Cannot reach a .local domain without setting an option with discoveryutil

Solution 1:

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Linc Davis

The "local" TLD is reserved for Bonjour. The restriction was not enforced in older versions of OS X, but it is in Yosemite. Unicast domain names with that TLD will not resolve by default. To make your configuration change permanent (not recommended), create your own launch daemon. Don't modify an existing one. See the launchd.plist(5) man page for details. A much better solution would be to change the domain name.

There is a wikipedia article on the .local domain which does state:

Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standards-track RFC 6762, which has been approved and was officially published on February 20, 2013, essentially reserves the use of .local as a pseudo-TLD for link-local hostnames that can be resolved via the Multicast DNS name resolution protocol.

So, the answer is that I should not be using .local in the way I am currently using it in order to comply with current standards.