nss-mdns

Host Name Resolution Via Multicast DNS (Zeroconf) for glibc

nss-mdns is a plug-in for the GNU Name Service Switch (NSS) functionality of the GNU C Library (glibc) providing a hostname resolution via Multicast DNS (aka Zeroconf, aka Apple Rendezvous, aka Apple Bonjour), and effectively allowing name resolution by common Unix/Linux programs in the ad-hoc mDNS domain .local. nss-mdns provides only client functionality, which means that you have to run a mDNS responder daemon separately from nss-mdns if you want to register the local hostname via mDNS. I recommend Avahi. By default, nss-mdns tries to contact a running avahi-daemon to resolve hostnames and addresses and makes use of its superior record cacheing.