<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<page xmlns="http://projectmallard.org/1.0/" xmlns:its="http://www.w3.org/2005/11/its" type="topic" id="tech-avahi" xml:lang="sl">
<info>
<link type="guide" xref="tech" group="avahi"/>
<credit type="author copyright">
<name>Federico Mena Quintero</name>
<email its:translate="no">federico@gnome.org</email>
<years>2013</years>
</credit>
<include xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude" href="cc-by-sa-3-0.xml"/>
<desc>Zeroconf service discovery on local networks</desc>
</info>
<title>Avahi</title>
<p>Avahi implements <link href="http://www.zeroconf.org/">Zeroconf</link>
Networking. It allows programs to discover services like printers on local
networks without prior configuration. It also allows applications to set up
services that are reachable through the local network without configuration;
for example, a chat program that "finds" other chat users in a LAN without
having to set up a central chat server first.</p>
<p>Avahi is an implementation of the <link href="http://www.dns-sd.org/">DNS
Service Discovery</link> and
<link href="http://www.multicastdns.org/">Multicast DNS</link>
specifications, which are part of
<link href="http://www.zeroconf.org/">Zeroconf</link> Networking.</p>
<p>Various programs in GNOME use Avahi to discover services. Gnome-user-share
(a module for the Nautilus file manager) lets users of a local network to
share files with each other, and it finds computers that are sharing files
via Avahi. Vino, a remote-desktop viewer, uses Avahi to find remote desktop
servers. <link xref="tech-pulseaudio">PulseAudio</link>, GNOME's low-level
audio API, uses Avahi to make it possible to route sound through local
networks.</p>
<list style="compact">
<item><p><link href="http://avahi.org/wiki/ProgrammingDocs">Avahi reference documentation</link></p></item>
</list>
</page>