One document matched: draft-ietf-svrloc-discovery-00.txt

Internet-Draft                                                Ryan Moats
draft-ietf-svrloc-discovery-00.txt                                  AT&T
Expires in six months                                    Martin Hamilton
                                                 Loughborough University
                                                           February 1997


                             Finding Stuff
                       (How to discover services)
              Filename: draft-ietf-svrloc-discovery-00.txt


Status of This Memo

      This document is an Internet-Draft.  Internet-Drafts are working
      documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its
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Abstract

   This document proposes a solution to the problem of finding
   information about that services are being offered at a particular
   Internet domain.  Therefore, it is possible for clients, using this
   approach, to located services in a domain with only prior knowledge
   of the domain name.

1. Rationale

   Currently, there is no one single way of discovering the network
   services and application protocols supported at a particular Internet
   domain.  The Domain Name System (DNS - [1,2]) provides some basic
   facilities for finding the hosts that offer particular services, such
   as DNS servers themselves (NS records), and mail exchangers (MX
   records).  However, neither mechanisms for locating arbitrary servers



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INTERNET DRAFT               Finding Stuff                 February 1997


   of arbitrary protocols nor search capabilities are provided.  By
   following the simple process proposed here, this lack can be avoided.

2. The process

   Once a domain name has been determined, clients that want to locate
   services in that domain should follow the following three step
   process:

   1. Look for SRV records (see [1]) in DNS associated with a service.
   2. Look for common aliases (see [2]) in DNS.
   3. Look for "service:" URLs in DNS. (see [3] and [4]).

   If a DNS lookup in steps 1 and 2 provides "service:" URL information
   as "Additional Information," then step 3 may be skipped.

3. Security Considerations

   There are no additional security considerations beyond those
   naturally inherent in the DNS introduced by this draft.

4. Conclusion

   By following the above process, a client may be reasonably certain of
   determining whether a particular service is provided for a particular
   domain name, given the domain name.

5. Acknowledgments

   This document is partially supported by the National Science
   Foundation, Cooperative Agreement NCR-9218179, the UK Electronic
   Libraries Programme (eLib) grant 12/39/01, and the European
   Commission's Telematics for Research Programme grant RE 1004.

6. References

   Request For Comments (RFC) and Internet Draft documents are available
   from <URL:ftp://ftp.internic.net> and numerous mirror sites.

         [1]         A. Gulbrandsen, P. Vixie, "A DNS RR for specifying
                     the location of services (DNS SRV)," RFC 2052,
                     October 1996.


         [2]         M. Hamilton, R. Wright,  "Use of DNS Aliases for
                     Network Services," Internet Draft (work in pro-
                     gress), June 1996.




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INTERNET DRAFT               Finding Stuff                 February 1997


         [3]         R. Moats, M. Hamilton, "Advertising Services,"
                     Internet Draft (work in progress), February 1997.


         [4]         E. Guttman, "The service: URL Scheme," Internet
                     Draft (work in progress), November 1996.

7. Authors' addresses

   Ryan Moats
   AT&T
   15621 Drexel Circle
   Omaha, NE 68135-2358
   USA

   Phone:  +1 402 894-9456
   EMail:  jayhawk@ds.internic.net


   Martin Hamilton
   Department of Computer Studies
   Loughborough University of Technology
   Leics. LE11 3TU, UK

   Email:  m.t.hamilton@lut.ac.uk


                 This Internet Draft expires May 19, 1997.























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