The new features of Open Transport include:
- Implementation of the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) will be improved to support a number of requested features, including Client Identification, retention of the lease on a given IP address across boots, improvement of user feedback in the event that the DHCP server is unavailable, display of the time remaining on a lease, allowing the user to "re-lease" an address, support of RFC 2131, and provision of an API to allow third-party-developers to access DHCP fields unused by Open Transport.
- Support for the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). SNMP allows network managers to administer services, configure devices, and monitor usage on complex, multivendor networks. Apple has selected the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) to meet this customer requirement. SNMP is an industry-standard protocol for network management defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).
- Program-to-Program Communications, and particularly AppleEvents, which to date have been available only over AppleTalk protocols, supported over TCP/IP.
- Multilink multihoming, the capability of running several network interfaces simultaneously with potentially several network addresses on each interface, is implemented for TCP/IP protocols. Note that this capability requires software to take advantage of it (such as a web server or other server software).
- Apple Remote Access 3.1 replaces OT/PPP as part of the system release.
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