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 Avahi Discovery GUI showing discovered services | |
| Developer(s) | Lennart Poettering, Trent Lloyd, Sjoerd Simons |
|---|---|
| Stable release | |
| Repository | |
| Written in | C |
| Operating system | Linux,BSD |
| Type | |
| License | LGPLv2.1 |
| Website | www |
Avahi is afreezero-configuration networking (zeroconf) implementation, including a system formulticast DNS andDNS Service Discovery. It is licensed under theGNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL).
Avahi is a system which enables programs to publish and discover services and hosts running on alocal network. For example, a user can plug a computer into a network and have Avahi automatically advertise thenetwork services running on its machine, facilitating user access to those services.
Avahi implements the AppleZeroconf specification,mDNS,DNS-SD and RFC 3927/IPv4LL. Other implementations include Apple'sBonjour framework (the mDNSResponder component of which is licensed under theApache License).
Avahi provides a set of language bindings (Python,Mono, etc.) and ships with mostLinux andBSD distributions. Because of its modularized architecture, major desktop components likeGNOMEVirtual file system andKDEinput/output architecture already integrate Avahi.
The Avahi project started in 2004 becauseApple's Zeroconf implementation,Bonjour, used the GPL-incompatibleApple Public Source License. In 2006 Applerelicensed parts of Bonjour under theApache License.[2]
Avahi's performance resembles that of Bonjour, sometimes exceeding it; however Avahi can lose services when managing large numbers of requests simultaneously.[3]
Avahi was developed byLennart Poettering and Trent Lloyd. It is the result of a merger in 2005 of Poettering's original mDNS/DNS-SD implementation called "FlexMDNS", and Lloyd's original code called "Avahi". While most of today's code originates from the former project, the name of the latter was used for the joint project. Development on "FlexMDNS" started in late 2004, and work on the original "Avahi" began in early 2004.
Avahi was originally developed under thefreedesktop.org umbrella, but has now become a separate project. Avahi, however, makes use of freedesktop.org'sD-Bus IPC layer.
The nameAvahi is theMalagasy native name and scientific Latin name of a genus ofwoolly lemur, a family ofprimates indigenous toMadagascar. Trent Lloyd found the name and liked it, and it stuck. The logo reflects this.[4]
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