avahi-daemon [options] avahi-daemon --kill avahi-daemon --reload avahi-daemon --check avahi-daemon --version avahi-daemon --help

The Avahi mDNS/DNS-SD daemon implementing Apple's ZeroConf architecture (also known as "Rendezvous" or "Bonjour"). The daemon registers local IP addresses and static services using mDNS/DNS-SD and provides two IPC APIs for local programs to make use of the mDNS record cache the avahi-daemon maintains. First there is the so called "simple protocol" which is used exclusively by avahi-dnsconfd (a daemon which configures unicast DNS servers using server info published via mDNS) and nss-mdns (a libc NSS plugin, providing name resolution via mDNS). Finally there is the DBUS interface which provides a rich object oriented interface to DBUS enabled applications.

Upon startup avahi-daemon interprets its configuration file @pkgsysconfdir@/avahi-daemon.conf and reads XML fragments from @servicedir@/*.service which may define static DNS-SD services. If you enable publish-resolv-conf-dns-servers in avahi-daemon.conf the file /etc/resolv.conf will be read, too.

@pkgsysconfdir@/avahi-daemon.conf: the default configuration file for avahi-daemon.

@servicedir@/*.service: static service definitions.

SIGINT, SIGTERM, SIGQUIT: avahi-daemon will shutdown. This is issued by passing --kill to avahi-daemon.

SIGHUP: avahi-daemon will reload unicast DNS server data from /etc/resolv.conf and static service definitions from @servicedir@/.

SIGUSR1: avahi-daemon will dump local and remote cached resource record data to syslog.

The avahi developers <@PACKAGE_BUGREPORT@>; avahi is available from

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This man page was written using by Oliver Kurth.