NAME

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

SYNOPSIS

avahi-daemon [options]

avahi-daemon --kill

avahi-daemon --reload

avahi-daemon --check

DESCRIPTION

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.

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.
--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) 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, 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/

COMMENTS

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