Editing Extensible Provisioning Protocol (section)

== Protocol commands ==
There are three classes of commands: Session management, query, and object transform. These commands can then be mapped onto objects, which specifies their exact functionality.<ref name=":0" /> The most common standardized objects are hosts,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Hollenbeck |first=S. |date=August 2009 |title=Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) Host Mapping |url=https://doi.org/10.17487/RFC5732 |language=en |doi=10.17487/RFC5732 |issn=2070-1721 |doi-access=free }}</ref> contacts<ref>{{Cite web |last=Hollenbeck |first=S. |date=August 2009 |title=Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) Contact Mapping |url=https://doi.org/10.17487/RFC5733 |language=en |doi=10.17487/RFC5733 |issn=2070-1721 |doi-access=free }}</ref> and domains.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |last=Hollenbeck |first=S. |date=August 2009 |title=Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) Domain Name Mapping |url=https://doi.org/10.17487/RFC5731 |language=en |doi=10.17487/RFC5731 |issn=2070-1721 |doi-access=free}}</ref> There are also other standardized objects like organizations,<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Zhou |first1=L. |last2=Kong |first2=N. |last3=Yao |first3=J. |last4=Gould |first4=J. |last5=Zhou |first5=G. |date=March 2019 |title=Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) Organization Mapping |url=https://doi.org/10.17487/RFC8543 |language=en |doi=10.17487/RFC8543 |s2cid=65065583 |issn=2070-1721 |doi-access=free}}</ref> however they are rarely used.

When the client connects to a server, the server immediately sends a "greeting" message to the client. This message contains information about the server that the client needs to connect to. This contains the name of the server, the server's current date and time in UTC, the supported features, and a privacy policy. The supported features include EPP versions, languages, objects, and extensions.<ref name=":0" />

The session management commands are:<ref name=":0" />
{| class="wikitable"
!Command
!Usage
|-
|hello
|Request another "greeting" response from the server.
|-
|login
|Start a new session that will be kept open until either logout is used or the server logs out the user. Also used to change the password. The client has to choose one EPP version and one language from the "greeting" message on login. It also has to select all objects and extensions that the server supports and wants to use in this session.
|-
|logout
|End the current session.
|}
The query commands are:<ref name=":0" />
{| class="wikitable"
!Command
!Usage
|-
|check
|Check whether an object is still available to create.
|-
|info
|Get all the current information about an object.
|-
|poll
|Read a message from the server for the user or acknowledge receipt, thereby deleting it to receive the next message. ([[Message queue|Message Queue]])
|-
|transfer
|Get the current status of a started object transfer process.
|}
The object transform commands are:<ref name=":0" />
{| class="wikitable"
!Command
!Usage
|-
|create
|Create a new object.
|-
|delete
|Delete the object. Hosts and Contacts are deleted immediately, while domains mainly change into a [[Redemption Grace Period|redemption grace period]].
|-
|renew
|Increase the amount of time the domain name is registered. Not available for objects other than domains as these don't have a lifetime.
|-
|transfer
|Change the registrar/owner of the object. Can be used to start an incoming transfer process or cancel it as well as to approve or reject an outgoing transfer.
|-
|update
|Update the object. This generally includes domain owner changes, although these are often implemented via EPP extensions because of a more complex workflow for these operations depending on the TLD.
|}