6 ms·

Is that what is required so I can do my server.local and have it work? I’ve struggled a lot of .local stuff with various routers and port openings etc. I know t

Is that what is required so I can do my server.local and have it work? I’ve struggled a lot of .local stuff with various routers and port openings etc. I know that .local isn’t a standard or something and I’m meant to use something else. I’ve never known what to google to fix it though

JamesSwift 3y ago
.local is a standard. Its a part of mDNS (multicast DNS). Dont use it for your own DNS records. I'm not sure what exact issue you are having, but if you are trying to resolve mDNS .local across internal networks then you need to look up mDNS reflection. If you are trying to use .local for your own DNS records then pick something else (ideally using an actual registered TLD, so e.g. if you own foo.com then you could use lan.foo.com for your internal records).
- Dathuil 3y ago
  I ran into this issue a few months ago when I got sometime to actually setup my home server and wanted to use urls like nas.local and homeassistant.local on my home network to make things easy for my family to access. Worked fine on windows but all the Apple devices in the house had a conniption when trying to connect. I ended up just using my personal domain replacing .local. Am currently investigating a wildecard DNS SSL cert to get HTTPS working on the LAN, but that's more out of curiosity than anything else
  - pdntspa 3y ago
    Why bother with the .local suffix? Just do the device's DNS name itself. http://servername/ http://servername/ should work fine, clients register themselves during the DHCP handshake and the router's DNS server records the name.
    - joshspankit 3y ago
      Not always, and in many cases the OS is actually adding .local or .[your domain] automatically
      - pdntspa 3y ago
        Which OS? My home network works perfectly fine this way and I have or had Windows, Linux, BSD, and Mac.
        joshspankit 3y ago
        > clients register themselves during the DHCP handshake and the router's DNS server records the name. This is not always true as it’s a feature of the specific router and not part of the spec. To be fair, it’s a feature that’s now fairly common because of how handy it is. Additionally; many flavours and types of operating systems transparently handle local discovery and resolution just not all of them. For anyone looking to test this, open a terminal and ping the short domain. In the response it will show what domain it actually used. In my case ‘ping proxmox’ shows ‘proxmox.<my personal domain>.com’. This is entirely pedantic but I think interesting if you have a mind for optimizing: The discovery/search does introduce some delay.
    - somehnguy 3y ago
      That’s very dependent of your home network setup. Many consumer grade routers use dnsmasq behind the scenes which handles that for you by default. Once you get out of the consumer grade aio routers it’s much less likely to work out of the box.
- josephcsible 3y ago
  What should you use for internal records if you don't own a domain?
  - ibbtown 3y ago
    .loc instead of .local government is fine
    - josephcsible 3y ago
      But that TLD isn't reserved, so couldn't someone register it as a real gTLD tomorrow?
  - joshspankit 3y ago
    You can use anything that’s not already a domain (and unlikely to be one created by someone else). josephcsibleinternaldomain.com as a spitball
  - NewJazz 3y ago
    .internal
  - dylan604 3y ago
    I've seen .test used in some guides
  - yoshamano 3y ago
    home.arpa https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc8375 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc8375
  - jaeckel 3y ago
    One can also use one of the three .home .corp or .mail as of [0]. I'm not aware of an RFC that writes down that those are OK to use, but if the iCANN already pinky sweared that this is OK, what could go wrong? [0] https://www.icann.org/resources/board-material/resolutions-2018-02-04-en#2.c https://www.icann.org/resources/board-material/resolutions-2...
  - globular-toast 3y ago
- nilespotter 3y ago
  > .local is a standard. Its a part of mDNS (multicast DNS). Dont use it for your own DNS records. Hell to the no. They should have camped on less valuable real estate if they wanted it exclusively. I use .local for every host on my local network and I will never stop. In debian 12 I just change this: hosts: files resolve [!UNAVAIL=return] dns to this: hosts: files dns resolve [!UNAVAIL=return] in /etc/nsswitch.conf, and everything acts just fine. > ideally using an actual registered TLD wat
  - globular-toast 3y ago
    It's so convenient having a standard for mDNS, though. If someone brings a laptop or tablet or something it won't just work on your network. Why do you even care what your local domain is? Set your search path correctly and you never even type it. .home.arpa is arguably a better choice anyway.

