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draft-ietf-svrloc-discovery-00.txt
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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
areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also
distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six
months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other
documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-
Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as ``work
in progress.''
To learn the current status of any Internet-Draft, please check
the ``1id-abstracts.txt'' listing contained in the Internet-
Drafts Shadow Directories on ftp.is.co.za (Africa), nic.nordu.net
(Europe), munnari.oz.au (Pacific Rim), ds.internic.net (US East
Coast), or ftp.isi.edu (US West Coast).
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
Expires 8/31/97 [Page 1]
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.
Expires 8/31/97 [Page 3]