RFC 661

Protocol information

📅 published November 1974, from ietf

Protocol Information 🎀

okay bestie, this is RFC 661, titled Protocol Information 💅 It's from the Network Working Group and was written by J. Postel at SRI-ARC (NIC 31203) in November 1974 🦋 The header doesn't list a category or status, and it doesn't say that this document obsoletes or updates anything. So no drama there ✨

It's basically a big cheat sheet of every ARPA Network protocol going around in 1974, with who to contact, what to read, who's working on it, and what's new 🌸 Postel asks people to send updates or corrections to him at SRI-ARC, because the info only stays fresh if everyone helps 🫶

This is a compendium of all the protocol related activity, and most of it is experimental 🧪 The official standards get the tag "[Official]" stuck on the end of their name 👑

A ton of protocol docs live as Requests for Comments (RFCs), and a lot of them are online. When something is online, the file gives you a pointer to where to find it 💜 Recent RFCs are sitting on Office-1 in the <NETINFO> directory, with names like RFCnnn.TXT, where nnn is the RFC number ⭐

The file itself lives in two places:

[SRI-ARC] <POSTEL> PROTOCOL-INFORMATION.TXT
[SRI-ARC] <POSTEL> PROTOCOL-INFORMATION.NLS

IMP-IMP 🌈

okay so IMP-IMP starts with the surface entry 🍓

surface

  • Contact: McKenzie, Alex. (MCKENZIE@BBN) 💌
  • Documents: Heart, F. et. Al. "The Interface Message Processor for the ARPA Computer Network," AFIPS Conference Proceedings, 36:551-567, SJCC 1970. 📚
  • People: John McQuillan (MCQUILLAN@BBN) 🧚
  • Schedule: nothing listed yet 🙈
  • Recent developments: nothing listed yet 🙈

satellite 🛰️

  • Contact: Randy Rettberg (RETTEBERG@BBN) 💌
  • Documents: nothing listed yet 🙈
  • People: Kahn, Robert. (Kahn@ISI) 🧚
  • Schedule: nothing listed yet 🙈
  • Recent developments: nothing listed yet 🙈

IMP-HOST 💖

IMP-Host [Official] 👑

  • Contact: McKenzie, A. (McKenzie@BBN) 💌
  • Documents: 📚
    • "Specification for the Interconnection of a Host and an IMP," BBN Report 1822, Revised March 1974.
    • McQuillan, J. "Host Alive/Dead Logic," BBN Memorandum to Technical Liaisons, 18-July-74.
    • Burchfiel, J. "Ready Line Philosophy and Implementation," NIC 30872, RFC 642, 5-July-74.
    • Walden, D. "Some Changes to the IMP and the IMP/HOST Interface," RFC 660, 23-Oct-74.
      • Office-1 location: [Office-1 <NETINFO> RFC660.TXT
  • People: 🧚
    • McKenzie (MCKENZIE@BBN)
    • Walden (WALDEN@BBN)
    • Postel (POSTEL@SRI-ARC)
    • Burchfiel (BURCHFIEL@BBN)
    • McQuillan (MCQUILLAN@BBN)
  • Schedule: nothing listed yet 🙈
  • Recent developments: this part is lowkey important 👀

The "link number" field has been extended from 8 to 12 bits and renamed the "message identification" field. Message type 6 is now used to indicate a reason for a type 7 (destination dead) message. (See BBN1822).

There have been some recent changes to the Ready line interpretation by the IMP for deciding the alive/dead status of a host.

