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, slpapi(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
SunOS 5.11 Last change: 17 Nov 1999 1
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.
ATRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attri-
butes:
ATRIBUTE TYPE ATRIBUTE VALUE
Availability SUNWslpu
CSI CSI-enabled
Interface Stability Standard
MT-Level MT-Safe
SEE ALSO
slpd(1M), slpapi(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.
SunOS 5.11 Last change: 17 Nov 1999 2
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.
SunOS 5.11 Last change: 17 Nov 1999 3
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