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Help with Avahi mDNS redirector, please

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...
 
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]
 
Last edited:
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!
 
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?

Code:
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.... :-)
 
Last edited:
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?

Code:
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. :)
 
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)


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:

Code:
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:
Code:
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.
 

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