Important changes to the IMP and IMP/HOST interface were announced in RFC 660, 23-Oct-74. 🚨

HOST-HOST 🎀

ncp - standard host-to-host [Official] 👑

  • Contact: Postel, Jon. (POSTEL@SRI-ARC) 💌
  • Documents: 📚
    • McKenzie, A. "Host/Host Protocol for the ARPA Network," NIC 8246. Jan 1972.
    • Postel, J. "Assigned Link Numbers," RFC604, NIC21186, 26-Dec-73.
  • People: 🧚
    • Postel, Jon. (POSTEL@SRI-ARC)
    • McKenzie, Alex. (MCKENZIE@BBN)
  • Schedule: nothing listed yet 🙈
  • Recent developments: nothing listed yet 🙈

ncp - standard host-to-host [Experimental] 🧪

  • Contact: Postel, Jon. (POSTEL@SRI-ARC) 💌
  • Documents: 📚
    • McKenzie, A. "Host/Host Protocol for the ARPA Network," NICE 3246. Jan 1972.
    • Postel, J. "Assigned Link Numbers," RFC604, NIC22186, 26-Dec-73.
    • Burchfiel, et. Al. "Tip-Tenex Reliability Improvements" RFC 636 NIC 30490 June 1974.
  • People: 🧚
    • Postel, Jon. (POSTEL@SRI-ARC)
    • McKenzie, Alex. (MCKENZIE@BBN)
    • Burchfiel, Jerry (BURCHFIEL@BBN)
    • Walden, Dave (WALDEN@BBN)
  • Schedule: nothing listed yet 🙈
  • Recent developments: the BBN TIP and TENEX groups are doing the reliability glow-up 💅

The BBN TIP and TENEX groups have specified and are implementing additional protocol commands to get better reliability and survivability over system malfunctions. These commands are for cleaning up partly closed connections and resynchronizing the allocation values on open connections. (See RFC 636). 🔥

tcp - Transmission Control Protocol 🦋

  • Contact: Cerf, Vint. (CERF@ISI) 💌
  • Documents: 📚
    • Cert, V. and R. Kahn. "A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication," IEEE Transactions on Communication Vol COM-22 No 5, May 1974.
    • [parc-maxc] <cerf> TCPSPEC3.NLS
    • Mader, E. "A Protocol Experiment," RFC 700, NIC 31020.
    • [ISI] <CERF> TCP-CHANGES.
  • People: 🧚
    • Cerf at SU-DSL
    • Tomlinson at BBN
    • Kirstein at London
    • Postel at SRI-ARC
  • Schedule: some experiments are running now, and the full protocol implementation is supposed to start by 15-Oct-74 ⏰
  • Recent developments: this one is giving main character energy 💅✨

The specification was completed on August 4th, but there's still some work in progress on handling single message conversations. A new sequencing scheme (proposed by Tomlinson) may get used. The addressing field is now used as a 4-bit format, 4-bit network, 16 bit TCP, and 24 bit process&port. Crocker suggested a 64-bit path address that gets parsed and reformatted by the gateways along the route. There's reluctance to experiment with too many things at once though 😅

(28-Oct-74) There's a file showing some of the changes to the specifications since the 4-Aug-74 document, available as [ISI] <CERF> TCP-CHANGES. The changed areas are "Initial Sequence Number", "Socket definition", "Additional user System Calls", "Packet format", and "Discussion of opening and closing (SYN,REL)". 🎀

(23-NOV-74) Specifications for the test implementation are now said to be ready on 1-DEC-74, and an implementation is supposed to be completed by 1-FEB-74. 🗓️

nvp - Network Voice Protocol 🎙️

  • Contact: Cohen, Danny. (COHEN@ISI) 💌
  • Documents: the current spec is in an online file at ISI, in the directory voice as nvp.lst 📂
    • Pathname: [isi] <voice> nvp.lst
  • People: nothing listed yet 🙈
  • Recent developments: a new spec document dropped on 10-Oct-74 🔥
    • "Specifications for the Network Voice Protocol (NVP)" NSC Note 43

packet radio 📡

  • Contact: Kahn, Robert. (KAHN@ISI) 💌
  • Documents: nothing listed yet 🙈
  • People: nothing listed yet 🙈
  • Schedule: nothing listed yet 🙈
  • Recent developments: nothing listed yet 🙈

Okay so the Status Option got a total glow-up 💅 It now uses the subcommand feature and sends way less data to report its status ✨ Plus, seven brand-new options were added so you can control the format effectors Carriage Return, Line Feed, Form Feed, Horizontal Tab, and Vertical Tab 🎀

FTP 🧚

Old File Transfer 📁

Contact:

  • Jon Postel at SRI-ARC (POSTEL@SRI-ARC)

Documents:

  • McKenzie, A. "File Transfer Protocol," NIC 14333, RFC 454, 16-Feb-73.

