Help with Avahi mDNS redirector, please

[sfx2000]

with avahi - it's supposed to be pretty simple...

avahi-browse -at

and

avahi-browse-domains -at

The big thing is to ensure that the local LAN is not set to .local, as avahi can go off the rails...

 

[sfx2000]

and my avahi conf...

[server]
use-ipv4=yes
use-ipv6=yes
ratelimit-interval-usec=1000000
ratelimit-burst=1000
[wide-area]
enable-wide-area=yes
[publish]
publish-hinfo=no
publish-workstation=no
[reflector]
[rlimits]

 

[junior120872]

I really wish I could have gotten avahi reflector to work. I racked my brain and tried all of the different suggestions on here. I ended up multihoming my Homebridge server and running avahi on that. Worked like a charm. It's not ideal, but I may revisit running avahi reflector on my router in the future, when I can spare more time on it. Good luck!

 

[sfx2000]

I may revisit running avahi reflector on my router in the future, when I can spare more time on it. Good luck

I wouldn't bother - Avahi/Bonjour is a second class citizen with AsusWRT - always has been - they basically just don't care as it's not in their wheel house of features.

 

[jksmurf]

with avahi - it's supposed to be pretty simple...

avahi-browse -at

and

avahi-browse-domains -at

The big thing is to ensure that the local LAN is not set to .local, as avahi can go off the rails...

Thank you. I am not 100% sure what that does, could you elaborate what it would show in terms of what I am looking for?

ASUSWRT-Merlin RT-AX88U_PRO 3006.102.4_beta2 Sat Apr 19 16:20:12 UTC 2025
xxxxxx@RT-AX88U-Pro:/tmp/home/root# avahi-browse -at
-sh: avahi-browse: not found
xxxxxx@RT-AX88U-Pro:/tmp/home/root# avahi-browse-domains -at
-sh: avahi-browse-domains: not found
xxxxxx@RT-AX88U-Pro:/tmp/home/root#

I guess I would need to install the avahi-utils entware package for this?
I'm a wee bit nervous that if I install that package, it will stuff up the existing avahi package if it is not needed.

and my avahi conf...

[server]
use-ipv4=yes
use-ipv6=yes
ratelimit-interval-usec=1000000
ratelimit-burst=1000
[wide-area]
enable-wide-area=yes
[publish]
publish-hinfo=no
publish-workstation=no
[reflector]
[rlimits]

I might see if the use-ipv6=yes setting makes any difference.

I really wish I could have gotten avahi reflector to work. I racked my brain and tried all of the different suggestions on here. I ended up multihoming my Homebridge server and running avahi on that. Worked like a charm. It's not ideal, but I may revisit running avahi reflector on my router in the future, when I can spare more time on it. Good luck!

Actually I did have some measure of success; just not with all my networks.
Hence my dogged pursuit of a solution....

 

[junior120872]

Thank you. I am not 100% sure what that does, could you elaborate what it would show in terms of what I am looking for?

ASUSWRT-Merlin RT-AX88U_PRO 3006.102.4_beta2 Sat Apr 19 16:20:12 UTC 2025
xxxxxx@RT-AX88U-Pro:/tmp/home/root# avahi-browse -at
-sh: avahi-browse: not found
xxxxxx@RT-AX88U-Pro:/tmp/home/root# avahi-browse-domains -at
-sh: avahi-browse-domains: not found
xxxxxx@RT-AX88U-Pro:/tmp/home/root#

I guess I would need to install the avahi-utils entware package for this?
I'm a wee bit nervous if I install that it will stuff up the existing avahi package of it is not needed.


I might see if the use-ipv6=yes setting makes any difference.

Actually I did have some measure of success; just not with all my networks.
Hence my dogged pursuit of a solution....

