| Internet FAQ
Here you will find
two general lists of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
about the Internet, and Answers--one for new Internet users and one for experienced Internet users. Scroll
through this window and use the hyperlinks to see if an
entry in one of the FAQs already addresses your
question.
Answers to
Commonly asked "New Internet User"
Questions
Answers to
Commonly asked "Experienced Internet User"
Questions Answers to Commonly asked
"New Internet User" Questions
This memo provides information for the Internet
community. It does not specify any standard.
Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Introduction Future updates of this memo will be produced as User
Services members become aware of additional questions
that should be included, and of deficiencies or
inaccuracies that should be amended in this document. An
additional FYI Q/A will be published which will deal
with intermediate and advanced Q/A topics.
The Q/A mailing lists are maintained by Gary Malkin
at FTP.COM. They are used by a subgroup of the User
Services Working Group to discuss the Q/A FYIs. They
include:
quail@ftp.com This is a discussion mailing list. Its
primary use is for pre-release review of the Q/A FYIs.
quail-request@ftp.com This is how you join the quail
mailing list.
quail-box@ftp.com This is a write-only list which
serves as a repository for candidate questions and
answers. It is not necessary to be on the quail mailing
list to forward to the quail-box.
Acknowledgements Questions About TCP/IP
What are the other well-known
standard protocols in the TCP/IP family? Questions About the Domain
Name System What is a Fully Qualified
Domain Name? Questions About Internet
Documentation Most RFCs are the descriptions of network protocols
or services, often giving detailed procedures and
formats for their implementation. Other RFCs report on
the results of policy studies or summarize the work of
technical committees or workshops. All RFCs are
considered public domain unless explicitly marked
otherwise.
While RFCs are not refereed publications, they do
receive technical review from either the task forces,
individual technical experts, or the RFC Editor, as
appropriate. Currently, most standards are published as
RFCs, but not all RFCs specify standards.
Anyone can submit a document for publication as an
RFC. Submissions must be made via electronic mail to the
RFC Editor. Please consult RFC 1111, "Instructions
to RFC Authors" [10], for further information. RFCs
are accessible online in public access files, and a
short message is sent to a notification distribution
list indicating the availability of the memo. Requests
to be added to this distribution list should be sent to
RFC- REQUEST@NIC.DDN.MIL.
The online files are copied by interested people and
printed or displayed at their sites on their equipment.
(An RFC may also be returned via electronic mail in
response to an electronic mail query.) This means that
the format of the online files must meet the constraints
of a wide variety of printing and display equipment.
Once a document is assigned an RFC number and
published, that RFC is never revised or re-issued with
the same number. There is never a question of having the
most recent version of a particular RFC. However, a
protocol (such as File Transfer Protocol (FTP)) may be
improved and re-documented many times in several
different RFCs. It is important to verify that you have
the most recent RFC on a particular protocol. The
"IAB Official Protocol Standards" [2] memo is
the reference for determining the correct RFC to refer
to for the current specification of each protocol.
How do I obtain RFCs?
RFCs can be obtained via FTP from NIC.DDN.MIL, with
the pathname RFC:RFCnnnn.TXT or RFC:RFCnnnn.PS (where
"nnnn" refers to the number of the RFC). Login
using FTP, username "anonymous" and password
"guest". The NIC also provides an automatic
mail service for those sites which cannot use FTP.
Address the request to SERVICE@NIC.DDN.MIL and in the
subject field of the message indicate the RFC number, as
in "Subject: RFC nnnn" (or "Subject: RFC
nnnn.PS" for PostScript RFCs).
RFCs can also be obtained via FTP from NIS.NSF.NET.
Using FTP, login with username "anonymous" and
password "guest"; then connect to the RFC
directory ("cd RFC"). The file name is of the
form RFCnnnn.TXT-1 (where "nnnn" refers to the
number of the RFC). The NIS also provides an automatic
mail service for those sites which cannot use FTP.
