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.

• Features
• Quick Start
  • Build Release Version
  • Install from AUR
  • Install using Homebrew
  • Install using winget
  • Install using snap
  • CLI Options
• JSON State Dump
• Controls
• Architecture
• Project Structure
• Building
• Build Provenance
• Auditable Builds
• Immutable releases
• Future Enhancements
• License

• 🖥️ 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

cargo run

cargo build --release

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.

You can install mdns-tui-browser via Homebrew:

# Tap the repository first
brew tap hrzlgnm/tap
brew install --cask mdns-tui-browser

Or install directly without tapping:

brew install --cask hrzlgnm/tap/mdns-tui-browser

This will install the latest version from the Homebrew tap and handle updates automatically with brew upgrade.

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.

You can install mdns-tui-browser from Snapcraft using snap:

# Install using snap
sudo snap install mdns-tui-browser

This will install the latest version from the snap store and handle updates automatically with snap refresh.

You can find the package on the Snapcraft store.

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

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

# 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

# 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 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

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.

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.

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"
  }
}

• ↑/↓ 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
• Enter - Open service URL in browser (_http._tcp or URL from TXT)
• 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)
• a - Add new service type to browse
• 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

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

• ↑/↓ - Scroll help content
• r - Open release notes in browser
• Any other key - Close help popup

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)

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.)
• flapping - Shows services that are flapping (detected based on session history - at least 3 sessions with at least half shorter than 5 minutes)
• Case-insensitive: ONLINE, Online, offline, OFFLINE, FLAPPING, Flapping 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
flapping            # Show flapping services
online http         # Show online HTTP services
offline printer     # Show offline printer services
online flapping     # Show services that are both online AND flapping
online offline      # Shows all services (both keywords present)

When in add service type mode (activated with a):

• Enter - Add the service type and start browsing
• Esc - Cancel input
• Backspace - Delete last character
• Any other key - Type service type name

The service type is automatically normalized (e.g., http becomes _http._tcp.local.).

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)
• open - Cross-platform library to open URLs in the browser
• url - URL parsing and validation for URL extraction from TXT records

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

• Extensible Design: Built for real mDNS service discovery

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

The project uses Cargo for building:

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

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