The /.:/cell-profile entry is an RPC profile entry that contains the default list of namespace entries to be searched by clients trying to bind to certain basic services. An RPC profile is a class of namespace entry used by the RPC NSI routines. When a client imports bindings from such an entry, it imports, through the profile, from an ordered list of RPC entries containing appropriate bindings. The list of entries is keyed by their interface Universal Unique Identifiers (UUIDs) so that only bindings to servers offering the interface sought by the client are returned. The entries listed in the profile exist independently in the namespace, and can be separately accessed in the normal way. The profile is simply a way of organizing clients' searches.
The main purpose of cell-profile is as a ''path of last resort'' for prospective clients. All other profile entries in the cell namespace are required to have the cell-profile entry in their entry lists so that if a client exhausts a particular profile's list of entries, it tries those in cell-profile.