dpowles@CCD.BBN.COM ("Drew M. Powles") (07/21/87)
Does anyone out there have an implementation of, or at least any experience with, the Resource Location Protocol, as described in RFC 887, dated December 1983? thanks for the help. Drew M. Powles BBN Communication dpowles@ccd.bbn.com
PAP4@AI.AI.MIT.EDU ("Philip A. Prindeville") (07/27/87)
Yes, I wrote an RLP server for the FTP Software, Inc. `PC/TCP' package. I spoke to Mike Acceta when I wrote it, and apparently, we are the only implementors of it. It hasn't proved very popular. One extension we discussed was to add unsolicited <I-Provide> packets for (non-RLP) servers wishing to advertise their services. For instance, a domain name server might send out a periodic broadcast "<who-provides> RLP" query, then send to the servers from that answer a message "<I-provide> DOMAIN" reply. The servers that strictly follow the spec will discard this as being a bogus packet (and hopefully not crash); a smart server might save this info and use it later. I like the protocol. I'm suprised it hasn't been accepted. It's not Clearinghouse, but then it didn't try to be. When I have some time, I will do an implementation for 4.3BSD... It would be really neat if (on UNIX) you didn't need /etc/printcap to list all the various local printers, but could use RLP to locate a printer with suitable qualities... Real Soon Now. -Philip