Address the request to NIS-INFO@NIS.NSF.NET and leave
the subject field of the message blank. The first line
of the text of the message must be "SEND
RFCnnnn.TXT-1", where nnnn is replaced by the RFC
number.
Requests for special distribution should be addressed
to either the author of the RFC in question, or to
NIC@NIC.DDN.MIL. SRI International operates NIC.DDN.MIL
and has a hardcopy subscription service for RFCs as well
as several publications which incorporate a selection of
RFCs defining Internet standards. Unless specifically
noted otherwise on the RFC itself, all RFCs are for
unlimited distribution.
Which RFCs are Standards?
What is an Internet Draft?
Are there any guidelines available for writing one?
An Internet Drafts Directory has been installed to
make available, for review and comment by the IETF
members, draft documents that will be submitted
ultimately to the IAB and the RFC Editor to be
considered for publishing as an RFC. The Internet Drafts
Directories are maintained primarily at the NSFNET
Network Service Center (NNSC). There are several
"shadow" machines which contain the IETF and
Internet Drafts Directories. They are:
To access these directories, use anonymous FTP. Login
with username, "anonymous", password,
"guest". Once logged in, change to the
directory, "cd internet-drafts". Internet
Draft files can then be retrieved.
For further information on the Internet Drafts of the
IETF, or if you have problems with retrieving Internet
Draft documents, contact Megan Davies
(mdavies@nri.reston.va.us) or Greg Vaudreuil
(gvaudre@nri.reston.va.us) for assistance.
How do I obtain OSI Standards
documents?
However, the GOSIP specification which covers the use
of OSI protocols within the U.S. Government is available
from the NIC and from the National Institute of
Standards and Technology (NIST). The final text of GOSIP
Version 2 is now available from both sites. Version 2 is
expected to become a Federal Information Processing
Standard (FIPS) in early 1991.
Online sources:
Available through anonymous ftp from nic.ddn.mil
(192.67.67.20) as:
Questions about Internet
Organizations and Contacts The IAB performs the following functions:
The IAB has two principal subsidiary task forces:
Each of these Task Forces is led by a chairman and
guided by a Steering Group which reports to the IAB
through its chairman. For the most part, a collection of
Research or Working Groups carries out the work program
of each Task Force.
All decisions of the IAB are made public. The
principal vehicle by which IAB decisions are propagated
to the parties interested in the Internet and its TCP/IP
protocol suite is the Request for Comments (RFC) note
series and the Internet Monthly Report.
What is the IANA? Current types of assignments listed in Assigned
Numbers and maintained by the IANA are:
For more information on number assignments, contact
IANA@ISI.EDU.
What is a NIC? What is a NOC?
"NOC" stands Network Operations Center. It
is an organization that is responsible for maintaining a
network.
For many networks, especially smaller, local
networks, the functions of the NIC and NOC are combined.
For larger networks, such as mid-level and backbone
networks, the NIC and NOC organizations are separate,
yet they do need to interact to fully perform their
functions.
What is "The NIC"?
The DDN NIC also provides various user assistance
services for DDN users; contact NIC@NIC.DDN.MIL or call
1-800-235-3155 for more information. In addition, the
DDN NIC is the Internet registration authority for the
root domain and several top and second level domains;
maintains the official DoD Internet Host Table; is the
site of the Internet Registry (IR); and maintains the
WHOIS database of network users, hosts, domains,
networks, and Points of Contact.
What is the IR? What is the IETF? The IETF is chaired by Fred Baker and managed by its
Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). The IETF is
a large open community of network designers, operators,
vendors, and researchers concerned with the Internet and
the Internet protocol suite. It is organized around a
set of several technical areas, each managed by a
technical area director. In addition to the IETF
Chairman, the area directors make up the IESG
membership.
The IAB has delegated to the IESG the general
responsibility for making the Internet work and for the
resolution of all short- and mid-range protocol and
architectural issues required to make the Internet
function effectively.
What is the IRTF? In the area of network protocols, the distinction
between research and engineering is not always clear, so
there will sometimes be overlap between activities of
the IETF and the IRTF. There is, in fact, considerable
overlap in membership between the two groups. This
overlap is regarded as vital for cross-fertilization and
technology transfer.
The IRTF is a community of network researchers,
generally with an Internet focus. The work of the IRTF
is governed by its Internet Research Steering Group
(IRSG). The chairman of the IRTF and IRSG is David
Clark.
How do I use the WHOIS
program at the DDN NIC? How do I become registered in
the DDN NIC's WHOIS database? Fill out the name and address information requested
in the file and return it to REGISTRAR@NIC.DDN.MIL. Your
application will be processed and you will be added to
the database. Unless you are an official Point of
Contact for a network entity registered at the DDN NIC,
the DDN NIC will not regularly poll you for updates, so
you should remember to send corrections to your
information as your contact data changes.
How do I use the White Pages
at PSI? To access the data, TELNET to WP.PSI.COM and login as
"fred" (no password is necessary). You may now
look up information on participating organizations. The
program provides help on usage. For example, typing
"help" will show you a list of commands,
"manual" will give detailed documentation, and
"whois" will provide information regarding how
to find references to people. For a list of the
organizations that are participating in the pilot
project by providing information regarding their
members, type "whois -org *".
For more information, send a message to
WP-INFO@PSI.COM.
How do I use the Knowbot
Information Service? Currently, the Knowbot Information Service can be
accessed through TELNET to port 185 on hosts
nri.reston.va.us and sol.bucknell.edu. From a UNIX host,
use "telnet nri.reston.va.us 185". There is
also an electronic mail interface avaliable by sending
mail to netaddress at either nri.reston.va.us or
sol.bucknell.edu.
The commands "help" and "man"
summarize the command interface. Simply entering a user
name at the prompt searches a default list of Internet
directory services for the requested information.
Organization and country information can be included
thorgh the syntax:
"userid@organization.country". For example,
the queries "droms@bucknell" and
"kille@ucl.gb" are both valid. Note that these
are not Domain Names, but rather a syntax to specify an
organization and a country for the search.
The default list of directory services currently
includes the whois services at the SRI NIC and the CSNET
NIC and the white pages service for MCIMail. If an
organization is specified, the PSI X.500 service is also
searched. Other services can be requested explicitly.
What is Usenet? What is
Netnews? How do I get on Usenet? How
do I get Netnews on my computer? What is anonymous FTP?
What is "TELNET"?
Mailing Lists There is a "list-of-lists" file available
on the host ftp.nisc.sri.com that lists most of the
major mailing lists, describes their primary topics, and
explains how to subscribe to them. The file is available
for anonymous ftp in the netinfo directory as
interest-groups (that is, the path is:
netinfo/interest-groups). It can also be obtained via
electronic mail. Send a message to
mail-server@nisc.sri.com with the body of the message
reading, "Send netinfo/interest-groups" and
the file will be returned in moderate size pieces via
electronic mail.
How do I contact the
administrator of a mailing list rather than posting to
the entire list? What are some good mailing
lists or news groups? How do I subscribe to the
TCP-IP mailing list?
TCP-IP-REQUEST@NIC.DDN.MIL
How do I subscribe to the
IETF mailing list? IETF-REQUEST@ISI.EDU
How do I subscribe to the RFC
Distribution list?
To be added to the RFC Distribution list, send a
message to:
RFC-REQUEST@NIC.DDN.MIL
Miscellaneous "Internet lore" questions
What do "btw",
"fyi", "imho", "wrt", and
"rtfm" mean? What is the news
"FAQ" list? Suggested Reading Answers to Commonly asked
"Experienced Internet User" Questions
Although the questions and their responses are taken
from various mailing lists, they are presented here
loosely grouped by related topic for ease of reading.
First the question is presented, then the answer (or
answers) as it appeared on the mailing list.
