Editing Extensible Provisioning Protocol (section)

{{Short description|Computer network protocol}}
{{Infobox networking protocol
| title        = Extensible Provisioning Protocol
| is stack     = no
| abbreviation = EPP
| purpose      = Automated domain name transactions like registrations and renewals
| developer    = Scott Hollenbeck, [[Internet Engineering Task Force]] (IETF)
| date         = {{Start date and age|2009}}
| osilayer     = [[Application layer]]
| ports        = 700
| rfcs         = {{IETF RFC|5730|5731|5732|5733|5734}}
}}

The '''Extensible Provisioning Protocol''' ('''EPP''') is a flexible protocol designed for allocating objects within registries over the [[Internet]]. The motivation for the creation of EPP was to create a robust and flexible protocol that could provide communication between [[domain name registry|domain name registries]] and [[domain name registrar]]s. These transactions are required whenever a [[domain name]] is registered or renewed, thereby also preventing [[domain hijacking]]. Before its introduction, registries had no uniform approach, and many different proprietary interfaces existed. While its use for domain names was the initial driver, the protocol is designed to be usable for any kind of ordering and fulfillment system.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Hollenbeck |first=S. |date=August 2009 |title=Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) |url=https://doi.org/10.17487/RFC5730 |language=en |doi=10.17487/RFC5730 |issn=2070-1721 |doi-access=free}}</ref>

EPP is based on [[XML]] - a structured, text-based format. The underlying network transport is not fixed, although the only currently specified method is over [[Transmission Control Protocol|TCP]]. The protocol has been designed with the flexibility to allow it to use other transports such as [[BEEP]], [[SMTP]], [[SOAP]] or [[HTTPS]].<ref name=":0" /> However only HTTPS has seen some usage while the vast majority uses TCP.