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I have a network which connects a couple of hosts. I would like to be able to reach other hosts from one of them using the hostname. I just discovered the ".local" domain, which is available through avahi and /etc/nsswitch.conf. But it's not set up this way on my servers. And I don't want to create an entry in my dns server. Is there an other way to do so ?

Sid
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benzen
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  • Avahi mDNS is pretty good for you needs. See answer about /etc/nsswitch.conf for how to configure it. – ulidtko Jan 28 '11 at 22:23

5 Answers5

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Your /etc/nsswitch.conf should already have this for mDNS (avahi):

hosts:          files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4

Just install avahi-daemon on the machines you want talking to eachother, and you should be set to use HOSTNAME.local like this:

ssh yourmachine.local
Jorge Castro
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Kees Cook
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    This is the answer I wish I could upvote twice. – ulidtko Jan 28 '11 at 22:33
  • If the issue still persists, check the status of avahi-daemon using systemctl status avahi-daemon. If its diabled/inactive, run systemctl enable avahi-daemon and systemctl start avahi-daemon. – abitcode Nov 02 '23 at 23:44
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An alternative is to add an entry in your /etc/hosts file:

gksudo gedit /etc/hosts

An entry takes the form 123.123.123.123 host.domain or just 123.123.123.123 host.

If you do that, you can now for example ssh host and it will connect to 123.123.123.123

andrew.46
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Kenny Rasschaert
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  • Sorry, i forget to mention that i doesn't want to do so for two reason. First for secuity reasons, these machines a server. And i think, it could be an issue. Secondly, i know that my hosts will changes there ip adresse soon. And i don't want to update this conf every time.

    edit: a third reason, i use dhcp, so the network manager will generate a new one frequently. But i know there is a trick to do let it do it.

     – benzen Jan 28 '11 at 17:36
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I found another solution. Using the file, /etc/dhccp3/dhcient.conf There is a line starting like this, send host-name This could be modified to send host-name 'server1'

This solution look nice, but i don't know if the every machine which use the same dns will see my "server1" hostname.

Another bad side to this solution, i need to specify the hostname here and in the /etc/hosts

I just know that this file (/etc/dhcp3/dhclient.conf) is not a script, so i can't use a environnement variable to fill this line correctly.

benzen
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You can let dynamic DHCP add the entry in DNS, instead of yourself.

Henrik
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    But i don't want them to be expose to the whole internet.Just to find them in my localnetwork – benzen Jan 28 '11 at 18:54
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if using avahi-daemon, you may need to copy ssh.services into /etc/avahi/services. On mine,

sudo cp /usr/share/doc/avahi-daemon/examples/ssh.service /etc/avahi/services/

David Herrera
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