Linksys WMP54GS, ndiswrapper, and mDNS

[Chris Farber]

Hello all,

I've recently put some effort into getting Ubuntu working with  
multicast DNS to make my life a bit easier (no more mucking with /etc/ 
hosts). Before I continue, I'll provide a synopsis of my network:

All three computers connect to each other and the internet via a  
wireless network provided by my OpenWRT-flashed Linksys WRT54GL. The  
first computer (tourian) is an Ubuntu 6.06 based file-server and  
processing station connected to the wireless network via a Linksys  
WMP54GS controlled by ndiswrapper. The second and third computers are  
an iMac) and PowerBook running OS X Tiger.

I was able to get libnss to use mDNS pretty quickly and had no  
trouble looking up the other machines' hostnames. The reverse was not  
true, however; I could not lookup tourian from the other machines  
(local lookups did work) whether using Avahi or Apple's own  
mDNSResponder. I suspected it was a multicast issue, and indeed it  
was. Upon connecting the PowerBook directly via ethernet, I had no  
issues resolving tourian via mDNS.

This narrows down the issue to one thing: linux is not receiving  
multicast broadcasts from the wireless network.

I'm caught in a predicament here, as wiring the machine to the router  
is not possible and using the bcm43xx driver (assuming that would do  
the trick) is infeasible because of the limited 11Mbit/s transfer  
rate, and yet I would really like to see mDNS working.

I'd greatly appreciate any information or tips regarding this issue.

Chris