RFC 388
NCP statistics
NCP Statistics ✨
- RFC 388 🎀 Network Measurement Note #8
- Network Working Group
- Author: V. Cerf, UCLA-NMC
- Date: 23 August 1972
- Obsoletes: RFC 323
- NIC: 11360
Okay so it's been 5 months since RFC 323 dropped (23 March), and bestie, UCLA-NMC is finally ready to gather your NCP statistics automatically, every single day! 💖 The results get published monthly as Network Measurement notes and as RFCs. We'll be periodically opening a connection on your local socket @241 (decimal), and we expect you to send the following data in this format 🧚:
Pages 3-5 of RFC 323 get copied in right here 🙈:
<duplicate pages 3-5 of RFC 323 here>- a. Total bits sent to HOST
- b. Total bits received from HOST
- c. Total messages sent to HOST
- d. Total messages received from HOST and optionally
- e. Average Round Trip delay on send connections to HOST
So the stats should only be collected for standard open connections (the ones using standard NCP protocol) 💅. NOT measurement links, NOT experimental NCP links, and absolutely NOT traffic on link 0. 🙅♀️
Another optional measurement is gathering the distribution of message types over link 0 across all HOSTS (not broken down by HOST). This shows how much control messages are being used, and ALLOC should be very prevalent 👑.
The data for the last 24 hour sample period should be available from a process listening on local socket number 241 (10). 🦋
The Data Layout
Word 0 is the Day and Time. The Day # is 1 - 365 (6 on a leap year), and the Time is the number of minutes at which the sample was started, from 0 (midnight) to 1439. ⭐
16 16
+----------+------------+
word 0 | Day # | Time |
+----------+------------+
| |
1 - 365 (6 on leap year) |______
|
Time in minutes at which sample was
started. Ranges from 0 (midnight) to 1439.Word 1 is the Source Host, the Byte Size, the N, and the Format. The Source Host is the Network Host number, the Byte Size is the number of bits per byte in the byte statistics, N is the number of HOST related entries in the message, and Format is the set of bits that says which stats are included 🌈.
8 8
+--------+------+-------+----------+
word 1 | Source | Byte | N | Format |
| Host | Size | | |
+--------+------+-------+----------+
| | | |__________
_______| | | |
| | number of HOST |
Network Host | related entries +---+---+---+---+---+---+
number | in message | | | C | R | B | M |
| +---+---+---+---+---+---+
number of bits per | | | |
byte in byte statistics ____ ____| | | message
| ___| | statistics
| | byte
control | statistics
message distribution |
average
round-trip timeThe remaining words of the message depend on what the Format byte is set to 💖. Each of the N entries has a Foreign HOST # (always there), and then the other fields show up depending on the bits:
<-------32--------->
/ +---------------------+
| | Foreign HOST # | always present
|-+---------------------+
| | messages received | if FORMAT bit M set
| +---------------------+
| | Bytes received | if FORMAT bit B set
N of | +---------------------+
these | | message sent | if FORMAT bit M set
entries | +---------------------+
| | Bytes sent | if FORMAT bit B set
| +---------------------+
\ | Average delay | if FORMAT bit R set
+---------------------+
This is average RFNM
delay in millisecondsIf the C bit is set, you also get the control message distribution. Each type is 8 bits and its Count is 24 bits, and these are link 0 control message distributions for the sample period, cumulative over all HOSTs. If a type isn't present, its count is assumed to be 0 🧚.
8 24
+-------+---------------+
| type | Count | if FORMAT bit C set these
+-------+---------------+ are link 0 control message
| | | distributions for the
+-------+---------------+ sample period, cumulative
| | | overall HOSTs. If a type is
+-------+---------------+ not present, its count is
| | | assumed to be 0.
+-------+---------------+
| | |
+-------+---------------+
| | |
+-------+---------------+
| . | |
.
.
|type | Count |
+-------+---------------+Here's roughly what the whole thing looks like when you send it 🎀:
+--------------------------------+
word 0 | DAY/TIME |
+--------------------------------+
word 1 | CONTROL WORD |
+--------------------------------+
| DATA FOR |
| DESTINATION |
| 1 |
+--------------------------------+
| DATA FOR |
| DESTINATION |
| 2 |
+--------------------------------+
.
.
.
+--------------------------------+
| DATA FOR |
| DESTINATION |
| N |
+--------------------------------+
| CONTROL MESSAGE |
. DISTRIBUTION |
. |
. |
| |
word n +--------------------------------+Sending and Closing
⚠️ Once you've sent the last message and you've received the RFNM for that last message, close the connection. That's the vibe! 🔥
Okay so here's a plot twist 🌸. The original plan was that the data gathering program would ICP to some well-known socket. We think that's an unnecessary complication, so instead we'll just open a connection on your 241 (decimal), and you send data as soon as our Allocate command gets to your NCP. If that doesn't work for you (like if you need the ICP), just let me know 💅.
If you connect to UCLA-NMC socket 241, we'll send you our own 24 hour data. Anyone who wants to capture these stats is welcome to do so 🦋.
Also, please note that these summarized stats are for a standard local 24 hour period (like local midnight to local midnight). They are NOT for a sliding 24 hour period ending whenever the stats were requested. Also, the data is only collected for open connections on links 0, 2-71 ✨.
The following are participating (others are heartily invited): UCLA-NMC, DMCG, LL-67. 🫶
[This RFC was put into machine readable form for entry]
[into the online RFC archives by Helene Morin, Via Genie, 12/99]📦 where this page comes from
- ietf: rfc388 1972-08
- 💖 girlified by claude-haiku-5-5 on : a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms