DESCRIPTION

     mDNSResponder (also known as mdnsd on some systems) is a daemon invoked
     at boot time to implement Multicast DNS and DNS Service Discovery.

     mDNSResponder listens UDP port 5353 for Multicast DNS Query packets.
     When it receives a query for which it knows an answer, mDNSResponder
     issues the appropriate Multicast DNS Reply packet.

     mDNSResponder also performs Multicast DNS Queries on behalf of client
     processes, and maintains a cache of the replies.

     mDNSResponder has no user-specifiable command-line argument, and users
     should not run mDNSResponder manually.

     To examine mDNSResponder's internal state, for debugging and disagnostic
     purposes, send it a SIGINFO signal, and it will then dump a snapshot sum-
     mary of its internal state to /var/log/system.log, e.g.

           sudo killall -INFO mDNSResponder

FILES

     /usr/sbin/mDNSResponder

SEE ALSO

     mDNS(1)

     For information on Multicast DNS, see http://www.multicastdns.org/

     For information on DNS Service Discovery, see http://www.dns-sd.org/

     For information on how to use the Multicast DNS and the DNS Service Dis-
     covery APIs on Mac OS X and other platforms, see
     http://developer.apple.com/bonjour/

     For the source code to mDNSResponder, see
     http://developer.apple.com/darwin/projects/bonjour/

BUGS

     mDNSResponder bugs are tracked in Apple Radar component "mDNSResponder".

HISTORY

     The mDNSResponder daemon first appeared in Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar).

     Also available from the Darwin open source repository (though not offi-
     cially supported by Apple) are mDNSResponder daemons for other platforms,
     including Mac OS 9, Microsoft Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, Solaris,
     and other POSIX systems.

Darwin                         December 18, 2006                        Darwin