nowicki%rose@SUN.COM.UUCP (05/17/86)
Doesn't SUN's RPC (which I believe is in the public domain) address this issue (no pun intended)? If you say "do you seriously expect me to implement RPC and XDR just to get a port number?", I sympathize, I was only trying to find analogues for enlightenment. Yes, Sun RPC (which was posted to mod.sources and is on the 4.3BSD tape) has a service called the "Port mapper" that listens on one well known port (number 111, officially registered as SUNRPC). Other Sun RPC services register with the port mapper, and send to this port to get other services. RPC "program numbers" are 32-bit integers, which will take a while to use up. There is a map in the Yellow Pages lookup service that maps from string name to RPC program number, so you can add new protocols without compiling their numbers in programs. There also is a Yellow Pages map for finding port numbers given a string name (like the /etc/services file in 4.x BSD). -- Bill Nowicki Sun Microsystems