avahi-resolve-address

View documentation for the original command

$ tldr avahi-resolve

avahi-resolve-address [-4|-6] [-v] <address> ...

-4, --ipv4
    Force resolution using IPv4 only

-6, --ipv6
    Force resolution using IPv6 only

-v, --verbose
    Enable verbose output

-h, --help
    Show help page and exit

-V, --version
    Show version information and exit

avahi-resolve-address is a command-line utility from the Avahi suite, the open-source Zeroconf/mDNS/DNS-SD implementation for Linux. It performs reverse DNS lookups on IP addresses using Multicast DNS (mDNS), querying the Avahi daemon for PTR records to resolve them to human-readable hostnames on the local network.

This tool is particularly useful in environments with devices that advertise services via mDNS, such as printers, IoT gadgets, Apple devices (Bonjour), or Chromecasts. For example, it can map an IP like 192.168.1.42 to my-printer.local. Unlike traditional DNS tools like host or dig, it targets the .local domain via multicast on 224.0.0.251 (IPv4) or ff02::fb (IPv6).

It requires the Avahi daemon (avahi-daemon) to be running and NSS module configured for mDNS. Output format is hostname followed by IP, one per line. Supports multiple addresses and verbose mode for debugging.

Requires running avahi-daemon and mDNS NSS support (/etc/nsswitch.conf). Limited to .local mDNS names on local network; fails for public DNS. No timeout option; may hang if daemon unresponsive.

avahi-resolve-address 192.168.1.100
192.168.1.100 printer.local

avahi-resolve-address -6 fe80::1%enp0s3
Outputs scoped IPv6 hostname if resolvable.

Part of Avahi, started in 2004 by Lennart Poettering et al. as Linux alternative to Apple's Bonjour. First stable release 0.6 in 2006; current versions (0.8+) maintain backward compatibility.

avahi-resolve-host-name(1), avahi-browse(1), avahi-daemon(8), nss-mdns(8), host(1)