Configuring NetWare 6 to Use SLPv2

Test Objective Covered:

3. Configure NetWare 6 to use SLPv2.

As you are cruising Novell's information superhighway, you need an electronic GPS system to help you find your way. Fortunately, Novell has such a system and it's called Service Location Protocol (SLP). SLP is a standard TCP/IP protocol that enables clients to automatically discover the existence and location of services on your IP network. In short, it's an electronic guide to all of the gas stations, restaurants, and off-ramps on your information superhighway.

In the past, NetWare used the Service Advertising Protocol (SAP) method of discovering network services. In NetWare 5, Novell introduced SLPv1 along with native IP support. In NetWare 6, Novell introduces SLPv2 the enhanced big brother of SLPv1.

Functionally, the Novell implementation of SLPv2 is not too different from SLPv1. However, SLPv2 in NetWare 6 does provide two significant enhancements: scalability and scope administration. From a scalability perspective, SLPv2 supports much larger data packets (24 bits), which means that more service location information can be shared between the various SLP components. In contrast, the SLPv1 protocol definition only allowed for a small amount of service information in the data portion of each packet (about 16 bits). This scalability improvement enables both small and large networks to easily implement SLP, and it decreases potential service location problems.

In addition, SLPv2 provides much more flexible scope administration. Specifically, SLPv2 enables administrators to configure how Service and User Agents communicate with each other when no Directory Agent is available. This provisioning eliminates excess SLP network traffic and improves bandwidth utilization. In contrast, SLPv1 forced these communications to occur on a much larger scope, which caused communication delays.

TIP

The good news is that Novell's implementation of SLPv2 services both SLPv1 and SLPv2 packets. This is beneficial because you can implement SLPv2 on an SLPv1 network while you migrate the protocol to pure SLPv2. Furthermore, SLPv1 provides full backward compatibility with IPX-based network services and with applications that rely on the older SAP method of discovery.

In this lesson, we will learn how to configure NetWare 6 to use SLPv2 by studying the following two sections:

• SLPv2 Overview We will explore the five different Name Service Providers included with NetWare 6 and then focus in on SLP as the preferred method. Then we will study the three main components of SLPv2 architecture and learn how they communicate with each other to identify and locate available services on the network.

• SLPv2 Configuration Once we understand the fundamentals of SLPv2, we will dive into directory, client, and server configuration. In this section, we will use SLPDA to configure the directory at the server console, Novell Client Properties at the workstation, and SET commands at the server.

Now it's time to enable your electronic GPS and discover SLPv2 starting with the fundamentals.