When trying to install sun-java6-jdk on a Debian server (Lenny), I noticed that it automatically installs libnss-mdns as well as avahi-daemon. I’ve got no idea why it would do that as Avahi is the free implementation of Apple’s zeroconf which allows automatic detection of local network devices. On my Debian server it managed to interrupt DNS resolution with local hosts (using a .local address).

To install Java without Avahi I used the following command:

aptitude install --without-recommends sun-java6-jdk

Java seems to be happy without avahi