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    mDNS with vlans and Avahi

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved L2/Switching/VLANs
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    • S
      solaris81
      last edited by solaris81

      I am trying to get mDSN working across vlans. Seems to work somewhat.

      I have an iot vlan for chromecast and like devices. They are all hardwired. Another vlan is my home network, which is wireless devices and some desktop/laptop computers that connected via hard wire. Third vlan is wireless network for guest devices.

      I only want home network vlan to be able to cast to the iot network. Guest will not have this ability.

      Avahi is installed and enabled on the interfaces I want it running on. It seems to work partially. The only thing I can cast from is Google Chrome, videostream and Youtube.

      No other applications can see the chromecast devices.. Not VLC nor even WMP. Do other applications require something different to function?

      Why is it Chome can see these devices and the other applications cannot?

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      • K
        kevdog
        last edited by

        Ok can you describe your network a little better in terms of what is on each VLAN?

        What are your firewall rules? Certain applications may need certain ports open.

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        • awebsterA
          awebster
          last edited by

          @solaris81 Avahi is only an enablement technology, it does not itself decide what traffic is allowed to pass or not.
          Its role is simply to expose the existence of devices on separate subnets to each other by acting as a smart mDNS proxy.
          Ultimately the firewall itself has to be configured to allow the desired traffic.
          Additionally, in order to have a good end-user experience, Avahi should be configured to only advertise the services that you want to explicitly allow in the firewall, otherwise users could perhaps "see" certain devices, but not actually be able to access them / cast to them.

          –A.

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          • S
            solaris81
            last edited by solaris81

            For troubleshooting purposes, the firewall allows all traffic between vlans. Windows firewall is disabled as well as any antivirus traffic. The mdns traffic is being forwarded from the iot vlan to my home network vlan. That is why the devices are visible in Chrome and Videostream. But only those two are seeing the devices. No other players such as VLC, or WMP can see them.

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