'\" te
.\" Copyright (c) 1999, 2015, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights    reserved.
.TH slp 7P "24 Sep 2015" "SunOS 5.11" "Protocols"
.SH NAME
slp \- Service Location Protocol
.SH DESCRIPTION
.sp
.LP
The Service Location Protocol (\fBSLP\fR) is a dynamic service discovery protocol that runs on top of the Internet Protocol (\fBIP\fR). The protocol is specified by the \fBIETF\fR standard-track documents \fIRFC 2165\fR,  \fIRFC 2608\fR, \fIRFC 2609\fR; the \fBAPI\fR is documented in \fIRFC 2614\fR. .
.sp
.LP
There are two components to the \fBSLP\fR technology. The first is a daemon, \fBslpd\fR(1M), which coordinates \fBSLP\fR operations. The second is a software library, \fBslp_api\fR(3SLP), through which processes access a public \fBAPI\fR. Both components are configured by means of the \fBSLP\fR configuration file, \fBslp.conf\fR(4).
.sp
.LP
The \fBSLP\fR \fBAPI\fR is useful for two types of processes:
.sp
.ne 2
.mk
.na
\fBClient Applications\fR
.ad
.RS 23n
.rt  
Services and service information can be requested from the \fBAPI\fR.  Clients do not need to know the location of a required service, only the type of service, and optionally, the service characteristics.  \fBSLP\fR will supply the location and other information to the client through the \fBAPI\fR. 
.RE

.sp
.ne 2
.mk
.na
\fBServer Processes\fR
.ad
.RS 23n
.rt  
Programs that offer network services use the \fBSLP\fR \fBAPI\fR to advertise their location as well as other service information. The advertisement can optionally include attributes describing the service. Advertisements are accompanied by a lifetime; when the lifetime expires, the advertisement is flushed, unless it is refreshed prior to expiration.
.RE

.sp
.LP
\fBAPI\fR libraries are available for both the C and Java languages.
.sp
.LP
\fBSLP\fR provides the following additional features:
.RS +4
.TP
.ie t \(bu
.el o
\fBslpd\fR(1M) can be configured to function as a transparent directory agent. This feature makes \fBSLP\fR scalable to the enterprise. System administrators can configure directory agents to achieve a number of different strategies for scalability.
.RE
.RS +4
.TP
.ie t \(bu
.el o
\fBSLP\fR service advertising and discovery is performed in scopes. Unless otherwise configured, all discovery and all advertisements are in the scope \fIdefault\fR. 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.
.RE
.RS +4
.TP
.ie t \(bu
.el o
Services may be registered by proxy through a serialized registration file. This is an alternative to registering services through the \fBAPI\fR. See \fBslpd.reg\fR(4) for more information. 
.RE
.SH ATTRIBUTES
.sp
.LP
See \fBattributes\fR(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
.sp

.sp
.TS
tab() box;
cw(2.75i) |cw(2.75i) 
lw(2.75i) |lw(2.75i) 
.
ATTRIBUTE TYPEATTRIBUTE VALUE
_
Availabilityservice/network/slp
_
CSICSI-enabled
_
Interface StabilityObsolete
_
MT-LevelMT-Safe
.TE

.SH SEE ALSO
.sp
.LP
\fBslpd\fR(1M), \fBslp_api\fR(3SLP), \fBslp.conf\fR(4), \fBslpd.reg\fR(4), \fBattributes\fR(5)
.sp
.LP
Guttman, E.,  Perkins, C., Veizades, J., and Day, M., \fIRFC 2608, Service Location Protocol, Version 2\fR, The Internet Society, June 1999.
.sp
.LP
Guttman, E.,  Perkins, C., and Kempf, J., \fIRFC 2609, Service Templates and Service: Schemes\fR, The Internet Society, June 1999.
.sp
.LP
Kempf, J. and Guttman, E., \fIRFC 2614, An API for Service Location\fR, The Internet Society, June 1999.
.sp
.LP
Veizades, J., Guttman, E.,  Perkins, C., and Kaplan, S., \fIRFC 2165, Service Location Protocol\fR, Network Working Group, 1997.
.SH NOTES
.sp
.LP
This feature maybe removed in a future release of Oracle Solaris.