People:

Schedule:

Recent developments:

New File Transfer 🦋

Contact:

  • Jon Postel at SRI-ARC (POSTEL@SRI-ARC)

Documents:

  • Neigus, N. "File Transfer Protocol," NIC 17759 RFC 542 12-July-73.
  • Postel, J. "Revised FTP Reply codes," NIC 30843 RFC 640 5-June-74.

People:

  • Jon Postel at SRI-ARC (POSTEL@SRI-ARC)
  • Nancy Neigus at BBN (NEIGUS@BBN)
  • Ken Pogran at MIT-Multics (Pogran.CompNet@MIT-Multics)
  • Wayne Hathaway at NASA AMES (Hathaway@AMES-67)
  • Mark Krilanovich at UCSB (Krilanovich@UCSB-MOD75)
  • Kurt Barthelmess at UCSD (BOWLES@ISI)

Schedule:

Recent developments:

Pathnames 🛤️

Contact:

  • Jon Postel at SRI-ARC (POSTEL@SRI-ARC)

Documents:

  • Crocker, D. "Network Standard Data Specification Syntax," RFC 645, NIC 30899, Jul-74.

People:

  • Dave Crocker at UCLA-NMC (DCROCKER@ISI)

Schedule:

Recent developments:

File Access Protocol 🗂️

Contact:

  • John Day (Day. CAC@MIT-Multics)

Documents:

  • Day, J. "Memo to FTP Group: File Access Protocol," RFC 520, NIC 16819, 25-Jun-73

People:

  • Ken Pogran (Pogran.CompNet@MIT-Multics)

Schedule:

Recent developments:

Mail 💌

Current Mail 📬

Contact:

  • Jon Postel at SRI-ARC (POSTEL@SRI-ARC)

Documents:

  • page 26 of RFC 454 (see old file transfer).
  • Bhushan, A. "Standardizing Network Mail Headers," NIC 18516, RFC 561, 5-Sep-73
  • Sussman, J. "FTP Error Code Usage for More Reliable Mail Service," RFC 630, NIC 30874, RFC 644, 22-July-74.

People:

  • Julie Sussman at bbn (SUSSMAN@BBN)
  • Bob Thomas at bbn (BTHOMAS@BBN)

Schedule:

Recent developments:

Concern over the authentication of the author of network messages has led to the concept of an authorized mail sending process (see RFC 644).

Proposed Mail 🌸

Contact:

  • Postel at SRI-ARC (POSTEL@SRI-ARC)

Documents:

  • White, J. "A Proposed Mail Protocol," NIC 17140, RFC 524, 13-Jun-73.
  • Crocker, D. "Thoughts on the Mail Protocol Proposed in RFC 524," NIC 17644, RFC 539, 7-July-73.
  • White, J. "Response to Critiques of the Proposed Mail Protocol," NIC 17993, RFC 555, 27-July-73.

People:

  • Jim White at SRI-ARC (WHITE@SRI-ARC)
  • Postel at Sri-ARC (POSTEL@SIR-ARC)

Schedule:

Recent developments:

RJE - Remote Job Entry 🖨️

Contact:

  • Jon Postel at SRI-ARC (POSTEL@SRI-ARC)

Documents:

  • Bressler, B. "Remote Job Entry Protocol," RFC 407, NIC 12112, 16-Oct-72
  • Krilanovich, M. "Announcement of RJS at UCSB," RFC 436, NIC 13700, 10-Jan-73.

People:

Schedule:

Recent developments:

RJS - CCNs Remote Job Service 🧾

Contact:

  • Robert Braden at UCLA-CCN (BRADEN@UCLA-CCN)

Documents:

  • Braden, R. "Interim NETRJS Specification," RFC 18@ nic July-71.
  • Braden, R. "Update on NETRJS," RFC 599, NIC 20854, 13-Dec-73.

