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    MDNS across wired and wireless: bridge or AVAHI

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
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    • F
      fovea1959
      last edited by

      I'm standing up a "new" pfSense install at home. Hardware has onboard wireless, is a little short of resources (500 Ghz Geode, 256Mb RAM, 1GB CF). Two of the requirements are:

      • I want to have mDNS work between my LAN and wireless. This seems to imply that I bridge the two, or else run the Avahi package to reflect between the wired and wireless subnets.

      • I want to have separate RRD charts for the wired and wireless.

      Is it possible to get separate RRD charts for the separate physical interfaces if they are bridged, or does requirement #2 mean I can't bridge and thus need to solve requirement #1 with Avahi?

      Any other considerations when deciding to bridge or route?

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      • luckman212L
        luckman212 LAYER 8
        last edited by

        Did you ever get any answers on these Avahi questions? I've got the same set of questions and am wondering if I should install Avahi on a new 2.2.4 install…

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        • cwagzC
          cwagz
          last edited by

          I am using avahi to route airplay between subnets on my network with 2.2.4.  It works great.

          Netgate 6100 MAX

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          • johnpozJ
            johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
            last edited by

            What resources do you need..  My printer is airplay and I wanted my ipad to see it for example.. Easy solution was to just put the printer on same segment as the wireless via a wire.  My wired devices have no issues printing to printer on another segment.  So this was the simple solution to that problem.

            What other resources do you have that you need mdns to work?

            An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
            If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
            Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
            SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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            • luckman212L
              luckman212 LAYER 8
              last edited by

              I see, so Avahi is only needed to pass mDNS/Zeroconf/Bonjour traffic between separate broadcast domains right? e.g. between 2 VLANs, or between 2 separate network interfaces.  It is not needed if you only have a single LAN segment.

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              • johnpozJ
                johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                last edited by

                exactly!  You can setup mDNS to work across segments but its a PITA ;)  avahi makes it easier.  But if you only have 1 segment, or your wifi and wired are on the same segment and your resources are wired n that segment your wireless devices on that segment can find them.

                I ran into this issue when I isolated my wireless for security reasons and still wanted to print ;)  Easy solution was to move my printer to that segment..

                An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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