I've got some Linux servers on my home network that I access via "hostname.local", however when using a Windows machine they can't seem to resolve this unless I go via IP address.
How do I make it so my windows machine can resolve hostname.local addresses? I know how to edit C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts but surely there's got to be some automatic way to make Windows just find these machines?
Usually .local names are resolved using mDNS – the Linux servers probably run Avahi, OS X has it built in, and for Windows there is Apple's own Bonjour.
2020-12-14: Updated for Windows 10 built-in mDNS support.
Windows 10 handles both hostname and hostname.local identically: it simultaneously tries LLMNR for the bare hostname, NetBIOS for the bare hostname, and (optionally) mDNS for hostname.local. This mDNS support is not restricted to 'Modern' apps anymore.
In current versions (somewhere around 10.21xx or later), I believe mDNS hostname lookup support should be active by default.
Originally, in older versions (10.1511 or later), mDNS support had to be activated manually by setting the EnableMulticast registry value to 1:
reg add "HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\DNSClient" /v EnableMulticast /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
An older version of Bonjour (v2.0) is included within Bonjour Print Services. It is also available as a Chocolatey package.
The latest version (v3.x) is not available as an independent download, but is installed as part of iTunes (and a few other applications). It is possible to use an archive manager (like 7-Zip or WinRAR) to extract Bonjour64.msi from the iTunes installer.
As @Kevin Keane points out here (and in the comments section above), Windows 10 now clobbers mDNS port 5353 with a service that only works for modern Windows apps. So to let Bonjour back onto the port, the windows mDNS service must be quashed via the registry edit described in the link above.
In Windows 10 versions other than Home instead of the registry edit, the group policy editor can be used:
I didn't have to reboot.
Caveat, I already had both iTunes and Bonjour Print Services installed. Simply uninstalling Bonjour Print Services and reinstalling didn't work -- I had to go into add-remove programs, uninstall both Bonjour and Bonjour Print Services, then reinstall Bonjour Print Services, before pinging .local addresses started working again (virtualbox host-only linux guest with avahi-daemon running). I think this is because my "Bonjour Service" service was tied to Bonjour, not Bonjour Print Services, and it wasn't re-registering itself.
The answers by @deargle and @user1686 are good, however I found modifying the registry to be unnecessary (Windows 10.0.19041.1415)
Download and install the bonjour package from apple to activate mDNS. No registry changes or reboot required
Note: If you have iTunes or Skype installed, you may already have bonjour present.
