroot(2) the daemon. This option is only available when compiled with chroot() support.
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.
Kill an already running avahi-daemon. (equivalent to sending a SIGTERM)
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)
Return 0 as return code when avahi-daemon is already running.
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/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.

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.

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

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.

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

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