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Setting up Avahi Services (cont.)

Service File Configuration

Determine Service Type (See http://www.dns-sd.org/ServiceTypes.html)

XML, basic template:

  <?xml version="1.0" standalone='no'?><!--*-nxml-*-->
  <!DOCTYPE service-group SYSTEM "avahi-service.dtd">
  <!-- See avahi.service(5) for more information about this configuration file -->
  <service-group>
  <name replace-wildcards="yes">SERVICE NAME HERE @ %h</name>
  <service>
  <type>_SERVICETYPE._udp</type>
  <port>PORT</port>
  </service>
  </service-group>

For remotely hosted services, add the following tag inside the <service /> tags:
<host-name>REMOTE_HOSTNAME.local</host-name>
To disable a particular service file, you can add a <disabled /> tag, or you can create a subdirectory in /etc/services and move the service file there. Although both of these work, they are kludges. The former works because avahi daemon rejects the service file for having an unrecognised tag, and the latter because it currently ignores subdirectories.