Request for Comments Details, Meaning Request for Comments Article and Explanation Guide

Request for Comments Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description

Alternate meaning: Wikipedia:Requests for comment

A Request for Comments (RFC) document is one of a series of numbered Internet informational documents and standards widely followed by commercial software and freeware in the Internet and Unix communities.

Where RFCs Come From

The RFC series of documents on networking began in 1969 as part of the original ARPA wide area networking (ARPANET) project. Today, it is the official publication channel for the Internet Engineering Steering Group, Internet Architecture Board, and the broader Internet community. RFCs cover many topics in addition to Internet Standards, such as introductions to new research ideas and status memos about the Internet.

RFCs are published by the RFC Editor who is under the general direction of the IAB. Once published and issued a number, an RFC is never canceled or depublished; it is simply superseded by the publication of a new one. To determine which RFCs are actually active Internet standards and which ones have been superseded, one must consult the official list, Internet Standard 1 (STD 1), which itself is republished regularly as an RFC.

How To Obtain RFCs

RFCs can be obtained on the Internet from http://www.ietf.org/rfc.html or many other sites, using anonymous FTP, gopher, and other Internet document-retrieval systems.

Every RFC is available as ASCII text and may be available in other formats, depending on the author. The definitive version of any standards-track specifications is always the ASCII version.

A complete RFC index in text format is available from the IETF website. Any published RFC can be directly found by appending the number to the URL: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc#.txt. Replace # with the RFC number. See also this link: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/ .

How RFCs Are Made (The RFC Process)

The RFCs are produced in a process that is different from that used in formal standards organizations such as ANSI. They can be floated by technical experts acting on their own initiative and reviewed by the Internet at large. Practically speaking, standards-track RFCs are usually produced by experts participating in working groups which first publish what the IETF calls Internet-Drafts; this facilitates initial rounds of review before documents become RFCs.

The RFC tradition of pragmatic, experience-driven, after-the-fact standard writing done by individuals or small working groups has important advantages over the more formal, committee-driven process typical of ANSI or ISO.

Emblematic of some of these advantages is the existence of a flourishing tradition of joke RFCs. Usually at least one a year is published, usually on April Fool's Day.

The RFCs are most remarkable for how well they work - they manage to have neither the ambiguities that are usually rife in informal specifications, nor the committee-perpetrated misfeatures that often haunt formal standards, and they define a network that has grown to truly worldwide proportions.

For more details about RFCs and the RFC process, see RFC 2026, "The Internet Standards Process, Revision 3".

History

RFC 1, entitled "Host Software", was written by Steve Crocker from the University of California, Los Angeles, and published on April 7, 1969.

The initial RFCs were apparently typewritten and circulated on hard copy among the ARPA researchers. Once ARPANET was fully functional by December 1969, subsequent RFCs were drafted and circulated over the network.

Douglas Engelbart's Augmentation Research Center at SRI was the first Network Information Center as well as one of the first two nodes on the network (the other was UCLA). The sociologist Thierry Bardini has pointed out that ARC personnel authored a large number of the early RFCs.

One advantage of the tradition of never depublishing obsolete RFCs is that they form a continuous historical record of the evolution of Internet standards. Attorneys will notice that this is roughly analogous to the tradition in common law countries (including the U.S., where the Internet was born) of never depublishing case opinions, but instead overruling them with new ones.

