Setup avahi-daemon on Ubuntu for so you can reach hostname `ubuntu.local` from host OS

setup-avahi.sh

sudo apt-get install avahi-daemon avahi-discover avahi-utils libnss-mdns mdns-scan

Once you want to resolve other client on local network using xxxx.local the rest of packages are still needed.

I don't think I've ever installed the rest of those packages, avahi-daemon alone has always let me ping and talk to other machines via their .local address. Just now on 20.10-server, even.

Once you want to resolve other client on local network using xxxx.local the rest of packages are still needed.

I don't think I've ever installed the rest of those packages, avahi-daemon alone has always let me ping and talk to other machines via their .local address. Just now on 20.10-server, even.

I wish mine worked as well in either case. Unfortunately, it doesn't.

Hello All,
For Home automation project I used Esp8266 module,i configured it as SoftAcess point(It serves as router) and I connected things to it.
To acess it,I type IpAddress of it,it works fine.I need to acess it,When I type esp.local in url.When Iam trying these It didn't responding in ubuntu.But works fine in windows when i installed Bonjour.It didn't works in ubuntu.Please help

I installed avahi by following steps

1.sudo apt-get install avahi-daemon avahi-discover avahi-utils libnss-mdns mdns-scan
2.sudo gedit sudo systemctl restart avahi-daemon
then I changed AVAHI_DAEMON_DETECT_LOCAL=1 to 0
Neither worked whe it is 0 nor 1.
3.I even tried sudo systemctl restart avahi-daemon

This is the code written in ArduinoIde

#ifdef ESP8266
#include <ESP8266WiFi.h>
#include <ESP8266mDNS.h>
#elif defined(ESP32)
#include <WiFi.h>
#include <ESPmDNS.h>
#else
#error "Board not found"
#endif

#include <ESPAsyncWebServer.h>

AsyncWebServer server(80); // server port 80

void notFound(AsyncWebServerRequest *request)
{
request->send(404, "text/plain", "Page Not found");
}

void setup(void)
{

Serial.begin(115200);

WiFi.softAP("techiesms", "");
Serial.println("softap");
Serial.println("");
Serial.println(WiFi.softAPIP());

if (MDNS.begin("ESP")) { //esp.local/
Serial.println("MDNS responder started");
}

server.on("/", [](AsyncWebServerRequest * request)
{
String message = "hello world";
request->send(200, "text/plain", message);
});

server.on("/page1", HTTP_GET, [](AsyncWebServerRequest * request)
{
String message = "Welcome to page1";
request->send(200, "text/plain", message);
});

server.onNotFound(notFound);

server.begin(); // it will start webserver
}

void loop(void)
{
}****

Glad I stumbled on this. avahi-daemon alone worked for me on Ubuntu Server 20.04.3 LTS. I could even log in to Virtualmin/Webmin's control panel using the hostname after adding a rule for the mdns service in firewalld.

Thank you.

I'm not sure what's wrong on my Ubuntu system. avahi-browse -a shows my five local mDNS devices on the network by their host names. However, if I try avahi-resolve-host-name on any one of them it gives me a "Timeout reached". I'm unable to ping any of them. I've installed everything described in this thread, and I've tried the various settings. The behavior remains unchanged. Any thoughts what I may be missing?

Try the hostname without the ".local". I have an Octopi server (its a 3D printer appliance) on a Raspberry Pi and sometimes octopi.local works and sometimes just octopi. Not sure why. Then I just recently installed Avahi on a virtual machine and no matter what I did hostname.local didn't work. Then I tried hostname by itself without a .local and viola! SSH and web browser can both reach it that way.

May I suggest the following as an all-in-one? sudo apt update && sudo apt-get install avahi-daemon avahi-discover avahi-utils libnss-mdns mdns-scan && sudo apt upgrade. Once that looks good, sudo reboot. That got me going on my new Ubuntu install on the TuringPi RK-1 modules.

I looked them up to know what each one does.
avahi-daemon is the core service on your device that makes it publish itself via mDNS. This is the only thing you need to make your device respond to {hostname}.local. It seems like it can also advertise other services on the network through mDNS though, but I'm not sure.

avahi-discover is a GUI app to show other services published through mDNS. I didn't need it.
mdns-scan is a CLI that also scans for mDNS services on the local network. Useful for troubleshooting, but I also didn't need it.
avahi-utils is a collection of CLI tools that could be useful, but I didn't need them for my server. It includes things like avahi-browse which is similar to the above two tools.

libnss-mdns is useful for client devices that want to access services published via mDNS. So if you want your device to reach other .local services, you need this installed.