Can't resolve .local domains

[richmanscott]

I am using FC13 with BIND. I have a slave zone setup for my work domain. I can resolve .local FQDNs from the shell using NSLOOKUP but any .local FQDN from an application (GUI or CLI) results in "ping: unknown host". All other domains resolve fine. My guess is there is something with BIND that sees .local as an invalid domain suffix. Is there an option that I need to set/modify to force the resolution of .local entries?

[rcgreen]

.local is a special domain associated with some auto configuration
magic. Avoid it if possible.

Zero configuration networking - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[richmanscott]

Unfortunately, I cannot force my company to rename their network devices so I am stuck with the .local domain. The thing I don't understand is it was working just fine under FC12 and after upgrading to FC13, NSLOOKUP and FireFox are about the only applications that can resolve a .local address.

[rcgreen]

You may find some relief by changing the line in
/etc/nsswitch.conf from

hosts: files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4 wins

to

hosts: dns files mdns4_minimal mdns4

If your Microsoft machines are having trouble, I don't know the fix for them.