What's needed to access my VM using hostname.local instead of IP?

[Wouter Samaey]

I have the latest version of Proxmox with a few containers and VMs and was wondering what if required for the other machines (Linux and Mac) to be able to reach these containers and VMs using `hostname.local` instead of using their IPs.

On a Mac, you can tyrpically use the `hostname.local` notation to find other Macs, but with Proxmox this doesn't seam to work out of the box.

I know about DNS etc, but setting up my own DNS server is overkill.

Is this a setting on the Proxmox host or a setting inside each VM / container? I believe this feature is called mDNS, but not sure how to setup and configure.

Can someone help me out here?

 

[Lorenz.S]

No, the PVE can't help you in this case. If you don't want to set up a DNS server, the simplest solution would be to edit your /etc/hosts file (Linux) to include your desired names and corresponding addresses. In Windows and MacOS there is a similar file - just ask your favorite search engine

 

[Wouter Samaey]

But what about mDNS and Bonjour/avahi for example?
Mac machines can find other machines using their hostname.local, just not the Proxmox VMs that are on the same LAN.

 

[Lorenz.S]

This is probably because of the PVE firewall [0]. You may an exception to allow your mDNS traffic to the VMs.

[0] https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Firewall

 

[BobhWasatch]

If you want your VM's to participate in the mDNS protocol you need to install it on the VM's. On Debian you would do:

apt install avahi-daemon

I think this is installed by default if you select one of the "desktop" tasks during installation. And of course your firewall has to allow the appropriate ports (sorry, I don't know which ones off the top of my head).

Other Linux distros will typically have a similar package.