Overview

The Home Network Administration Protocol (HNAP) is an HTTP-Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)-based protocol that can be implemented inside of network devices to allow advanced programmatic configuration and management by remote entities. By implementing HNAP, network equipment manufacturers can better identify their devices and provide improved, more cost effective support. Using HNAP, manufacturers can display custom, device-specific information and tasks in applications that use HNAP in device discovery and management.

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A typical client server interaction begins when a client has discovered an HNAP server on a network. It issues an HNAP discovery command in order to determine the capabilities of the device. A client then proceeds to make one or more HNAP requests to the server, which performs the desired action and returns the response. 

References

• https://www.cisco.com/web/partners/downloads/guest/hnap_protocol_whitepaper.pdf