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mDNS TUI Browser

A terminal-based mDNS service browser built with Rust, using ratatui for the TUI interface. For an alternative running as a desktop app, check out mDNS-Browser.

demo

Features

🖥️ Interactive TUI: Full terminal UI with keyboard navigation
📊 Service Details: Display IP address, port, and TXT records
🔄 Real-time Updates: Async architecture for live service discovery
📈 Live Metrics: Comprehensive ServiceDaemon and application metrics
🎛️ Service Type Filtering: Browse different service types separately
🔍 Quick Filter: Text-based search across all service fields
📋 Advanced Sorting: Sort by Host, Type, Name, Port, Address, or Time in both directions
⚙️ Custom Service Discovery: Specify service types via CLI for hard-to-discover services
💾 JSON State Dump: Export complete application state to JSON with Ctrl+J

Quick Start

cargo run

Build Release Version

cargo build --release

Install from AUR (Arch Linux)

You can install mdns-tui-browser from the Arch User Repository (AUR) using yay:

# Install using yay
yay -S mdns-tui-browser

This will install the latest version from the AUR and handle updates automatically with your regular system updates.

Install using winget on Windows

You can install mdns-tui-browser from Winget Packages using winget:

# Install using winget
winget install hrzlgnm.mdns-tui-browser

This will install the latest version from Winget Packages and handle updates automatically with your regular system updates.

CLI Options

# Show version
mdns-tui-browser --version
mdns-tui-browser -V

# Show help
mdns-tui-browser --help
mdns-tui-browser -h

# Disable debouncing of flapping services
mdns-tui-browser --no-debounce

# Browse explicit service types, instead of auto-discovery
mdns-tui-browser --service-types "_http._tcp.local.,_ssh._tcp.local."
mdns-tui-browser -s "_printer._tcp.local."

# Browse with shortened service types (auto-completed)
mdns-tui-browser -s "_http,_ssh"
mdns-tui-browser -s "http,ssh"
mdns-tui-browser -s http -s ssh

# Browse without debouncing (for debugging flapping services)
mdns-tui-browser --no-debounce

# Use specific network interfaces
mdns-tui-browser -i en0
mdns-tui-browser --interfaces en0,eth0

# Disable IPv4 or IPv6 mDNS discovery
mdns-tui-browser --no-ipv4
mdns-tui-browser --no-ipv6

# Load state from a JSON file (view-only mode, no browsing)
mdns-tui-browser --load-state state-dump.json
mdns-tui-browser -l state-dump.json

Service Types Argument (`--service-types/-s`)

Service types to browse for (e.g., http, _http._tcp, printer). Auto-completes (_)service, (_)sub, .(_)[tc|ud]p and .local. suffix.

Usage:

Can be specified multiple times
Accepts comma-separated list of mDNS service types
Auto-completes various service type formats automatically
Examples: http, _http._tcp, printer

JSON State Dump

The application can export the complete current state to a JSON file for debugging and analysis purposes, and can also load a previously exported state file for inspection.

Usage

Press Ctrl+J in the TUI to trigger a state dump. The file will be saved with an ISO timestamp filename:

20260207T120102.089898-state-dump.json

To load a previously exported state file for inspection (view-only mode, no browsing):

mdns-tui-browser --load-state state-dump.json
mdns-tui-browser -l state-dump.json

When loading a state file, no mDNS browsing is performed. The border color changes to a darker color to indicate view-only mode.

JSON Structure

The exported JSON contains comprehensive information about the current application state:

