True. But pinging IPs directly should only be done as a debug step when dns / mdns does not work. Aka extremely rarely.This all being said mdns is extremely reliable on lan. It’s literally just multicast dns on lan.
On my personal home network I have never had mdns fail in 5-ish years. FQDNs yah. DNS can break. But mdns has been solid.
Just make sure that the system firewall is configured to allow mdns. That’s the biggest issue. Once you have e that and you have mdns set up it’s good to go.
I’m okay with IPv6, if I can get a hexadecimal keypad. I know, DNS solves it to a degree, but just pumping in link-local can be a keyboard dance.
Unfortunately, my ISP doesn’t yet offer IPv6 due to PPPoE to authenticate and authorize subscribers.
Humans shouldn’t really be typing in IPs. Why not just use localhost for localhost and dns / mdns for lan machines? It’s such a nicer experience.
mdns works with link-local in the case of a private non connected lan.
Dns doesn’t always work, and seeing if you can connect via IP is often a troubleshooting step
True. But pinging IPs directly should only be done as a debug step when dns / mdns does not work. Aka extremely rarely.This all being said mdns is extremely reliable on lan. It’s literally just multicast dns on lan.
On my personal home network I have never had mdns fail in 5-ish years. FQDNs yah. DNS can break. But mdns has been solid.
I would like to know more about this mdns.
In my experience, the following are unreliable, and it’s unclear which one is supposed to work under which context:
While pinging the ipv4 address is reliable; if the device is reachable on the network, it should respond.
Happy to help.
You can find more information here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multicast_DNS
You can learn how to configure it here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Avahi
I see why some people can be confused though. In some distros it needs to be configured. Once you configure it though it should be rock solid.
There is no reason why an ICMP packet would be more robust than a multicast udp packet.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Avahi
The traditional nomenclature is myhostname.local
Just make sure that the system firewall is configured to allow mdns. That’s the biggest issue. Once you have e that and you have mdns set up it’s good to go.