Discovery Plugin

Added in version 1.2.0.

The OctoPrint Discovery Plugin comes bundled with OctoPrint.

It allows discovery of the OctoPrint instances via SSDP/UPNP and ZeroConf (also known as Bonjour or Avahi).

The SSDP/UPNP support allows OctoPrint to announce itself to machines on the same network running Microsoft Windows. You will be able to just double click on the OctoPrint instance icon in “Networks > Other Devices” in your Windows Explorer, which will take you directly to the web frontend.

The ZeroConf support allows OctoPrint to announce itself to Safari on macOS on the same network.

Linux users should install Avahi and can then use one of the various Avahi browsers (e.g. avahi-browse for the command line) to scan for available instances.

OctoPrint instances in Windows Explorer

Fig. 16 Various discovered OctoPrint instances in Windows Explorer

Configuring the plugin

The plugin supports the following configuration keys:

  • addresses: List of IP addresses for which to enable discovery, if unset all addresses available on the host will be used

  • interfaces: List of network interfaces for which to enable discovery, if unset all interfaces on the host will be used

  • publicPort: Public port number OctoPrint is reachable under, optional, if not set the port OctoPrint itself was started under will be used

  • pathPrefix: Path prefix OctoPrint is running under, optional, if not set / will be used

  • useSsl: true if OctoPrint should be called via HTTPS, false otherwise

  • httpUsername: HTTP Basic Auth username OctoPrint is reachable with, optional

  • httpPassword: HTTP Basic Auth password OctoPrint is reachable with, optional

  • upnpUuid: uPNP UUID used for SSDP service announcements, usually you will not have to touch this, will be autogenerated if not set

  • zeroConf: A list of additional services to announce via ZeroConf, optional, see below.

  • model:

    • name: Name of the device model OctoPrint is running on, optional

    • description: Description of the device model OctoPrint is running on, optional, used only for SSDP

    • number: Model number of the device OctoPrint is running on, optional, used only for SSDP

    • url: URL with further details about the device OctoPrint is running on, optional, used only for SSDP

    • serial: Serial number of the device OctoPrint is running on, optional, used only for SSDP

    • vendor: Vendor of the device OctoPrint is running on, optional

    • vendorUrl: URL with further details about the vendor of the device OctoPrint is running on, optional, used only for SSDP

Further ZeroConf Services

The configuration also allows specifying additional ZeroConf service OctoPrint should announce itself as. Each entry supports the following fields:

  • service: The service to announce, this is the only obligatory field

  • name: The name to announce, defaults to the OctoPrint instance name if not supplied

  • port: The port to announce, defaults to the OctoPrint was started under if not supplied

  • txt_record: The TXT record to publish with the DNS-SD record, should be a map of keys and associated values.

Example

The following snippet is a valid configuration example for the discovery plugin in OctoPrint’s config.yaml:

plugins:
  discovery:
    interfaces:
    - eth0
    publicPort: 443
    useSsl: true
    zeroConf:
    - service: _someservice._tcp
      port: 1234
      txt_record:
        field1: value1
        field2: value2
    model:
      name: Some Model
      vendor: Some Vendor

Announced Services

ZeroConf Service _http._tcp

OctoPrint will announce itself on the network via ZeroConf as service _http._tcp, with the TXT record containing the standard fields.

See also this documentation of _http._tcp TXT records for more information.

ZeroConf Service _octoprint._tcp

OctoPrint will announce itself on the network via ZeroConf as service _octoprint._tcp. The TXT record may contain the following fields:

  • path: path prefix to actual OctoPrint instance, inherited from _http._tcp

  • u: username if HTTP Basic Auth is used, optional, inherited from _http._tcp

  • p: password if HTTP Basic Auth is used, optional, inherited from _http._tcp

  • version: OctoPrint software version

  • api: OctoPrint API version

  • model: Model of the device that is running OctoPrint, optional

  • vendor: Vendor of the device that is running OctoPrint, optional

Clients should construct the full path to the OctoPrint instance from this information following this scheme:

http://[u[:p]@]host:port[path]

See also this documentation of _http._tcp TXT records for more information.

Source code

The source of the Discovery plugin is bundled with OctoPrint and can be found in its source repository under src/octoprint/plugins/discovery.