1. A method for activating a new service in a client-server network system having a plurality of communications links, a server node with a memory therein connectable to each of the plurality of communications links by a multilayer dynamically reconfigurable network protocol stack, a service program in the server node memory, a communications directory service program in the server node memory and a networking service program in the server node memory, the method comprising the steps of: (a) storing a plurality of stack definitions in the server node memory wherein each of the plurality of stack definitions corresponds to one of the plurality of communication links and the each stack definition includes a set of layer definitions for controlling the processing of data in each layer of the multilayer network protocol stack from a transport layer through a physical layer and the interactions between layers; (b) storing in the server node memory service object class information including information for defining a data structure for holding a reference to one of the plurality of stack definitions and logic which is responsive to type and quality of service information for inserting a reference to at least one of the plurality of stack definitions into the data structure and for constructing a session layer of the multilayer network protocol stack; (c) creating a service object from the service object class information by passing in a type of service to the communications directory service and executing the logic to insert a reference to a stack definition and construct a session layer; (d) sending the service object to the networking service program; and (e) using the reference to the stack definition and the session layer in the service object to reconfigure the multilayer network protocol stack.