Subject: Re: SLP Interoperability Test

From: Erik Guttman <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 15:08:42 +0100

> Kashaf Khan wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> Are the results of the test public?
> 
> kashaf khan
> BT Laboratories
> [email-masked]

We've had 4 interoperability tests:

Oct 1996 (Palo Alto, CA)

   Sun, ENST Paris, IBM, Linux
DA  x                      x
SA  x      x         x     x
UA  x      x         x     x

Dec 1996 (Palo Alto, CA)

   Sun, Novell, Linux
DA  x     x       x
SA  x     x       x
UA  x     x       x

Jun 1997 (Menlo Park, CA)

   Sun, Novell, Linux, Cisco
DA  x     x       x
SA  x     x       x      x
UA  x     x       x      x

Mar 1998 ('El Nino' Connectathon)

   Sun, Axis, IBM
DA  x          
SA  x    x     x
UA  x          x

In each case we got the following features 
working for all implementations:  

1  DA discover (active & passive)
2  Register with DAs (if they have the right scope)
3  Query DAs when present (if they have the right scope)
4  SAs respond to service requests (depending on type, 
   scope, language and query)
5  DAs respond to service requests correctly, as above
6  Previous responders lists work correctly

We have had limited interoperability for the following other
features:

SLPv1 (Novell and Sun interoperate):
1  Attribute requests (all features)
2  Service Type requests (all features)

SLPv2 (Axis and Sun interoperate):
1  Attribute requests, with & without tag lists, by service 
   instance & service type

The following features of SLPv1 were never fully interoperable:
1  Character encodings other than ASCII
2  Unscoped DA behavior
3  Use of the 'fresh' bit for reregistration in SLPv1

Other features requiring interoperability testing:
1  SLP authentication
2  SLP extensions
3  Incremental registration with SLPv2 (using the fresh bit)
4  Consistent operation using DHCP for SLP configuration

Features various implementors would like to see dropped from
SLPv2 for moving forward to proposed standard:

1  Simplify query handling requirements
   - drop wildcards in queries
   - drop typed attributes (support only string types)
   - drop support for arbitrary LDAPv3 search filters:
     Handle only conjunctions (&(a=b)(c=d)(e=f)) or just (a=b) 
     Especially:  Drop support for '!' (not operator).

2  Drop attribute request 'by type'

More interoperability testing is needed, since there are many
more vendors with SLP supporting products than have participated
in testing and several 'resesarch' implementations which have
been developed at Universities.  Moving to draft standard will
require more extensive and formalized interoperability testing.

Erik