.LOCAL

'.local' is a pseudo top-level domain used by the mDNS network discovery protocol. It is also often used by administrators of Microsoft Windows Active Directory environments as the top-level DNS domain for an internal company network that is not intended to be reachable directly from the outside world. If a computer running Mac OS X is not assigned a domain name by the DNS server, it will identify itself as "''hostname''.local". The host name can be set in the Sharing Preference Pane.
Name resolution issues can arise if Bonjour and/or Multicast-DNS is used in conjunction with a DNS network with a .local domain. '.internal' is often recommended, and ''.site'' is often used as an alternative to .local.

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See also

See also

★ Zeroconf

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★ Bonjour - Apple's implementation

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★ Avahi - OpenSource implementation