[Lula] interpreting tcpdump -- mdns

[Steve Glasser]

Hi group,

I am running kubuntu feisty on an older ibm laptop.  I have removed
network-manager as the current version seems broken.  Tcpdump shows

20:51:21.780406 IP (tos 0x0, ttl 255, id 0, offset 0, flags [DF],
proto: UDP (17), length: 70) steve-laptop.local.mdns >
224.0.0.251.mdns:  0 PTR? 251.0.0.224.in-addr.arpa. (42)

As I understand it, mdns broadcasts are generated by avahi-daemon.
Here's the relevant line from nsswitch.conf:

hosts:          files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4

For a network with a dns server and reverse lookups, does it make
sense to first query mdns? Or at all?

I do have devices, like WAPs, that are not in dns.  There's no reason
to do name lookup on them, is there?

Can anyone shed any light on ubuntu's thinking in re avahi/mdns/network-manager?

thanks,
-- 
Steve Glasser
Flying Pig Computer Svc.
sgla9347 at gmail.com