NDL Service Description

This page describes the properties of the _ndl._tcp SRV service, as registered at http://www.dns-sd.org/ServiceTypes.html∞.

NDL stands for Network Description Language and the service it offers is a (mostly static) description of a network using RDF semantics. It is served on a HTTP page, and the parameters of the TXT field of the _ndl._tcp service use the same parameters as the _http._tcp service type∞.

TXT field parameters

path

Protocol Description

The Network Description Language is a language for describing networks in RDF format, and is developed by the System and Network Engineering group∞ at the Universiteit van Amsterdam and the GLIF community∞.

The language is currently described at http://www.science.uva.nl/~vdham/research/ndl/∞

Alternatives

The _ndl._tcp service type is currently not registered. The disadvantage is that it currently assumes that the NDL file is served over HTTP, while this is not explicitly specified. However, we are hestitant to include something like "type=http" as a TXT field parameter, because that is against the nature of the SRV records.

Possible alternative registrynames are:

• ndl
• ndltopo (for NDL topology, allowing for other services later)
• ndl-http (to explictly mention that is served on a HTTP server, allowing for ndl-https, ndl-ftp, etc. later on)
• ndltopo-http (the above two combined)