People:

  • Robert Braden (BRADEN@UCLA-CCN)
  • Steve Wolfe (WOLFE@UCLAL-CCN)

Schedule:

Recent developments:

Graphics 🎨

Contact:

  • Robert Sproull (SPROULL@PARC-MAXC)

Documents:

  • Sproull, R, and E. Thomas. "A Networks Graphics Protocol," NIC 24308, 16-Aug-74.

People:

  • Robert Sproull (SPROULL@PARC-MAXC)
  • Elaine Thomas (Thomas@MIT-Multics)
  • James Michener at MIT-DMS (JCM@MIT-DMS)

Schedule:

Recent developments:

  • New document available from Robert Sproull.

Data Reconfiguration Service 🔁

Contact:

  • Jon Postel at SRI-ARC (POSTEL@SRI-ARC)

Documents:

  • Anderson, B. "Status Report on Proposed Data Reconfiguration Service," NIC 6715, RFC 138, 28-April-71.
  • Feah, "Data Reconfiguration Service at UCSB," RFC 437, NIC 13701, 30-June-74.

People:

Schedule:

Recent developments:

RSEXEC ⚡

Contact:

  • Thomas, Bob. (BTHOMAS@BBN)

Documents:

People:

Schedule:

Recent developments:

Line Processor Protocol 🧵

Contact:

  • Don Andrews at SRI-ARC (ANDREWS@SRI-ARC)

Documents:

  • [SRI-ARC] <hardy>1pprot.nls
  • [SRI-ARC] <hardy>prot.txt

People:

  • Martin Hardy at SRI-ARC (HARDY@SRI-ARC)
  • Don Andrews at Sri-ARC (ANDREWS@SRI-ARC)

Schedule:

Recent developments:

PROGRAMS 👑

Neted - Network Standard Editor [Official] 🌈

Contact:

  • Michael Padlipsky (MAP@CASE-10)

Documents:

  • Padlipsky, M. "NETED: A Common Editor for the ARPA Network," RFC 569, NIC 18972, 15-Oct-73.

People:

  • Padlipsky at MITRE (MAP@CASE-10)
  • Postel at SRI-ARC (POSTEL@SRI-ARC0
  • Hathaway at AMES (HATHAWAY@AMES-67)

Schedule:

Recent developments:

NATIONAL SOFTWARE WORKS 🎀

okay so the National Software Works (NSW) is building a set of protocols for its use of the ARPA Network 🌐, and honestly? other people using these protocols is totally encouraged 💖

The procedure call protocol is all about sharing resources across the network at the subroutine level ✨. It's going to be how NLS gets split into a front end and a back end 🍓. It's also meant to be the foundation for how the works manager, the tool-bearing hosts, and the front desk procedure packages talk to each other 🫶

The documents below give you the full tour of the Procedure Call Protocol (PCP) and how it gets used 🦋

Contact

  • Jim White (WHITE@SRI-ARC)
  • Jon Postel (POSTEL@SIR-ARC)

Documents

These are the second published version of the Procedure Call Protocol and NSW protocol, which is PCP/NSW Version 2 👑. Version 2 is SUBSTANTIALLY different from Version 1, so it obsoletes that one plus every intermediate PCP/NSW document that got passed around informally 💅

Start with PCP because that's where the interested reader should begin 📖. It explains the motivation for using the protocol and lays out the protocol itself 💜. If you want more, you can read PIP, PSP, and PMP next. PMP has the most to offer a casual reader ✨, but if you're a programmer about to code in the PCP environment, read all three 🧚

PCPFMT, PCPHST, and PCPFRK are only really for PCP implementers 🔥. HOST is a preliminary look at how the NSW could use the standard ARPANET host-to-host protocol, NCP 🌈. The last four, EXEC, FILE, BATCH, and LLDBUG, describe the procedure packages the NSW needs for its functions, though they could honestly be useful in other contexts too 🙈

Version 2 has the following documents, and each one is available online in two forms 🌸. There's an NLS file and a formatted text file. The journal number (like 24459) points to the NLS file, and the pathname (like [SRI-ARI] <NLS> PCP.TXT) points to the text file. You can get the text files over FTP using USER=ANONYMOUS and PASSWORD=GUEST, and no account is needed 🫶

Hardcopies are being mailed through US Mail to everyone who's shown interest in PCP 📬. If you didn't get one and want this release or future ones, send a note to WHITE@SRI-ARC saying so 💌

PCP (24459,) "The Procedure Call Protocol"

This one describes the virtual programming environment that PCP provides, plus the inter-process exchanges that make it work ✨.

