RFC 2327 (rfc2327) - Page 1 of 42

SDP: Session Description Protocol

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Network Working Group                                           M. Handley
Request for Comments: 2327                                     V. Jacobson
Category: Standards Track                                         ISI/LBNL
                                                                April 1998


                   SDP: Session Description Protocol

Status of this Memo

   This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
   Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
   improvements.  Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
   Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
   and status of this protocol.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1998).  All Rights Reserved.

Abstract

   This document defines the Session Description Protocol, SDP.  SDP is
   intended for describing multimedia sessions for the purposes of
   session announcement, session invitation, and other forms of
   multimedia session initiation.

   This document is a product of the Multiparty Multimedia Session
   Control (MMUSIC) working group of the Internet Engineering Task
   Force. Comments are solicited and should be addressed to the working
   group's mailing list at  and/or the authors.

1.  Introduction

   On the Internet multicast backbone (Mbone), a session directory tool
   is used to advertise multimedia conferences and communicate the
   conference addresses and conference tool-specific information
   necessary for participation.  This document defines a session
   description protocol for this purpose, and for general real-time
   multimedia session description purposes. This memo does not describe
   multicast address allocation or the distribution of SDP messages in
   detail.  These are described in accompanying memos.  SDP is not
   intended for negotiation of media encodings.








Handley & Jacobson          Standards Track
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