cannot access .local domain/intranet site when connected to the VPN after the IOS 8 update.

Has there been any resolution to this? It is crazy to think that we would have to change our domain from (domain).local to fix this. We have an SOA record in our DNS for (domain).local Forward Lookup Zone. From what I am reading, this is supposed to be what fixes it, but it does not. We are unable to get to our DFS network shares over the VPN after the iOS 8 update and it is a serious problem!!!

I assume a resolution would require an iOS update. My company will not be changing their network when the issue doesn't occur with Windows 7/8 clients.

Prior to iOS 8, I had planned to replace my iPad Air WiFi with an iPad Air 2 WiFi + LTE. I was just waiting for an Otterbox case for the iPad Air 2. Now, I may purchase a Microsoft Surface 2 LTE option instead. I can't risk needing to access my computer and the IP address of that machine unexpectedly changed.

Hi,

on my iPhone 5s with iOS 8.2 Beta the problem with .local domains does not occur anymore.

However I already added the SOA record to my DNS server (unbound), so I don't know if it also works as it did back then before iOS 8.

So there's hope, just wait until all your customers have iOS 8.2 😉

(Let's also hope that Apple won't mess it up once again for the final release..)

This is not a fair test since you are using a workaround in addition to the beta release. Remove the workaround and then retest and report back whether it still works or not before suggesting that iOS 8.2 is the solution.

I have been struggling with this since devices started arriving in October, how Apple think they are going to crack the corp market is beyond me. I have got around the issue two ways.

1. Use an IP address instead (not great for browsing but ok for odd address)

2. I can't quite work this out but if I use IPhone Config Utility and send a default config profile that has the security section enabled and then remove it .local domains work!

I had to buy a non-Apple tablet to solve this problem on tablet form-factor. 😟 Still waiting for a solution on phone form-factor.

What did you purchase? Is it WiFi only?

I finally Upgraded to 8.2... all works OK again after upgrading....

mrangryuk What "security section" do you mean exactly? Thanks

Upgrading to iOS 8.2 does not help. Actually, I upgraded an iPad 4h generation to iOS8.2 BETA3 and the issue with .local domains is not resolved!

The SOA records still need to be added, as described before. The update to 8.2 just fixed the bug from 8.1 where it did not work even if you already had added the SOA records.

It's just really annoying that Apple does not document what they are doing AT ALL. No explanations, no warnings, nothing. Release notes should document known issues, breaking changes, etc. not just contain a line like "please focus on WiFi"... that's a joke.

Looks like you nailed it. Our windows machines had no issues resolving names ending in .local, but all OSX and IOS devices could not. I looked at your reply and was skeptical, because we use 'host.company.local,' and we had a 'company.local' zone with a proper SOA. Adding a simple zone named 'local' with an SOA resolved the issue. Thanks.

We only have Windows domains... and my issues has been fixed by 8.2.

Thanks for all the suggestions in this thread.

I can confirm that adding a new forward lookup zone called "local" into my MS DNS server resolved this issue almost immediately.

For those who want more info:

• The problem occurred on all 3 of my iOS devices (iPhone 4S & 5, and iPad 2), which were previously on iOS 7 (and before that iOS 6, and iOS5... etc.) - just as soon as I updated to iOS 8. (I went straight from iOS7 to 8.1.2).
• I could establish a VPN connection just fine - either over 3G directly, or even tethered from iPad to iPhone (bluetooth) and then over 3G. But accessing mydomain.local resources suddenly did not work... unless I used their local IP addresses manually.
• My VPN server at home is a standard Microsoft Windows Server PPTP server, and had worked flawlessly for years.
• Following advice on this forum, I simply added a new forward lookup zone called "local", accepting all of the default options in the setup wizard. Nothing more. And suddenly it's worked.

I did not need to upgrade to iOS8.2 beta, nor add any DNS/DHCP options (e.g. the '119' or the 'search domains' suggestions) that have appeared in this and similar threads.

I hope this helps others, as previous posts have helped me.

I was just looking for a fix for this .local issue as well since we've got a few iOS devices in our environment that can no longer get to our sharepoint, etc but in the meantime Running the command below in the terminal should temporarily fix the issue in Yosemite. The only problem is that it has to be reapplied every time after a reboot. I just created a script with the command below that all our Mac's run on start up. Hopefully Apple will issue an update to permanently fix this though. It's very annoying.

Yosemite temporary fix

sudo discoveryutil mdnsactivedirectory yes