nss-mdns

nss-mdns is a handy little plugin that works with the GNU Name Service Switch (NSS) from the GNU C Library (glibc). What it does is help your Unix/Linux programs find hosts using something called Multicast DNS, also known as mDNS. You might have heard of it as Zeroconf or Apple Bonjour. Basically, it makes name resolution easy within the ad-hoc mDNS domain .local.

Client-Only Functionality

This project focuses on client functionality. So, if you want to register your local hostname via mDNS, you'll need to run an mDNS responder daemon separately. A good option for that is Avahi. This allows you to get the most out of nss-mdns.

Lightweight and Simple

The cool thing about nss-mdns is that it's super lightweight! It’s just a 24 KByte stripped binary .so compiled with -DNDEBUG=1 -Os on i386 using gcc 4.0. Plus, it only relies on glibc and needs very little setup to get going.

Optional Features

If you want, nss-mdns can reach out to a running avahi-daemon. This way, you can take advantage of its awesome record caching capabilities!

Requirements for Installation

Requirements:

• Currently, nss-mdns has been tested only on Linux systems. You'll need a fairly modern glibc installation along with development headers (version 2.0 or newer).


• This package needs a kernel that supports IPv4 multicasting to work properly.


• The development and testing were done on Debian GNU/Linux "testing" since December 2004, but it should work with most other Linux distributions—and possibly some Unix versions too—thanks to its use of GNU autoconf and libtool for managing source code.


• If you're building from source, just run ./configure in the distribution directory first. Then compile with make, and finally install by running make install as root.

What’s New?

This release brings some updates:

• The software has now been ported over to FreeBSD!


• The SPARC port has also received some fixes.