How to Allow Chromecast & Nest Device Access Across Multiple VLANs

Background

Chromecast & Nest Devices use Multicast Domain Name Services (mDNS) to perform device discovery. Unfortunitly do to the nature of mDNS you cannot simply simply add a Routing rule to allow the traffic across the VLAN it must be relayed via a Repeater in order to traverse VLANs. Luckily many routers have a built in mDNS repeater built in or as a add on, in this article we will be going over how to set this up in PFsense.

Setup

Install Avahi

1. Login to PFsense
2. Navigate to System > Package Manager > Available Packages
3. Search forAvahi and Select Install

Configuring Avahi

1. Navigate to Services > Avahi
2. Select Enable the Avahi Daemon
3. Select Repeat mdns Packets across Subnets
4. Select Save