When to Configure Scopes

SLP can function adequately without any scope configuration whatsoever. In the Solaris operating environment, the default scope for SLP is default. If no scopes are configured, default is the scope of all SLP messages.

Configuration of scopes is suggested if any of the following apply:

1. The organizations you support want to restrict service advertisement access to their own members.

2. The physical layout of the organization you support suggests that services in a certain area be accessed by particular users.

3. Some other reason exists for partitioning the service advertisements that users are allowed to see.

An example of the first case was cited in "Deploying Scopes". An example of the second case is a situation in which an organization is spread between two buildings, and you want users in a building to access local services in that building. Users in Building 1 can be configured with the B1 scope, while users in Building 2 can be configured with the B2 scope.