List of the most important RFCs

RFC	Subject
RFC 768	User Datagram Protocol
RFC 791	Internet Protocol
RFC 792	Control message protocol
RFC 793	Transmission Control Protocol
RFC 821	Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, obsoleted by RFC 2821
RFC 822	Format of e-mail, obsoleted by RFC 2822
RFC 826	Address resolution protocol
RFC 894	IP over Ethernet
RFC 951	Bootstrap Protocol
RFC 959	File Transfer Protocol
RFC 1034	Domain Name System - concepts
RFC 1035	DNS - implementation
RFC 1122	Host Requirements I
RFC 1123	Host Requirements II
RFC 1191	Path MTU discovery
RFC 1256	Router discovery
RFC 1323	High performance TCP
RFC 1350	Trivial File Transfer Protocol
RFC 1403	BGP OSPF Interaction
RFC 1498	Architectural discussion
RFC 1518	CIDR address allocation
RFC 1519	Classless inter-domain routing
RFC 1661	Point-to-Point Protocol
RFC 1738	Uniform Resource Locators
RFC 1771	A Border Gateway Protocol 4
RFC 1772	BGP application
RFC 1789	Telephone over Internet
RFC 1812	Requirements for IPv4 Routers
RFC 1889	Real-Time transport
RFC 1905	Simple network management protocol
RFC 1907	MIB
RFC 1918	"Network 10"
RFC 1939	POP3
RFC 2001	TCP performance extensions
RFC 2026	Internet Standards process
RFC 2045	MIME
RFC 2046
RFC 2047
RFC 2048
RFC 2049
RFC 2060	IMAP4, obsoleted by RFC 3501
RFC 2131	DHCP
RFC 2223	Instructions to RFC Authors
RFC 2231	Character Sets
RFC 2328	OSPF
RFC 2401	Security Architecture
RFC 2453	Routing Information Protocol
RFC 2525	TCP Problems
RFC 2535	DNS Security
RFC 2581	TCP congestion control
RFC 2616	HTTP
RFC 2663	Network address translation
RFC 2766	NAT-PT
RFC 2821	Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
RFC 2822	Format of e-mail
RFC 2960	SCTP
RFC 3010	Network File System
RFC 3031	MPLS architecture
RFC 3066	Language Tags
RFC 3092	Etymology of "Foo"
RFC 3098	Advertise Responsibly Using E-Mail
RFC 3160	Tao of IETF
RFC 3168	ECN
RFC 3501	IMAP4rev1

Links to IETF RFCs

Generic RFCs

RFC 825, Request for comments on Requests For Comments. Jon Postel. Nov-01-1982. (Format: TXT=4255 bytes) (Obsoleted by RFC 1111, RFC 1543, RFC 2223) (Status: UNKNOWN)
RFC 2223, Instructions to RFC Authors. Jon Postel, Joyce K. Reynolds. October 1997. (Format: TXT=37948 bytes) (Obsoletes RFC 1543, RFC 1111, RFC 825) (Status: INFORMATIONAL)
RFC 1718, The Tao of IETF - A Guide for New Attendees of the Internet Engineering Task Force. The IETF Secretariat, G. Malkin. November 1994. (Format: TXT=50477 bytes) (Obsoletes RFC 1539) (Also FYI0017) (Status: INFORMATIONAL)
RFC 2026, The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3. Scott O. Bradner. October 1996. (Format: TXT=86731 bytes) (Obsoletes RFC 1602) (Also BCP0009) (Status: BEST CURRENT PRACTICE)
RFC 2555, 30 Years of RFCs. April 1999.

Link-Level RFCs

RFC 1969, The PPP DES Encryption Protocol (DESE). K. Sklower, G. Meyer. June 1996. (Format: TXT=20383 bytes) (Obsoleted by RFC 2419) (Status: INFORMATIONAL)
RFC 2419, The PPP DES Encryption Protocol, Version 2 (DESE-bis). K. Sklower, G. Meyer. September 1998. (Format: TXT=24414 bytes) (Obsoletes RFC 1969) (Status: PROPOSED STANDARD)

Internetwork-Level RFCs

RFC 791, Internet Protocol. J. Postel. Sep-01-1981. (Format: TXT=97779 bytes) (Obsoletes RFC0760) (Also STD0005) (Status: STANDARD)

RFC 3115, Mobile IP Vendor/Organization-Specific Extensions. G. Dommety, K. Leung. April 2001. (Format: TXT=16363 bytes) (Obsoletes RFC 3025) (Status: PROPOSED STANDARD)

RFC 1809, Using the Flow Label Field in IPv6. C. Partridge. June 1995. (Format: TXT=13591 bytes) (Status: INFORMATIONAL) The current standard for flow labels in IPv6 is described in RFC 3595.
RFC 2644, Changing the Default for Directed Broadcasts in Routers. D. Senie. August 1999. (Format: TXT=6820 bytes) (Updates RFC 1812) (Also BCP0034) (Status: BEST CURRENT PRACTICE)

Host/Router Requirements RFCs

RFC 1, Host Software

RFC 985, Requirements for Internet gateways - draft. National Science Foundation, Network Technical Advisory Group. May-01-1986. (Format: TXT=59221 bytes) (Obsoleted by RFC 1009) (Status: UNKNOWN)
RFC 1009, Requirements for Internet gateways. R.T. Braden, Jon Postel. Jun-01-1987. (Format: TXT=128173 bytes) (Obsoletes RFC 985) (Obsoleted by RFC 1812) (Status: HISTORIC)
RFC 1122, Requirements for Internet Hosts - Communication Layers. Robert Braden (editor). October 1989. (Format: TXT=295992 bytes) (Also STD0003) (Status: STANDARD)
RFC 1123, Requirements for Internet Hosts - Application and Support. Robert Braden (editor). October 1989. (Format: TXT=245503 bytes) (Updates RFC 822) (Updated by RFC 2181) (Also STD0003) (Status: STANDARD)
RFC 1812, Requirements for IP Version 4 Routers. F. Baker. June 1995. (Format: TXT=415740 bytes) (Obsoletes RFC 1716, RFC 1009) (Updated by RFC 2644) (Status: PROPOSED STANDARD)