{
  "metadata": {
    "dumpTimestamp": "2026-02-07T00:40:10.950885Z",
    "applicationName": "mdns-tui-browser",
    "version": "1.11.1"
  },
  "services": [
    {
      "host": "my-device.local",
      "serviceType": "_http._tcp.local.",
      "addresses": ["192.168.1.100"],
      "port": 8080,
      "txtRecords": ["path=/api"],
      "isOnline": true,
      "createdAt": "2026-02-07T11:30:00.123456Z",
      "updatedAt": "2026-02-07T12:00:00.123456Z",
      "lastOnlineAt": "2026-02-07T12:00:00.123456Z",
      "sessionHistory": [
        {
          "startTime": "2026-02-07T00:39:53.820969Z",
          "endTime": "2026-02-07T00:39:55.869714Z"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "serviceTypes": ["_http._tcp.local.", "_ssh._tcp.local."],
  "metrics": {
    "daemon_browse": 160,
    "daemon_cache_refresh_addr": 0,
    "daemon_cache_refresh_ptr": 0,
    "daemon_cache_refresh_srv_txt": 0,
    "daemon_cached_addr": 45,
    "daemon_cached_nsec": 14,
    "daemon_cached_ptr": 74,
    "daemon_cached_srv": 42,
    "daemon_cached_subtype": 1,
    "daemon_cached_txt": 42,
    "daemon_dns_registry_active": 0,
    "daemon_dns_registry_name_change": 0,
    "daemon_dns_registry_probe": 0,
    "daemon_dns_registry_timer": 0,
    "daemon_known_answer_suppression": 0,
    "daemon_timer": 5607,
    "service_types_discovered": 31,
    "services_discovered": 38,
    "services_marked_offline": 4,
    "services_updated": 14
  },
   "filters": {
    "query": "",
    "activeServiceTypes": ["_http._tcp.local."]
  },
  "sorting": {
    "field": "Host",
    "direction": "Ascending"
  }
}

Controls

↑/↓ or j/k - Navigate services list
←/→ or h/l - Switch between service types
H/L - Page through service types
Ctrl+Home/End - Jump to first/last service type
PageUp/PageDown or b/f or Space - Scroll services list by page
Home/End - Jump to first/last service in list
s - Cycle sort field forward (Host → Type → Name → Port → Addr → Time)
S - Cycle sort field backward (Time → Addr → Port → Name → Type → Host)
o - Toggle sort direction (↑/↓)
/ - Enter quick filter mode (search across all service fields)
n - Clear current filter
d - Remove offline services
D - Clear stale service types (service types with no services)
m - Show service metrics
Ctrl+J - Dump current state to JSON file
Ctrl+Z - Suspend the application (Unix only)
? - Toggle help popup
Shift+↑/↓ or J/K - Scroll service details
q or Ctrl+c - Quit the application

Service Details Controls

Shift+↑/↓ or J/K - Scroll service details

Help Popup Controls

↑/↓ - Scroll help content
Any other key - Close help popup

Quick Filter Mode

When in filter mode (activated with /):

Enter - Apply filter
Esc - Cancel filter input
Backspace - Delete last character
Any other key - Type search text (case-insensitive)

Special Keywords

The quickfilter supports special keywords for filtering by service status:

online - Shows online services AND services containing "online" in any field (fullname, host, service type, TXT records, etc.)
offline - Shows offline services AND services containing "offline" in any field (fullname, host, service type, TXT records, etc.)
Case-insensitive: ONLINE, Online, offline, OFFLINE all work
Hybrid mode: Keywords match both by status AND text content
Combined queries: online http shows online services with "http" in text fields

Examples:

# Press '/' then type:
online              # Show online services + services with "online" in text
offline             # Show offline services + services with "offline" in text
online http         # Show online HTTP services
offline printer     # Show offline printer services
ONLINE              # Case-insensitive works
online offline      # Shows all services (both keywords present)

Architecture

The application is built with:

Rust - Systems programming language (Safe Rust only - no unsafe blocks allowed)
ratatui - Terminal UI framework
tokio - Async runtime
crossterm - Terminal handling
flume - Async channel library for communication
mdns-sd - mDNS service discovery library
clap - Command line argument parsing library
chrono - Date and time handling for local timestamp display
serde - Serialization framework for JSON export
serde_json - JSON serialization support
if-addrs - Network interface enumeration
nix - Unix system calls (signal handling for Ctrl+Z suspend)

Safety Policy

This project follows a Safe Rust Only policy:

