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Avahi

Ask for help with issues regarding the Installations of the Debian O/S.
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Haing
Posts: 3
Joined: 2009-08-29 00:55

Avahi

#1 Post by Haing »

Hi folks

Some time ago, in one of the 4.0R? releases, debian silently changed to avahi - this very user wasn't that silent because all his networking stuff wouldn't work any longer. :( Since then I have stopped using Debian because it's nowhere documented. As I still don't like Suse for several reasons, I want to return to debian. Now, even in 5.02 there's still nothing about avahi in the installation guide. Looking for further information I found a very enlightening entry in Kofler's latest book - he simply advises you to disable it because it's not worth all the hassle.

So, now I have two questions:
1. how to disable avahi without losing everything? I still want to be able to use KDE or another window manager except gnome. And I want to set up my computers as follows:
Laptop 192.168.0.4
Other PC 192.168.0.2, 192.168.0.3, 192.168.0.5.
So static addresses that will never ever change, for my internal network I will only and exclusively rely on my host file.

2. Is there any complete (read all configuration files with all possible entries and each entry explained in an understandable fashion, so nothing like "'grmblfx= rambleramble' sets grmblfx to rambleramble", but rather an explanation in human speech of what grmblfx is and what rambleramble does.

Thanks for any help.

Haing

gnudude
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Location: gone....

Re: Avahi

#2 Post by gnudude »

avahi doesn't stop you from setting your ip addresses

are you speaking another language? I do not know what grmblfx or rambleramble is

avahi isn't a 'debian' thing....

simply uninstall any avahi pieces you do not wish to have installed, if something depends on some avahi pieces then decide whether to keep those pieces or not

Haing
Posts: 3
Joined: 2009-08-29 00:55

Re: Avahi

#3 Post by Haing »

Hi gnudude
Thanks for the fast answer.
>> are you speaking another language? I do not know what grmblfx or rambleramble is
just a made-up example of a setting : option pair, intended to be meaningless. You often see stuff like setting=option sets setting to option in documentations, but nobody bothers to tell you what setting is and does nor what effect option will have.

When I delete avahi, KDE and most other interesting programs also will go - including sane-utils. (I just checked.) I can install fvwm and mozilla and a few text mode programs, but that's about it. KDE, Gnome, even sane and many many others rely on avahi. So no avahi, no debian. That's why I quit debian some time ago. And since there is no proper documentation, I'm simply lost.

On my internet PC I have two network cards. During the last install (4.0x) it happily downloaded some stuff during installation, swapped the cards afterwards, and avahi grabbed the one connected to the internet. It was not configured
via etc/network/interface: there was nothing about this card there, if-down etc didn't work, ifconfig also didn't work, avahi would not allow that interface to be neither stopped nor changed.

As Kofler said in his book it could be disabled I have been looking for a way to achieve this ever since - at least 9 months, but to no avail.

What I want is a debian system with traditionally set up network interfaces (via etc/network/interface).

Thanks

Haing

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julian67
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Re: Avahi

#4 Post by julian67 »

avahi has nothing to do with your /etc/network/interfaces file. You can set that up in the usual way, or you can use one of the various config tools such as wicd, network-manager, ceni etc.

You can disable or even uninstall the avahi daemon without anything else being uninstalled, but you will need some of the avahi libs as major applications depend on them. Avahi is simply a network discovery tool. It means you can easily find and use/access/set up printers, scanners, music shares (DAAP) and so on on a LAN. It's thoroughly useful, it doesn't interfere at all in any way with your network set up (if it does then blame the people who created the desktop environment because it shouldn't happen), and it's resource usage is microscopic. I just checked on my system and the avahi-daemon is consuming a mighty 0.1% of RAM and no measurable CPU time. The size of the installed avahi components (daemon, utils package, 7 library packages) on disk on my 32-bit system is about 1MB.
Wisdom from my inbox: "do not mock at your pottenocy"

gnudude
Posts: 1684
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Location: gone....

Re: Avahi

#5 Post by gnudude »

Haing wrote:When I delete avahi, KDE and most other interesting programs also will go - including sane-utils. (I just checked.)
As stated before, some things do rely on some avahi tools but that doesn't get in the way of manual configuration of something else.
And since there is no proper documentation, I'm simply lost.
I am sure you can find avahi documentation at http://avahi.org/ but a user would use some sort of interface to configure stuff that would 'talk to' avahi. A user would not really configure avahi.
avahi would not allow that interface to be neither stopped nor changed.
How did it stop you?
What I want is a debian system with traditionally set up network interfaces (via etc/network/interface).
Nothing stops you from doing that even with the few parts of avahi that kde, sane and others require.

Can I ask what avahi stuff you have installed? Here is mine

Code: Select all

root@debian:/home/user# dpkg -l | grep avahi
ii  avahi-daemon                         0.6.23-3lenny1                     Avahi mDNS/DNS-SD daemon
ii  libavahi-client3                     0.6.23-3lenny1                     Avahi client library
ii  libavahi-common-data                 0.6.23-3lenny1                     Avahi common data files
ii  libavahi-common3                     0.6.23-3lenny1                     Avahi common library
ii  libavahi-compat-libdnssd1            0.6.23-3lenny1                     Avahi Apple Bonjour compatibility library
ii  libavahi-core5                       0.6.23-3lenny1                     Avahi's embeddable mDNS/DNS-SD library
ii  libavahi-qt3-1                       0.6.23-3lenny1                     Avahi Qt 3 integration library
and I still use /etc/network/interfaces file to configure my network settings and /etc/resolv.conf to configure my DNS addresses.

ps - do you think other distros do not use avahi?

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julian67
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Re: Avahi

#6 Post by julian67 »

I'm also using a static IP address configured via /etc/network/interfaces....no issues. So far the wicked avahi daemon hasn't interfered with NFS, SSH client or server, dictd, djbdns....or anything at all.

To run a distro without any avahi libs would probably mean running gentoo or one of the other source based distros, or maybe a distro without dependency checking package management such as Slackware. It does seem pointless though, and it's hard to see how a service discovery daemon could prevent someone configuring their interfaces file. I have seen a few posts at different places where people express a marked dislike for avahi and a powerful urge to remove it but I always get the impression that something with a silly name is easy to blame for problems which actually aren't related.

Yours etc

Aelraed Dimplebottom-Smythe (Jr)
Wisdom from my inbox: "do not mock at your pottenocy"

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Telemachus
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Re: Avahi

#7 Post by Telemachus »

Just to chime in, I also use /etc/network/interfaces (and zero other tools to configure my network) without trouble, even though I have a few Avahi programs. I have very few in fact, but I use Openbox and no desktop manager.

Code: Select all

telemachus ~ $ aptitude search ~iavahi
i   libavahi-client3                - Avahi client library                      
i   libavahi-common-data            - Avahi common data files                   
i   libavahi-common3                - Avahi common library                      
i   libavahi-glib1                  - Avahi glib integration library            
"We have not been faced with the need to satisfy someone else's requirements, and for this freedom we are grateful."
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