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 used to be a separate classification for more informal documents. This classification no longer exists – RFC's are now used for all official Internet documents, and a mailing list is used for more informal reports.) 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. |
| RFC1001/2 | NetBIOS: networking for PC's |
| RFC973 | Update on domains |
| RFC959 | FTP (file transfer) |
| RFC950 | Subnets |
| RFC937 | POP2: protocol for reading mail on PC's |
| 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 | |
| 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 | Datagram 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 and related issues |
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.
Note that SRI-NIC has the entire set of RFC's and IEN's, but rutgers and topaz have only those specifically mentioned above.