ISO Interoperation RFCs

RFC 983, ISO transport arrives on top of the TCP. D.E. Cass, Marshall T. Rose. Apr-01-1986. (Format: TXT=59819 bytes) (Obsoleted by RFC 1006) (Status: UNKNOWN)
RFC 1006, ISO transport services on top of the TCP: Version 3. M.T. Rose, D.E. Cass. May-01-1987. (Format: TXT=31935 bytes) (Obsoletes RFC 983) (Updated by RFC 2126) (Also STD0035) (Status: STANDARD)
RFC 2126, ISO Transport Service on top of TCP (ITOT). Y. Pouffary, A. Young. March 1997. (Format: TXT=51032 bytes) (Updates RFC 1006) (Status: PROPOSED STANDARD)

Domain Name System RFCs

RFC 1876, A Means for Expressing Location Information in the Domain Name System. C. Davis, Paul Vixie, T. Goodwin, I. Dickinson. January 1996. (Format: TXT=29631 bytes) (Updates RFC 1034, RFC 1035) (Status: EXPERIMENTAL)
RFC 2181, Clarifications to the DNS Specification. Robert Elz, Randy Bush. July 1997. (Format: TXT=36989 bytes) (Updates RFC 1034, RFC 1035, RFC 1123) (Updated by RFC 2535) (Status: PROPOSED STANDARD)

This covers the operation of secondary domain name servers.

RFC 2535, Domain Name System Security Extensions. Donald E. Eastlake 3rd. March 1999. (Format: TXT=110958 bytes) (Obsoletes RFC 2065) (Updates RFC 2181, RFC 1035, RFC 1034) (Updated by RFC 2931, RFC 3007, RFC 3008) (Status: PROPOSED STANDARD)
RFC 3008, Domain Name System Security (DNSSEC) Signing Authority. B. Wellington. November 2000. (Format: TXT=13484 bytes) (Updates RFC 2535) (Status: PROPOSED STANDARD)

X.500 RFCs

RFC 1632, A Revised Catalog of Available X.500 Implementations. A. Getchell, S. Sataluri, Editors. May 1994. (Format: TXT=124111 bytes) (Obsoletes RFC 1292) (Obsoleted by RFC 2116) (Status: INFORMATIONAL)

Network Management RFCs

RFC 1066, Management Information Base for network management of TCP/IP-based internets. K. McCloghrie, Marshall T. Rose. Aug-01-1988. (Format: TXT=135177 bytes) (Obsoleted by RFC 1156) (Status: UNKNOWN)
RFC 1156, Management Information Base for network management of TCP/IP-based internets. K. McCloghrie, Marshall T. Rose. May-01-1990. (Format: TXT=138781 bytes) (Obsoletes RFC 1066) (Status: HISTORIC)
RFC 1792, TCP/IPX Connection Mib Specification. T. Sung. April 1995. (Format: TXT=16389 bytes) (Status: EXPERIMENTAL)

E-Mail RFCs

RFC 821, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. Jon Postel. Aug-1982. (Format: TXT=109200 bytes) (Obsoletes RFC 772, RFC 780, RFC 788) (Obsoleted by RFC 2821) (Status: STANDARD)

This is an important early RFC from the IETF that specified the protocol for transferring e-mail messages between computers on the Internet. Many additions have been made to it, but it remained a standard for many years until obsoleted by RFC 2821 (the number is not a coincidence: it was reserved for this use).

RFC 822, Standard for the format of ARPA Internet text messages. David H. Crocker. Aug-13-1982. (Format: TXT=109200 bytes) (Obsoletes RFC 733) (Obsoleted by RFC 2822) (Updated by RFC 1123, RFC 1138, RFC 1148, RFC 1327, RFC 2156) (Status: STANDARD)

This is an important early RFC from the IETF that specified the format of e-mail messages exchanged between computers on the Internet. Many additions have been made to it, but it remained a standard for many years until obsoleted by RFC 2822 (the number is not a coincidence: it was reserved for this use).