No unsafe blocks are permitted in the codebase
All memory safety is guaranteed by Rust's compiler and runtime
The codebase is configured to reject unsafe code
This ensures maximum security and reliability for the mDNS service browser

Features

Extensible Design: Built for real mDNS service discovery

Project Structure

src/
├── main.rs       # Entry point with CLI argument handling
├── tui_app.rs    # Main TUI application logic
├── popup.rs      # Popup UI components (help, metrics)
├── scroll.rs     # Scroll state management
├── models.rs     # Data models
└── terminal.rs  # Terminal management

Building

The project uses Cargo for building:

cargo run - Run the TUI application
cargo build --release - Build optimized release version

Build Provenance

Starting from Release 1.6.0, all release assets include cryptographic build provenance attestations generated by GitHub Actions. This provides verifiable evidence that the binaries were built from the official source code repository.

What is Build Provenance?

Build provenance is a cryptographically signed attestation that answers:

Who built the binary (GitHub Actions)
What source code was used (specific commit hash)
How the binary was built (build process and environment)
When the binary was built (timestamp)

Verifying Release Assets

You can verify the authenticity of release assets using the GitHub CLI:

# Using GitHub CLI
gh attestation verify mdns-tui-browser--Linux-x86_64.tar.gz --repo hrlzgnm/mdns-tui-browser

This ensures that the binaries you download are authentic and haven't been tampered with.

Auditable Builds

Starting from Release 1.6.0, all release binaries are built with cargo-auditable, which embeds detailed dependency information directly into the executable. This provides additional security benefits:

What are Auditable Builds?

Auditable builds embed a complete dependency tree in JSON format within the binary, enabling:

Security Auditing: Scan binaries for known vulnerabilities in their dependencies
Supply Chain Transparency: Know exactly which crate versions were used
Zero Bookkeeping: No separate dependency tracking required
Production Safety: Verify that production binaries match expected dependencies

How It Works

The cargo auditable command builds your application with additional metadata:

Embeds JSON-formatted dependency information in a dedicated binary section
Typically adds less than 4KB even to large dependency trees
Works across all platforms (Linux, Windows, macOS, WebAssembly)

Auditing Release Binaries

You can audit any release binary to verify its dependencies:

# Install required tools
cargo install cargo-audit

# Extract and audit dependencies from a release binary
cargo audit bin path/to/mdns-tui-browser

Build Process

Release builds use auditable builds by default:

CI/CD builds: Use cargo auditable build --release
Development builds: Use standard cargo build --release for performance
Dependency tracking: Automatic, no manual intervention required

This ensures that every release binary can be independently verified for security compliance and supply chain integrity.

Future Enhancements

Export capabilities
Service filtering and search
Custom service type browsing
Network interface selection

License

MIT License

mDNS TUI Browser hrzlgnm

README

mDNS TUI Browser

Features

Quick Start

Build Release Version

Install from AUR (Arch Linux)

Install using winget on Windows

CLI Options

Service Types Argument (`--service-types/-s`)

JSON State Dump

Usage

JSON Structure

Controls

Service Details Controls

Help Popup Controls

Quick Filter Mode

Special Keywords

Architecture

Safety Policy

Features

Project Structure

Building

Build Provenance

What is Build Provenance?

Verifying Release Assets

Auditable Builds

What are Auditable Builds?

How It Works

Auditing Release Binaries

Build Process

Future Enhancements

License

mDNS TUI Browser hrzlgnm

README

mDNS TUI Browser

Features

Quick Start

Build Release Version

Install from AUR (Arch Linux)

Install using winget on Windows

CLI Options

Service Types Argument (--service-types/-s)

JSON State Dump

Usage

JSON Structure

Controls

Service Details Controls

Help Popup Controls

Quick Filter Mode

Special Keywords

Architecture

Safety Policy

Features

Project Structure

Building

Build Provenance

What is Build Provenance?

Verifying Release Assets

Auditable Builds

What are Auditable Builds?

How It Works

Auditing Release Binaries

Build Process

Future Enhancements

License

Service Types Argument (`--service-types/-s`)