Use the IP Service > Multicast DNS page to enable multicast DNS host name-to-address mapping on the local network without the need for a dedicated DNS server.
Usage Guidelines
mDNS allows a network device to choose a domain name in the local DNS name space and announce it using a special multicast IP address. This allows any user to give their computers a link-local mDNS host name of the form "single-dns-label.local." Any name ending in ".local." is therefore link-local, and names within this domain are meaningful only on the link where they originate.
When looking for the given host’s IP address, the client sends a single-shot mDNS IP multicast query message to all the hosts sharing its local network. Any DNS query for a name ending with ".local." is sent to the mDNS multicast address 224.0.0.251 (or its IPv6 equivalent FF02::FB).
The corresponding host replies with a multicast message announcing itself. All machines in the subnet can then update their mDNS cache with the host's information sent in the reply message.
To maintain an on-going cache of host names requires a process of continuous multicast DNS querying. This is done in several phases:
Probing - The DNS responder sends a probe message to the local network in order to verify that each entry its local cache is unique.
Announcing - The responder sends an unsolicited mDNS Response containing all of its newly registered resource records (both shared records, and unique records that have completed the probing step).
Updating - The responder repeats the Announcing step to update neighbor caches when the data for any local mDNS record changes.
Parameters
Enables multicast DNS host name-to-address mapping on the local network. (Default: Enabled)