Considerations When Configuring Scopes

By modifying 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 will automatically discover available DAs and scopes through slpd, which uses active and passive DA discovery to find DAs, or through SA discovery if no DAs are running. On the other hand, if the property is configured, UAs will use only the configured scopes and 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 will be unable to find them, 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 supported by the configured DAs are the same as the scopes that you have configured with the net.slp.useScopes property. If this is not the case, slpd prints an error message when it is restarted.