Browsersync-mDNS

Version: 1.1.0

Advertise Browsersync instances over mDNS (bonjour/zeroconf/avahi)

What it does

The Browsersync-mDNS plugin advertises the current Browsersync instance over multicast Bonjour. This makes it fast and easy to connect from other test devices regardless of dynamic IP addresses, *.local support or whatever.

Installation

$ npm install --save-dev browsersync-mdns

Basic usage

Code

Add Browsersync-mDNS to the Browsersync init block's plugins array and the instance will be advertised when Browsersync starts up.

browserSync.init({
  plugins: ["browsersync-mdns"]
});

Command Line

Include --plugins browsersync-mdns in your browsersync command:

browser-sync start -s app --plugins browsersync-mdns

Note that both Browsersync and this plugin will need to be installed globally.

Options

In most cases, Browsersync-mDNS will advertise the current instance using the name value from package.json.

To use a specific name instead, define the plugin using an object.

browserSync.init({
  plugins: [
    {
      module: "browsersync-mdns",
      options: {
        name: "Local Dev Site"
      }
    }
  ]
});

See the Browsersync plugins documentation for other plugin configuration examples.

If options.name isn't defined and a package.json file can't be found, the hostname will be used as a fallback.

Related Plugins & Tools

For browsing mDNS/Bonjour services on Android and iOS, I've been using Tomoaki Takeda's (parKhang CyungCyung's?) BonjourSearch app (Android, iOS). It's a free, barebones app that does one simple thing really well. I haven't yet found a functional equivalent for Windows.

This project was partly inspired by stephenfri's bs-console-qrcode project, which prints a QR code linking to the current Browsersync instance directly in the terminal (and browser console).

Epilogue

Bonjour / ZeroConf / mDNS / multicast DNS / Avahi / DNS-SD... Can't we just pick one name?