SUSE LINUX 9.3

Part III. Services / Chapter 23. SLP Services in the Network
	22.6. smpppd as Dial-up Assistant		23.2. SLP Front-Ends in SUSE LINUX

Chapter 23. SLP Services in the Network

Table of Contents

23.1. Registering Your Own Services
23.2. SLP Front-Ends in SUSE LINUX
23.3. Activating SLP
23.4. For More Information

Abstract

The service location protocol (SLP) was developed to simplify the configuration of networked clients within a local network. To configure a network client, including all required services, the administrator traditionally needs detailed knowledge of the servers available in the network. SLP makes the availability of a certain service known to all clients in the local network. Applications that support SLP can use the information distributed and be configured automatically.

SUSE LINUX supports installation using installation sources provided via SLP and contains many system services with integrated support for SLP. YaST and Konqueror both have appropriate front-ends for SLP. You can use SLP to provide networked clients with central functions, such as an installation server, YOU server, file server, or print server on your SUSE LINUX.

23.1. Registering Your Own Services

Many applications under SUSE LINUX already have integrated SLP support through the use of the libslp library. If a service has not been compiled with SLP support, use one of the following methods to make it available with SLP:

Static Registration via /etc/slp.reg.d

Create a separate registration file for each new service. The following is an example of a file for registering a scanner service:

      
## Register a saned service on this system
## en means english language
## 65535 disables the timeout, so the service registration does
## not need refreshes
service:scanner.sane://$HOSTNAME:6566,en,65535
watch-port-tcp=6566
description=SANE scanner daemon

The most important line in this file is the service URL, which begins with service:. This contains the service type (scanner.sane) and the address under which the service is available on the server. $HOSTNAME is automatically replaced with the full hostname. The name of the TCP port on which the relevant service can be found follows, separated by a colon. Then enter the language in which the service should appear and the duration of registration in seconds. These should be separated from the service URL by commas. Set the value for the duration of registration between 0 and 65535. 0 prevents registration. 65535 removes all restrictions.

The registration file also contains the two variables watch-tcp-port and description. The former links the SLP service announcement to whether the relevant service is active (slpd checks the status of the service). The second variable contains a more precise description of the service that is displayed in suitable browsers.

Static Registration with /etc/slp.reg

The only difference from the procedure described above is the grouping of all services within a central file.

Dynamic Registration with slptool

If a service should be registered for SLP from proprietary scripts, use the slptool command line front-end.