JamesSwift 3y ago

.local is a standard. Its a part of mDNS (multicast DNS). Dont use it for your own DNS records. I'm not sure what exact issue you are having, but if you are trying to resolve mDNS .local across internal networks then you need to look up mDNS reflection. If you are trying to use .local for your own DNS records then pick something else (ideally using an actual registered TLD, so e.g. if you own foo.com then you could use lan.foo.com for your internal records).

Dathuil 3y ago
I ran into this issue a few months ago when I got sometime to actually setup my home server and wanted to use urls like nas.local and homeassistant.local on my home network to make things easy for my family to access. Worked fine on windows but all the Apple devices in the house had a conniption when trying to connect. I ended up just using my personal domain replacing .local. Am currently investigating a wildecard DNS SSL cert to get HTTPS working on the LAN, but that's more out of curiosity than anything else
- pdntspa 3y ago
  Why bother with the .local suffix? Just do the device's DNS name itself. http://servername/ http://servername/ should work fine, clients register themselves during the DHCP handshake and the router's DNS server records the name.
  - joshspankit 3y ago
    Not always, and in many cases the OS is actually adding .local or .[your domain] automatically
    - pdntspa 3y ago
      Which OS? My home network works perfectly fine this way and I have or had Windows, Linux, BSD, and Mac.
      - joshspankit 3y ago
        > clients register themselves during the DHCP handshake and the router's DNS server records the name. This is not always true as it’s a feature of the specific router and not part of the spec. To be fair, it’s a feature that’s now fairly common because of how handy it is. Additionally; many flavours and types of operating systems transparently handle local discovery and resolution just not all of them. For anyone looking to test this, open a terminal and ping the short domain. In the response it will show what domain it actually used. In my case ‘ping proxmox’ shows ‘proxmox.<my personal domain>.com’. This is entirely pedantic but I think interesting if you have a mind for optimizing: The discovery/search does introduce some delay.
  - somehnguy 3y ago
    That’s very dependent of your home network setup. Many consumer grade routers use dnsmasq behind the scenes which handles that for you by default. Once you get out of the consumer grade aio routers it’s much less likely to work out of the box.
josephcsible 3y ago
What should you use for internal records if you don't own a domain?
- ibbtown 3y ago
  .loc instead of .local government is fine
  - josephcsible 3y ago
    But that TLD isn't reserved, so couldn't someone register it as a real gTLD tomorrow?
- joshspankit 3y ago
  You can use anything that’s not already a domain (and unlikely to be one created by someone else). josephcsibleinternaldomain.com as a spitball
- NewJazz 3y ago
  .internal
- dylan604 3y ago
  I've seen .test used in some guides
- yoshamano 3y ago
  home.arpa https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc8375 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc8375
- jaeckel 3y ago
  One can also use one of the three .home .corp or .mail as of [0]. I'm not aware of an RFC that writes down that those are OK to use, but if the iCANN already pinky sweared that this is OK, what could go wrong? [0] https://www.icann.org/resources/board-material/resolutions-2018-02-04-en#2.c https://www.icann.org/resources/board-material/resolutions-2...
- globular-toast 3y ago
nilespotter 3y ago
> .local is a standard. Its a part of mDNS (multicast DNS). Dont use it for your own DNS records. Hell to the no. They should have camped on less valuable real estate if they wanted it exclusively. I use .local for every host on my local network and I will never stop. In debian 12 I just change this: hosts: files resolve [!UNAVAIL=return] dns to this: hosts: files dns resolve [!UNAVAIL=return] in /etc/nsswitch.conf, and everything acts just fine. > ideally using an actual registered TLD wat
- globular-toast 3y ago
  It's so convenient having a standard for mDNS, though. If someone brings a laptop or tablet or something it won't just work on your network. Why do you even care what your local domain is? Set your search path correctly and you never even type it. .home.arpa is arguably a better choice anyway.