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    The .local pseudo-TLD is often used for this purpose, in the absence of a globally registered zone (domain) name. It isn't officially reserved, but should be "good enough" for most purposes. For additional collision resistance, add a second level domain making a fully qualified host name something like tv.dougs-home.local. Commented Apr 10, 2013 at 12:29
  • @MichaelKjörling my only reservation in using mDNS is that not everything supports it. I could configure Avahi on the *nix boxes, and most of us use OS X, but as near as I can remember (it's been a while) Windows doesn't do Zeroconf/mDNS unless you install a bunch of Bonjour stuff. Unless you were just suggesting that I do regular DNS but use that as my TLD, in which case that's a pretty good idea I suppose, haha. Commented Apr 10, 2013 at 12:36
  • I didn't say anything about mDNS. Commented Apr 10, 2013 at 12:36
  • @MichaelKjörling I know, but when most people talk to me about .local it usually turns out that they're talking about it as it works on OS X or other systems set up for mDNS since that's where it's typically used. I still should have thought of it though. Thanks for the clarification. Commented Apr 10, 2013 at 12:38
  • You shouldn't use .local unless you're using mDNS. I used to use .local for my home LAN; then I got a laptop supporting mDNS and things didn't work right. Now I use .lan.example.com (with a domain I registered instead of example.com). Commented Apr 10, 2013 at 14:26