Why can I not access my Airport Extreme with Bonjour from my MacBook Pro?

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Level 1

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Just like the title says. I the Airport Extreme does not show up under Bonjour in Safari. I can access it from the network but not Bonjour. Weird.

Airport Extreme 802.11ac, OS X Mavericks (10.9.2), Connected to XFINITY cable modem

Posted on May 12, 2014 4:15 PM

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Answer 1

Level 10

148,453 points

Bonjour, as you may already know, is Apple's implementation of zero-configuration networking.

It takes three things to work:

Host Addressing - It requires network devices that support Link-Local addressing, i.e., self-addressing on either, or both, IPv4 & IPv6. ARP is used to verify that no other device on the local network is using the same address. For Macs, self assigned IPv4 Link-Local addressing became available with OS X 10.0. IPv6 always supported this feature. Verify that you have IPv6 Link-Local, as a minimum, running on your Mac. System Preferences > Network > Wi-Fi or Ethernet (as appropriate) > Advanced > TCP/IP tab > Configure IPv6 > Either "Automatically" or "Link-local only."
Host Naming - Device naming is dependent on Multicast DNS (mDNS). This is the ".local" name for the device. It will create one unless you enter one in System Preferences > Sharing > Computer Name. mDNS will issue a Query command to see if any other device is using the same name. mDNS is available with all versions of OS X. Windows devices would require Bonjour for Windows. mDNS requires UDP port 5353 to be opened on the device's software firewall. Note: This is not the same as the router's firewall.
Service Discovery - Requires the first two items to be working and available. Note: A problematic /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist file may prevent your Mac from advertising its services.

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