Pathname: [SRI-ARC] <NLS>PCP.TXT

PIP (24460,) "The Procedure Interface Package"

This describes a package that runs in the setting PCP provides and acts as a procedure-call-level interface to PCP itself 🦋. It has procedures for calling, resuming, interrupting, and aborting remote procedures 💅.

Pathname: [SRI-ARC] <NLS>PIP.TXT

PSP (24461,) "The PCP Support Packages"

This describes a package that runs in the PCP setting and adds to PCP itself, mostly around data store manipulation 🍓. It has procedures for getting access to groups of remote procedures and data stores, manipulating remote data stores, and creating temporary ones 🧚.

Pathname: [SRI-ARC] <NLS>PSP.TXT

PMP (24462,) "The Process Management Package"

This describes a package that runs in the PCP setting and gives you the tools to hook two or more processes together into a multi-process system, like the NSW 🔥. It has procedures for creating, deleting, logically and physically interconnecting processes, and for allocating and releasing processors 👑.

Pathname: [SRI-ARC] <NLS>PMP.TXT

PCPFMT (24576,) "PCP Data Structure Formats"

This defines the formats for PCP data structures. Each format fits one or more physical channel types 💜.

Pathname: [SRI-ARC] <NLS>POPFMT.TXT

PCPHST (24577,) "PCP ARPANET Inter-Host IPC Implementation"

This defines an implementation of the IPC primitives PCP needs, and it's suited to mediating communication between Tenex folks 🌸.

Pathname: [SRI-ARC] <NLS.PCPHST.TXT

PCPFRK (24578,) "PCP Tenex Inter-Fork IPC Implementation"

This defines an implementation of the IPC primitives PCP needs, suited to mediating communication between processes on different hosts within the ARPANET 🌈.

Pathname: [SRI-ARC] <NLS.PCPFRK.TXT

HOST (24581,) "NSW Host Protocol"

This describes the host-level protocol used in the NSW ✨. It's a slightly constrained version of the standard ARPANET host-to-host protocol 🎀. The constraints touch the allocation, RFNM wait, and retransmission policies 💅.

Pathname: [SRI-ARC] <NLS>HOST.TXT

EXEC (24580,) "The Executive Package"

This describes a package that runs in the PCP setting 🦋. It has procedures and data stores for user identification, accounting, and usage information 💖.

Pathname: [SRI-ARC] <NLS> EXEC.TXT

FILE (24582,) "The File Package"

This describes a package that runs in the PCP setting 🧚. It has procedures and data stores for opening, closing, and listing directories, for creating, deleting, and renaming files, and for transferring files and file elements between processes 📬.

Pathname: [SRI-ARC] <NLS>FILE.TXT

BATCH (24583,) "The Batch Job Package"

This describes a package that runs in the PCP setting 🍓. It has procedures for creating and deleting batch jobs, getting the status of a batch job, and talking to the operator of a batch processing host 🫶. This package is implemented at the host that provides the batch processing facility 🔥.

Pathname: [SRI-ARC] <NLS>BATCH.TXT

LLDBUG (24579,) "The Low-Level Debug Package"

This describes a package that runs in the PCP setting 🌈. It has procedures that let a remote process debug any process known to the local process at the assembly-language level 👑. It also has procedures for manipulating and searching the process' address space, for manipulating and searching its symbol tables, and for setting and removing breakpoints in its address space ✨. Its data stores hold process characteristics, state information, and the contents of program symbol tables 💜.

Pathname: [SRI-ARC] <NLS>LLDBUG.TXT

People

Schedule

A demonstration of the National Software Works concept is happening in July 1975 🎆✨

Recent developments

The set of documents cited above is available 🎀💖

📦 where this page comes from