Control and integration

mDNS

Finding the Diva by name instead of IP

A DHCP address can change, and reading four numbers off a small display gets old. mDNS gives the Diva a name that stays the same for the life of the unit.

mDNS stands for multicast DNS. It lets a small network resolve names with no DNS server involved: a device asks for a name by sending a multicast query to everything on the local segment, and whichever machine owns that name answers directly. Names live under the reserved .local suffix, and the mechanism is standardised in RFC 6762. Apple ships it as Bonjour, Linux as Avahi, and recent Windows builds include it too.

It solves an ordinary problem. A device that takes its address by DHCP can be handed a different one after a reboot or a router change, so anything that depends on you typing that address in eventually stops working. A name the device answers to itself survives all of that.

Finding the HDfury Diva by name

There are three ways into the web server, and only the first is universal. By IP address, typing what the OLED shows, for example 192.168.1.137. By hostname, in the form http://DIVA-XX/. By mDNS, in the form http://DIVA-XX.local/. In both of the latter, XX stands for the last two digits of the unit's serial number, which keeps several HDfury boxes on one network distinguishable.

The hostname and the mDNS address are both printed on the LAN INFO page of the OLED, which you reach by pressing the INFO button to cycle the pages: INFO, then LAN INFO, then HDR INFO. The same two names, along with the current IP address and the firmware version, sit in the top bar that stays on screen throughout the web server.

When the name does not resolve

mDNS tends to work well on Mac and iOS devices and less reliably elsewhere, and it does not cross a router into another subnet. Some access points suppress multicast traffic, which stops it dead. Hostname and mDNS work in many cases but cannot be guaranteed everywhere, so if a browser will not resolve either, fall back to the IP address, which should work from any browser-based device on the same network.

A wired connection from the LAN CONTROL RJ45 socket to your router or switch is mandatory in all three cases. There is no wireless route into the unit, and by default it uses DHCP to retrieve an address automatically.

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