Why does name resolution work for a .local adress without DNS?

Question

Recently, I added a FreeNAS server to my local network. I can reach its web interface by opening freenas.local in a browser on my main Windows machine.

However, when I do a

    nslookup freenas.local

from the same Windows machine, there are no results.

There also is no entry for freenas.local in my hosts file.

So, as dumb as it may sound to some of you: Where is the name resolution for freenas.local happening?

Most likely as a result of LLMNR - http://techgenix.com/overview-link-local-multicast-name-resolution/ — joeqwerty, Aug 31 '18 at 13:32
And that's why you should not use `.local` for anything else. — Esa Jokinen, Aug 31 '18 at 14:04

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited Oct 07 '21 at 07:59

The .local TLD is reserved for use with Multicast-DNS (aka mDNS), names ending with .local should not be used with regular DNS.

Ie, the most obvious reason why names such as this resolves for you is that hosts on your local network are using mDNS.

Worth noting, nslookup is a DNS-specific tool, it doesn't use whatever other name resolution mechanisms that the OS resolver normally uses in addition to DNS (eg, the hosts file, mDNS, etc).

Why does name resolution work for a .local adress without DNS?

1 Answers1