Aaron, .local is the proposed reserved top-level domain (TLD) for link-local addresses, to be queried by mDNS (multicast DNS) instead of "normal" DNS. AFAIK currently this is a draft which is scheduled to become an IETF RFC: http://files.multicastdns.org/draft-cheshire-dnsext-multicastdns.txt
Either don't use Avahi (which implements mDNS/DNS-SD), or use another TLD for your vmware instances. But remember that any Apple computer will have Bonjour (the original implementation of mDNS/DNS-SD) running, causing the same problems as long as you use .local for other purposes.
(Another solution might be to announce the vmware instances through mDNS of course.)
Aaron, .local is the proposed reserved top-level domain (TLD) for link-local addresses, to be queried by mDNS (multicast DNS) instead of "normal" DNS. AFAIK currently this is a draft which is scheduled to become an IETF RFC: http:// files.multicast dns.org/ draft-cheshire- dnsext- multicastdns. txt
Either don't use Avahi (which implements mDNS/DNS-SD), or use another TLD for your vmware instances. But remember that any Apple computer will have Bonjour (the original implementation of mDNS/DNS-SD) running, causing the same problems as long as you use .local for other purposes.
(Another solution might be to announce the vmware instances through mDNS of course.)