Getting more information

注释:RFC:REQUEST FOR COMMENTS

是一种对互联网协议的约定。最早是由JON POSTEL等人完成完成的。比如对协议所处理的数据结构,数据流的格式,端口的分配, 错误处理,等等。你可以在www.internic.net 初步了解一下这个文档。在ftp://ds.internic.net找到文档全文。


Copyright (C) 1987, Charles L. Hedrick. Anyone may reproduce this document, in whole or in part, provided that: (1) any copy or republication of the entire document must show Rutgers University as the source, and must include this notice; and (2) any other use of this material must reference this manual and Rutgers University, and the fact that the material is copyright by Charles Hedrick and is used by permission.

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  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    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.

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

Note that SRI-NIC has the entire set of RFC's and IEN's, but rutgers and topaz have only those specifically mentioned above.