Routing Apple Bonjour?

jimp · Apr 1, 2010, 6:46 PM

I looked and there hasn't been a new version of Avahi in quite some time. I just wonder if Apple adjusted the protocol behavior in some way that is triggering this.

jlepthien · Apr 1, 2010, 6:59 PM

The weird thing is that the sync with Things.app is still working and that is using bonjour as well AFAIK…

jlepthien · Apr 6, 2010, 11:21 AM

Any other idea? Is nobody using this kind of configuration?

jlepthien · Apr 7, 2010, 9:59 AM

Yep. Me, too…

jimp · Apr 8, 2010, 1:50 AM

not sure why this thread is suddenly a target for spammers. That's the second blatant spam post I've had to remove from the thread today…

Links about DVD box sets are not relevant to pfSense :-)

iFloris · Apr 18, 2010, 9:23 PM

I've been seeing the same 'invalid query packet' errors. In addition, it seems to be unable to actually register itself:

avahi-daemon[40465]: Failed to add service 'SFTP File Transfer on firebox1' of type '_sftp-ssh._tcp', ignoring service group (/usr/local/etc/avahi/services/sftp-ssh.service): Not supported
avahi-daemon[40465]: Failed to add service 'SFTP File Transfer on firebox1' of type '_sftp-ssh._tcp', ignoring service group (/usr/local/etc/avahi/services/sftp-ssh.service): Not supported
avahi-daemon[40465]: Failed to add service 'firebox1' of type '_ssh._tcp', ignoring service group (/usr/local/etc/avahi/services/ssh.service): Not supported
avahi-daemon[40465]: Failed to add service 'firebox1' of type '_ssh._tcp', ignoring service group (/usr/local/etc/avahi/services/ssh.service): Not supported

Which means that though avahi is running, it doesn't seem to be doing anything.

jimp · Apr 18, 2010, 9:42 PM

The ssh/sftp errors are normal and do not indicate an actual failure, they just mean that those particular services aren't registered.

I see them all the time and my sessions are (still) running fine.

iFloris · Apr 19, 2010, 7:15 AM

Thanks, I did not know that.

So how do I know if avahi is working?
My pptp sessions don't seem to allow bonjour and neither does openvpn.

Could it be that avahi is having difficulty with my time capsule and airport base stations and that a conflict is causing the invalid packet errors?

Perhaps jlepthien can tell us if he too has bonjour routing devices on his network?

jlepthien · Apr 19, 2010, 7:17 AM

I am just using avahi between my WLAN and LAN interfaces. I can test if avahi is working via PPTP when I get home to my box…

jimp · Apr 19, 2010, 11:32 AM

iFloris, is your OpenVPN connection happening between routers, or is the client end an actual Mac?

I have only made it work by running it router-to-router, I don't think it works if it's only running on the server side. Perhaps if you can run Avahi locally on the Mac somehow it may work?

iFloris · Apr 20, 2010, 12:17 PM

Yes, my connection is from a MacBook Pro using Viscosity(http://www.viscosityvpn.com) to a firebox (x500) running pfsense (1.2.3-RELEASE).
I'm not sure how I would go about running avahi on the mac.
Every mac already has mDNS[responder] built in, which I believe is what Avahi is based on.

On the avahi ports page for osx is stated that: "This kind of technology is already found in Mac OS X (branded Rendezvous, Bonjour and sometimes Zeroconf) and is very convenient. Avahi is mainly based on Lennart Poettering's flexmdns mDNS implementation for Linux which has been discontinued in favour of Avahi." (http://avahi.darwinports.com/)

What are the chances of avahi conflicting with mdns on this macbook pro?

jimp · Apr 26, 2010, 1:46 PM

I don't have a Mac so I can't say for sure. I did remember that someone else tried to do this before on a Mac with Viscosity but I don't think they were able to get it to work.

Since this has strayed quite a bit from the original topic, you should start a new thread if you want to pursue that topic.

jlepthien · May 5, 2010, 2:57 PM

Just wanted to let you know that now my Things sync and also the Apple Remote App for iPhone work again with the pfSense beta1 build from 05/04/10…