Considerations When Configuring Scopes

When you modify the net.slp.useScopes property in the slpd.conf file, you configure scopes for all agents on the host. If the host is running any SAs or is acting as a DA, you must configure this property if you want to configure the SAs or DA into scopes other than default. If only UAs are running on the machine and the UAs should discover SAs and DAs supporting scopes other than default, you do not need to configure the property unless you want to restrict the scopes the UAs use. If the property is not configured, UAs can automatically discover available DAs and scopes through slpd. The SLP daemon uses active and passive DA discovery to find DAs, or it uses SA discovery if no DAs are running. Alternatively, if the property is configured, UAs use only the configured scopes and do not discard them.

If you decide to configure scopes, you should consider keeping the default scope on the list of configured scopes unless you are sure that all SAs in the network have scopes configured. If any SAs are left unconfigured, UAs with configured scopes are unable to find them. This situation occurs because the unconfigured SAs automatically have scope default, but the UAs have the configured scopes.

If you also decide to configure DAs by setting the net.slp.DAAddresses property, be sure that the scopes that are supported by the configured DAs are the same as the scopes that you have configured with the net.slp.useScopes property. If the scopes are different, slpd prints an error message when it is restarted.