That's good to hear. I had positive results with some of it too, but I couldn't get to work with some of my IoT devices. Once I set it up on the Homebridge server everything just worked. I was kicking myself for days. . I was thinking of splitting creating and addition Streaming network to put all of my Alexa, Sonos, Apple tvs, tvs, Roku, etc on so I may look at avahi on the router again before I configure a third ethernet device in my homebridge server. So many projects, so little time.

 

[jksmurf]

with avahi - it's supposed to be pretty simple...

avahi-browse -at

and

avahi-browse-domains -at

The big thing is to ensure that the local LAN is not set to .local, as avahi can go off the rails...

Well I didn't install avahi-utils so as to use avahi-browse as it seemed to want to install other stuff and I wanted to keep my router simple.
What I did do was install an App called Discovery -ns-sd browser which showed me this for my 3 Networks, SmurfNET (br0), SmurfNETGuest (br52), SmurfIoT (br53)

SmurfIoT br53

Image SmurfIoT br53 hosted in Freeimage.host

freeimage.host

SmurfNET br0

Image SmurfNET br0 hosted in Freeimage.host

freeimage.host

SmurfNETGuest br52

Image SmurfNETGuest br52 hosted in Freeimage.host

freeimage.host

Over the last week and a bit I have done more reading about trying to get Chromecast to work over subnets than I cared to and I cannot get any further on my Primary-IoT interface. Works fine on Guest-IoT, I do not know why. It's a huge topic spanning at least 10 years, with a few generic "solutions", none of which I can make work.

Most posts refer to:

• (i) Setting an avahi reflector (per Colin's post) and (ii) Forwarding UDP Port 5353 / Port 1900

Some refer to doing these amendments, none worked for me:

• Disabling IGMPv3 Snooping; did not work for me.
• use-ipv6=yes n avahi-daemon.conf
• allow-interfaces=[defined list]; see above

I have tried:

Tried
iptables -I INPUT -p udp -d 224.0.0.251 --dport 5353 -j ACCEPT

Tried
iptables -I INPUT -i br0 -p udp -m multiport --dport 5353 -j ACCEPT
iptables -I FORWARD -i br0 -p udp -m multiport --dport 5353 -j ACCEPT

Tried
iptables -I INPUT -p udp --dport 1900 -i br0 -j ACCEPT
iptables -I INPUT -p udp --dport 1900 -i br53 -j ACCEPT
iptables -I FORWARD -p udp --dport 5353 -i br0 -j ACCEPT
iptables -I FORWARD -p udp --dport 5353 -i br53 -j ACCEPT
iptables -I INPUT -p udp --dport 5353 -i br53 -j ACCEPT
iptables -I INPUT -p udp --dport 5353 -i br0 -j ACCEPT
# Increase IP TTL so it can go an extra hop
iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -d 239.255.255.250 -j TTL --ttl-inc 1
iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -d 224.0.0.251 -j TTL --ttl-inc 1

Tried
iptables -A FORWARD -m state --state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT
iptables -A FORWARD -i br0 -o br+ -j ACCEPT
iptables -I INPUT -i br53 -p udp --dport 5353 -j ACCEPT

Got outputs from various posts:

Smurf65@RT-AX88U-Pro:/tmp/home/root# find / -print | grep -i -e mdns -e avahi
/jffs/configs/avahi-daemon.conf.add
/tmp/avahi
/tmp/avahi/avahi-daemon.conf
/tmp/avahi/services
/tmp/avahi/services/alexa.service
/usr/lib/libavahi-common.so.3
/usr/lib/libavahi-common.so.3.5.4
/usr/lib/libavahi-core.so.7
/usr/lib/libavahi-core.so.7.1.0
/usr/lib/libnss_mdns4.so.2
/usr/lib/libnss_mdns4_minimal.so.2
/usr/sbin/avahi-daemon
/var/run/avahi-daemon
/var/run/avahi-daemon/socket
/var/run/avahi-daemon/pid

Smurf65@RT-AX88U-Pro:/tmp/home/root#ps w | grep -i mdns
1806 Smurf65   5976 S    grep -i mdns

I am all out of ideas. I have tried.