Getting more information

This directory contains documents describing the major protocols. There are literally hundreds of documents, so we have chosen the ones that seem most important. Internet standards are called RFC's. RFC stands for Request for Comment. A proposed standard is initially issued as a proposal, and given an RFC number. When it is finally accepted, it is added to Official Internet Protocols, but it is still referred to by the RFC number. We have also included two IEN's. (IEN's are an older form of RFC.) The convention is that whenever an RFC is revised, the revised version gets a new number. This is fine for most purposes, but it causes problems with two documents: Assigned Numbers and Official Internet Protocols. These documents are being revised all the time, so the RFC number keeps changing. You will have to look in rfc-index.txt to find the number of the latest edition. Anyone who is seriously interested in TCP/IP should read the RFC describing IP (791). RFC 1009 is also useful. It is a specification for gateways to be used by NSFnet. As such, it contains an overview of a lot of the TCP/IP technology. You should probably also read the description of at least one of the application protocols, just to get a feel for the way things work. Mail is probably a good one (821/822). TCP (793) is of course a very basic specification. However the spec is fairly complex, so you should only read this when you have the time and patience to think about it carefully. Fortunately, the author of the major RFC's (Jon Postel) is a very good writer. The TCP RFC is far easier to read than you would expect, given the complexity of what it is describing. You can look at the other RFC's as you become curious about their subject matter.

Here is a list of the documents you are more likely to want:

rfc-index

list of all RFC's

rfc1012

somewhat fuller list of all RFC's

rfc1011

Official Protocols. It's useful to scan this to see what tasks protocols have been built for. This defines which RFC's are actual standards, as opposed to requests for comments.

rfc1010

Assigned Numbers. If you are working with TCP/IP, you will probably want a hardcopy of this as a reference. It's not very exciting to read. It lists all the offically defined well-known ports and lots of other things.

rfc1009

NSFnet gateway specifications. A good overview of IP routing and gateway technology.

rfc973

update on domains

rfc959

FTP (file transfer)

rfc950

subnets

rfc894

how IP is to be put on Ethernet, see also rfc825

rfc882/3

domains (the database used to go from host names to Internet address and back -- also used to handle UUCP these days). See also rfc973

rfc854/5

telnet - protocol for remote logins

rfc826

ARP - protocol for finding out Ethernet addresses

rfc821/2

mail

rfc814

names and ports - general concepts behind well-known ports

rfc793

TCP

rfc792

ICMP

rfc791

IP

rfc768

UDP

rip.doc

details of the most commonly-used routing protocol

ien-116

old name server (still needed by several kinds of system)

ien-48

the Catenet model, general description of the philosophy behind TCP/IP

The following documents are somewhat more specialized.

rfc813

window and acknowledgement strategies in TCP

rfc815

packet reassembly techniques

rfc816

fault isolation and resolution techniques

rfc817

modularity and efficiency in implementation

rfc879

the maximum segment size option in TCP

rfc896

congestion control

rfc827,888,904,975,985

EGP

To those of you who may be reading this document remotely instead of at Rutgers: The most important RFC's have been collected into a three-volume set, the DDN Protocol Handbook. It is available from the DDN Network Information Center, SRI International, 333 Ravenswood Avenue, Menlo Park, California 94025 (telephone: 800-235-3155). You should be able to get them via anonymous FTP from sri-nic.arpa. File names are:

  RFC's:
    rfc:rfc-index.txt
    rfc:rfcxxx.txt
  IEN's:
    ien:ien-index.txt
    ien:ien-xxx.txt

rip.doc is available by anonymous FTP from topaz.rutgers.edu, as /pub/tcp-ip-docs/rip.doc.

Sites with access to UUCP but not FTP may be able to retreive them via UUCP from UUCP host rutgers. The file names would be

  RFC's:
    /topaz/pub/pub/tcp-ip-docs/rfc-index.txt
    /topaz/pub/pub/tcp-ip-docs/rfcxxx.txt
  IEN's:
    /topaz/pub/pub/tcp-ip-docs/ien-index.txt
    /topaz/pub/pub/tcp-ip-docs/ien-xxx.txt
    /topaz/pub/pub/tcp-ip-docs/rip.doc