pfSense » pfSense Packages

whoops...meant to submit this to packages.

doing that now.

okay...never mind...looks like I did :)

I have about zero clue what "cache size" are you talking about. Almost all documented config options are exposed in this PR and beyond that, please run your avahi controlled from shell yourself. This is getting insane. Get the Lennartware fixed properly upstream, instead of asking to expose totally undocumented options in the GUI.

https://github.com/pfsense/pfsense-packages/pull/1030

And BTW, what you described has nothing to do with "cache size" and everything to do with broken IPv6 privacy extensions handling in Lennartware.

https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=98734.0

Hi There,

So to clarify things, I have IPv6 disabled on both avahi proxy systems and I am not talking about avahi changing names.

What I am talking about turns out to be a problem with OSX Yosemite and the discoveryd system which replaced mDNSresponder for a few version and then was removed and replaced by mDNSresponder by Apple in the latest Yosemite release. What was happening was that when avahi was caching entries and sending them back across the network, the Yosemite machines were seeing the name and thinking there was another machine with the same name on the network. They would then increment their hostname internally (you can find it under the sharing system preference on the machine.)

As for cache-entries-max being an undocumented config option in avahi-daemon.conf, here is the entry from a man page for ubuntu for example: http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/precise/man5/avahi-daemon.conf.5.html :

allow-point-to-point= Takes a boolean value ("yes" or "no"). If set  to
       "yes"  avahi-daemon  will  make  use of interfaces with the POINTOPOINT
       flag set. This option defaults to "no" as it might make mDNS unreliable
       due  to  usually  large latencies with such links and opens a potential
       security hole by allowing mDNS access from  Internet  connections.  Use
       with care and YMMV!

cache-entries-max=  Takes  an  unsigned  integer  specifying  how  many
       resource records are cached per interface.  Bigger  values  allow  mDNS
       work correctly in large LANs but also increase memory consumption.

clients-max=   Takes   an  unsigned  integer.  The  maximum  number  of
       concurrent D-Bus clients allowed. If  the  maximum  number  is  reached
       further  clients  will  be  refused  until at least one existing client
       disconnects.

So beyond that, I was simply making a suggestion and trying to share how I got things working... You guys do what you want. I have no idea why this is insane and I apologize for bothering you.

Good day sir. I will shut up now.

Thanks for some great software though... I really like it and am excited to be using it.

Perhaps these places would help to actually get something fixed, as opposed to adding configuration options that just confuse users and fix nothing?

http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/avahi/
http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

Avahi = yet another piece of hit-and-run software produced by Mr. Poettering. Of course, you are free to do a pull request and get someone to merge this. I'm just a user who did a mistake of touching this package.

Not exactly convinced that switching from Lennertware to BittenFruitWare is going to change anything for the better... :P

This has a target version of 2.4.0 - is that really intended?

could you please add an option to set cache-entries-max=0 (or other arbitrary avahi config options?) - see below, it fixes the problem with automatic host renaming.

otherwise we have no option and need to stop using avahi plugin on pfsense and use it on another system...

thank you!

https://www.packetmischief.ca/2012/09/20/airplay-vlans-and-an-open-source-solution/

egoff
Aug 12, 2014 at 12:16pm MDT

Well…maybe I’m jumping the gun, but it seems to be behaving now, after setting cache-entries-max=0 in /etc/avahi/avahi-daemon.conf. That kind of makes sense, since we don’t want it to cache anything, just reflect. I was able to trigger the problem by printing to a shared printer from a Mac with 2 network interfaces connected to 2 Avahi-enabled VLANs at the same time. Now with cache-entries-max=0 in place, I can no longer get the problem to happen. We’ll see if that did it. Thanks for the cache hint!!!