RFC 2821, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. J. Klensin, Editor. April 2001. (Obsoletes RFC 821, RFC 974, RFC 1869) (Status: PROPOSED STANDARD)

This standard specifies the protocol for transferring e-mail messages between computers on the Internet.

RFC 2822, Internet Message Format. Peter W. Resnick, Editor. April 2001. (Format: TXT=110695 bytes) (Obsoletes RFC 822) (Status: PROPOSED STANDARD)

This standard specifies a syntax for text messages that are sent between computer users, within the framework of electronic mail messages. This standard is about text-only messages. The syntax for sending other types of messages, such as binary or structured data, is specified as an extension of this standard by the MIME document series: RFC 2045, RFC 2046, RFC 2047, RFC 2049.

RFC 3098, How to Advertise Responsibly Using E-Mail and Newsgroups or - how NOT to $$$$$ MAKE ENEMIES FAST! $$$$$. E. Gavin, D. Eastlake 3rd, S. Hambridge. April 2001. (Format: TXT=64687 bytes) (Also FYI0038) (Status: INFORMATIONAL)

X.400 E-Mail RFCs

RFC 987, Mapping between X.400 and RFC 822. S.E. Kille. Jun-01-1986. (Format: TXT=127540 bytes) (Obsoleted by RFC 1327, RFC 2156) (Updated by RFC 1026, RFC 1138, RFC 1148) (Status: UNKNOWN)

RFC 1495 Mapping between X.400 and RFC-822 Message Bodies. Harald Tveit Alvestrand, Steve Kille, R. Miles, Marshall T. Rose, S. Thompson. August 1993. (Format: TXT=20071 bytes) (Obsoleted by RFC 2156) (Updates RFC 1327) (Status: PROPOSED STANDARD)
RFC 2156, MIXER (Mime Internet X.400 Enhanced Relay): Mapping between X.400 and RFC 822/MIME. Steve Kille. January 1998. (Format: TXT=280385 bytes) (Obsoletes RFC 987, RFC 1026, RFC 1138, RFC 1148, RFC 1327, RFC 1495) (Updates RFC 822) (Status: PROPOSED STANDARD)

MIME RFCs

RFC 1521, MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) Part One: Mechanisms for Specifying and Describing the Format of Internet Message Bodies. N. Borenstein, N. Freed. September 1993. (Format: TXT=187424, PS=393670, PDF=205091 bytes) (Obsoletes RFC 1341) (Obsoleted by RFC 2045, RFC 2046, RFC 2047, RFC 2048, RFC 2049) (Updated by RFC 1590) (Status: DRAFT STANDARD)
RFC 2045, Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) Part One: Format of Internet Message Bodies. N. Freed, N. Borenstein. November 1996. (Format: TXT=72932 bytes) (Obsoletes RFC 1521, RFC 1522, RFC 1590) (Updated by RFC 2184, RFC 2231) (Status: DRAFT STANDARD)
RFC 2046, Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) Part Two: Media Types. N. Freed, N. Borenstein. November 1996. (Format: TXT=105854 bytes) (Obsoletes RFC 1521, RFC 1522, RFC 1590) (Updated by RFC 2646) (Status: DRAFT STANDARD)
RFC 2047, MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) Part Three: Message Header Extensions for Non-ASCII Text. K. Moore. November 1996. (Format: TXT=33262 bytes) (Obsoletes RFC 1521, RFC 1522, RFC 1590) (Updated by RFC 2184, RFC 2231) (Status: DRAFT STANDARD)

RFC 2047 specifies a standard way of encoding non US-ASCII characters into a string that identifies both the character set to use and the actual characters. The result of the encoding will be US-ASCII, and can be transmitted in Internet mail and decoded appropriately on the receiving end. This encoding is necessary in the first place because many characters in non-English languages can not be represented in 7-bit ASCII.

There are some mail clients that are not RFC 2047 Compliant, if you are using one of this clients you are strongly encuraged to change your mail client or to update it to a compliant version:

Eudora 4: Double quote characters are encoded with a Windows codpage and are eight-bit characters. Eudora's MIME headers indicate the MIME type but not 8-bit encoding. Suggest enabling "quoted printable" encoding.

