Manual Pages for UNIX Operating System command usage for man slp

Protocols                                                 slp(7P)



NAME
     slp - Service Location Protocol

DESCRIPTION
     The Service Location Protocol (SLP)  is  a  dynamic  service
     discovery protocol that runs on top of the Internet Protocol
     (IP). The protocol is specified by the  IETF  standard-track
     documents  RFC  2165,   RFC 2608, RFC 2609; the API is docu-
     mented in RFC 2614. .


     There are two components to the SLP technology. The first is
     a  daemon,  slpd(1M),  which coordinates SLP operations. The
     second is a software library, slp_api(3SLP),  through  which
     processes  access  a public API. Both components are config-
     ured by means of the SLP configuration file, slp.conf(4).


     The SLP API is useful for two types of processes:

     Client Applications    Services and service information  can
                            be  requested  from the API.  Clients
                            do not need to know the location of a
                            required  service,  only  the type of
                            service, and optionally, the  service
                            characteristics.  SLP will supply the
                            location and other information to the
                            client through the API.


     Server Processes       Programs that offer network  services
                            use  the  SLP  API to advertise their
                            location as  well  as  other  service
                            information.  The  advertisement  can
                            optionally     include     attributes
                            describing  the  service.  Advertise-
                            ments are accompanied by a  lifetime;
                            when the lifetime expires, the adver-
                            tisement is  flushed,  unless  it  is
                            refreshed prior to expiration.



     API  libraries  are  available  for  both  the  C  and  Java
     languages.


     SLP provides the following additional features:

         o    slpd(1M) can be configured to function as  a  tran-
              sparent  directory  agent.  This  feature makes SLP
              scalable to the enterprise.  System  administrators



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Protocols                                                 slp(7P)



              can  configure directory agents to achieve a number
              of different strategies for scalability.

         o    SLP service advertising and discovery is  performed
              in   scopes.   Unless   otherwise  configured,  all
              discovery and all advertisements are in  the  scope
              default.  In  the  case of a larger network, scopes
              can be used to group services and client systems so
              that  users will only find those services which are
              physically near them, belong to  their  department,
              or  satisfy the specified criteria.  Administrators
              can configure these  scopes  to  achieve  different
              service provider strategies.

         o    Services may be registered by proxy through a seri-
              alized registration file. This is an alternative to
              registering   services   through   the   API.   See
              slpd.reg(4) for more information.

ATTRIBUTES
     See attributes(5) for descriptions of the  following  attri-
     butes:



     ____________________________________________________________
    |       ATTRIBUTE TYPE        |       ATTRIBUTE VALUE       |
    |_____________________________|_____________________________|
    | Availability                | service/network/slp         |
    |_____________________________|_____________________________|
    | CSI                         | CSI-enabled                 |
    |_____________________________|_____________________________|
    | Interface Stability         | Standard                    |
    |_____________________________|_____________________________|
    | MT-Level                    | MT-Safe                     |
    |_____________________________|_____________________________|


SEE ALSO
     slpd(1M), slp_api(3SLP),  slp.conf(4),  slpd.reg(4),  attri-
     butes(5)


     Guttman, E.,  Perkins, C., Veizades, J., and  Day,  M.,  RFC
     2608,  Service  Location  Protocol,  Version 2, The Internet
     Society, June 1999.


     Guttman, E.,  Perkins, C., and Kempf, J., RFC 2609,  Service
     Templates  and  Service: Schemes, The Internet Society, June
     1999.




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Protocols                                                 slp(7P)



     Kempf, J. and Guttman, E., RFC  2614,  An  API  for  Service
     Location, The Internet Society, June 1999.


     Veizades, J., Guttman, E.,  Perkins, C., and Kaplan, S., RFC
     2165,  Service  Location  Protocol,  Network  Working Group,
     1997.
















































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