Kiosk can't reach .local domain (mDNS, avahi-daemon)

[ccortezia]

First of all, since this is my first post, my sincere compliments to the community: this distro is simply awesome.

I am trying to setup a LAN served kiosk, without any access to internet.
For that, my kiosk_config (and homepage, and wallpaper) on config file pointed to a local static ip address in my network, and things worked just great and fine.
Thing is, I don't want to rely on a static IP configuration since the server network configuration will be beyond my reach.

What I am trying to do with no success is to point to "server-hostname.local" (the name published by avahi-daemon).
Changing only the homepage field will present me a firefox message: "Firefox can't find the server at http://www.server-hostname.local" (note the intruder www on the URL)

What am I missing ?

[fanthom]

this is a known issue of local domains not being resolved correctly in kiosk by default:
http://forum.porteus.org/viewtopic.php?f=103&t=4451

are you able to remaster the kiosk ISO yourself? if yes then please add following firefox preferences to it:

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user_pref("browser.fixup.alternate.enabled", false);
user_pref("browser.fixup.domainwhitelist.some-domain", true);
user_pref("browser.fixup.domainwhitelist.other-domain", true);

if that wont work then please try this preference (please mind that it will disable searching through the address bar):

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user_pref("keyword.enabled", false);

these tricks will work only for firefox so you can browse intranet pages with it. unfortunately remote kiosk config is downloaded through wget and in this case you have to use static IP as i'm not aware of any solution for wget:

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kiosk_config=192.168.1.101/kiosk/config1.txt

any advises are welcome.

[ccortezia]

are you able to remaster the kiosk ISO yourself?

Did not try yet. Any good pointer on where to learn how to ?

Regarding the reported issue, suposing it is a known bug, is there a thread with more information on what has been investigated and tried so far ?

[fanthom]

Any good pointer on where to learn how to ?
please try here:
http://porteus-kiosk.org/documentation.html

Regarding the reported issue, suposing it is a known bug, is there a thread with more information on what has been investigated and tried so far ?
i have linked it in my previous post

[ccortezia]

Oh, sure. I didn't see the link, sorry for that.

[moakes]

Also, make sure when you name your kiosk, you append .local to the name. Fore example: kiosk.domain.local

[fabizeid]

Has this issue been resolved? Does the Kiosk Thin Client even support avahi-daemon? I tried to ping a domain.local from a thin client (through ssh) but I did not get a reply. Tried pinging from an ubuntu desktop and it worked. The domain.local host is defined in another ubuntu server.

[fanthom]

Hello fabizeid,

"Does the Kiosk Thin Client even support avahi-daemon?"
It currently does not support avahi. Please explain why it would be needed and i'll consider adding it for next release.

"I tried to ping a domain.local from a thin client (through ssh) but I did not get a reply."
Perhaps you need to setup static hostname aliases:
http://porteus-kiosk.org/parameters.htm ... me_aliases

Thank you.

[fabizeid]

Thanks for the quick reply. I was under the impression that if the author of the original message in the thread (ccortezia) followed the directions you gave regarding firefox settings then his problem of having Porteus Kiosk resolve local domain names published by avahi would be fixed. My problem is similar to his. I am volunteering at few refugee camps and using Kiosk as a thin client on old donated laptops to teach STEM classes (code.org, khan academy). I have khan lite (https://learningequality.org/ka-lite/) on a local server (which itself is a laptop) but have no access to the router. Furthermore, I use the same laptops in different schools/camps. For now I have a workaround by picking a static ip address that is hopefully (since I can't check the actual range in the router) outside the dhcp range. (On a different note when I change managed bookmarks on a remote config file, the bookmarks are not getting updated, it did work few times before so I am still trying to figure out the conditions for when it stops working).