RFC 2048, Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) Part Four: Registration Procedures. N. Freed, J. Klensin, Jon Postel. November 1996. (Format: TXT=45033 bytes) (Obsoletes RFC 1521, RFC 1522, RFC 1590) (Updated by RFC 3023) (Also BCP0013) (Status: BEST CURRENT PRACTICE)
RFC 2049, Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) Part Five: Conformance Criteria and Examples. N. Freed, N. Borenstein. November 1996. (Format: TXT=51207 bytes) (Obsoletes RFC 1521, RFC 1522, RFC 1590) (Status: DRAFT STANDARD)
RFC 2183, Communicating Presentation Information in Internet Messages: The Content-Disposition Header Field. R. Troost, S. Dorner, K. Moore. August 1997. (Format: TXT=23150 bytes) (Updates RFC 1806) (Updated by RFC 2184, RFC 2231) (Status: PROPOSED STANDARD)
RFC 2184, MIME Parameter Value and Encoded Word Extensions: Character Sets, Languages, and Continuations. N. Freed, K. Moore. August 1997. (Format: TXT=17635 bytes) (Obsoleted by RFC 2231) (Updates RFC 2045, RFC 2047, RFC 2183) (Status: PROPOSED STANDARD)
RFC 2231, MIME Parameter Value and Encoded Word Extensions: Character Sets, Languages, and Continuations. N. Freed, K. Moore. November 1997. (Format: TXT=19280 bytes) (Obsoletes RFC 2184) (Updates RFC 2045, RFC 2047, RFC 2183) (Status: PROPOSED STANDARD)
RFC 2646, The Text/Plain Format Parameter. R. Gellens. August 1999. (Format: TXT=29175 bytes) (Updates RFC 2046) (Status: PROPOSED STANDARD)

April 1st RFCs

See April 1st RFC for complete list

RFC 1776 The Address is the Message. Steve Crocker. Apr-01-1995. (Format: TXT=2051 bytes) (Status: INFORMATIONAL)
RFC 2549, IP over Avian Carriers with Quality of Service, D. Waitzman. Apr-01-1999. (Format: TXT=9519 bytes) (Updates RFC1149) (Status: INFORMATIONAL)
RFC 3751, Omniscience Protocol Requirements, S. Bradner. Apr-01-2004. (Status: INFORMATIONAL)

Random Support RFCs

RFC 3023, XML Media Types. M. Murata, S. St.Laurent, D. Kohn. January 2001. (Format: TXT=86011 bytes) (Obsoletes RFC 2376) (Updates RFC 2048) (Status: PROPOSED STANDARD)
RFC 3097, RSVP Cryptographic Authentication -- Updated Message Type Value. R. Braden, L. Zhang. April 2001. (Format: TXT=6320 bytes) (Updates RFC 2747) (Status: PROPOSED STANDARD)
RFC 2747, RSVP Cryptographic Authentication. F. Baker, B. Lindell, M. Talwar. January 2000. (Format: TXT=49477 bytes) (Updated by RFC 3097) (Status: PROPOSED STANDARD)

Random Application RFCs

RFC 1789, INETPhone: Telephone Services and Servers on Internet. C. Yang. April 1995. (Format: TXT=14186 bytes) (Status: INFORMATIONAL)
RFC 3066, Tags for the Identification of Languages. H. Alvestrand. January 2001. (Format: TXT=26522 bytes) (Obsoletes RFC1766) (Also BCP0047) (Status: BEST CURRENT PRACTICE)

This provides a way to register extensions of codes for language names in ISO 639. The current reviewer of new tags and maintainer of the registry is Michael Everson.

RFC 3106, ECML v1.1: Field Specifications for E-Commerce. D. Eastlake, T. Goldstein. April 2001. (Format: TXT=40715 bytes) (Obsoletes RFC 2706) (Status: INFORMATIONAL)

Random RFCs

RFC 823 DARPA Internet gateway. R.M. Hinden, A. Sheltzer. Sep-01-1982. (Format: TXT=62620 bytes) (Updates IEN 109, IEN 30) (Status: HISTORIC)

This is a memo and status report of the DARPA Internet Gateway. It deals with two areas: gateway procedures and message formats. Topics include information on the forwarding of internet datagrams, various protocols supported by the gateway, and specific gateway software. Unlike many other RFCs, it does not list any implementation specifics.

RFC 824 CRONUS Virtual Local Network. W.I. MacGregor, D.C. Tappan. Aug-25-1982. (Format: TXT=58732 bytes) (Status: UNKNOWN)
RFC 3094, Tekelec's Transport Adapter Layer Interface. D. Sprague, R. Benedyk, D. Brendes, J. Keller. April 2001. (Format: TXT=265099 bytes) (Status: INFORMATIONAL)
RFC 3675, .sex Considered Dangerous. D. Eastlake 3rd. February 2004.

References

External links

This is an Article on Request for Comments. Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About Request for Comments