Avahi error on startup

Question

Each time I start up, I get a blue popup-like blue window with an exclamation mark giving me what looks like an error message. It does not stay long enough for me to write it down.

It says something like:

Avahi does not support ".local".. something about network?

But a lot more text... I deduced the name "avahi" from trying tab-completion in a terminal. ;) It has something to do with some network or other. I have cable internet, and also a wireless network adapter that is switched off.

Is this something to be concerned about? I am running an 11.04 Ubuntu inside a WinXP, on a USB-drive.

Answer 1

It probably says that Avahi is disabled because you have a .local domain and Avahi doesn't work very well with this.

Avahi is a zero conf protocol like Apples Bonjour commonly used if you have Macs on your network or if you want to chat with others on your local network without logging in to a server like Google Talk or MSN Messenger.

You can read about the problem here.

You could probably just ignore it or configure your network to use another domain name then the default .local.

Answer 2

According to the Avahi wiki there are two workarounds:

Better one:

In /etc/avahi/avahi-daemon.conf uncomment and change the line with domain name to

domain-name=.alocal

Second one:

In /etc/nsswitch.conf delete a [NOTFOUND=return] text.