Sometimes the answers are abridged for better use of
space. If a question was not answered on the mailing
list, the editors provide an answer. These answers are
not distinguished from the answers found on the lists.
Sometimes, in order to be as complete as possible, the
editors provide additional information that was not
present in the original answer. If so, that information
falls under the heading "Additional
Information".
The answers are as correct as the reviewers can make
them. However, much of this information changes with
time. As the FYI is updated, temporal errors will be
corrected.
Many of the questions are in first person, and the
answers were directed to the originator of the question.
These phrasings have not been changed except where
necessary for clarity. References to the correspondents'
names have been removed.
The Q/A mailing lists are maintained by Gary Malkin
at FTP.COM. They are used by a subgroup of the User
Services Working Group to discuss the Q/A FYIs. They
include:
This is a discussion mailing list. Its primary use is
for pre-release review of the Q/A FYIs.
This is how you join the quail mailing list.
This is where the questions and answers will be
forwarded-and-stored. It is not necessary to be on the
quail mailing list to forward to the quail-box.
Acknowledgments Questions about the Internet
Files are available for anonymous ftp; use 'guest' as
the password.
The data in these files represent only traffic which
traverses the highest level of the NSFNET, not traffic
within a campus or regional network. Send
questions/comments to nsfnet-info@merit.edu.
Questions About Other
Networks and Internets Additional Information:
BITNET and EARN are the two largest of several
cooperating networks which use the IBM RSCS/NJE protocol
suite, but are not limited to IBM systems. These
independently administered, interconnected networks
function as a single, worldwide network directly
connecting more than 3,300 computers in about 1,400,
mostly higher-education, organizations worldwide. This
worldwide network supports electronic mail, including
mailing lists, sender-initiated file transfer, and short
"interactive" messages.
BITNET, frequently used (outside of Europe) to refer
to the whole worldwide network, technically refers to
that portion in the United States, plus sites in other
countries which are connected through the United States
and do not have their own separately administered
cooperating networks. More than 550 organizations in the
U.S. participate in BITNET.
EARN is the European Academic Research Network. EARN
links more than 500 institutions in Europe and several
surrounding countries.
BITNET and CSNET merged organizationally on October
1, 1990, to form CREN, the Corporation for Research and
Educational Networking. The two networks remain separate
at the operational level level, however. (EARN and the
other Cooperating Networks were not involved in this
merger.)
Questions About Internet
Documentation Questions About Domain Name
System (DNS) However, the vast majority of users will find it
simpler to just use a DNS query tool and ask the DNS
directly. This doesn't require much sophistication, and
does allow the user to see how short names are expanded
at the user's site rather than at 128.218.1.109
(wherever that is). For example, suppose a user wants to
find out the address of a fully-qualified domain name
"X.MISKATONIC.EDU", and also see what host and
address are used when "Z" is typed as a host
name.
Assuming the user is on a UNIX host and has a copy of
the dig program, type:
dig x.miskatonic.edu and dig z
and the answers will appear. You are now on your way
to becoming a DNS expert. There are other UNIX
alternatives, e.g., nslookup, and similar programs for
non-UNIX systems. Your local DNS guru certainly has one
or more of these tools, and although they are often kept
from the public, they are really quite easy to use for
simple cases.
We have been having a frequent BIND failure on both
our VAX and Solbourne that is traced to TCP domain
queries from an IBM NSMAIN nameserver running in cache
mode (UDP queries do not cause this problem, though it
is usually a UDP resolution that is active upon the
crash -- this resolution is an innocent victim).
I have discovered that something is trashing the hash
areas (sometimes even as it is being recursively used in
a resolution). Also, occasionally the socket/file
descriptor for the TCP connection is changed to invalid
entries causing a reply write fail (though this is not
necessarily fatal, and the rest of the structure is not
apparently altered).
Has any one else had frequent
BIND failures (especially major domain sites that have
heavy TCP domain loads)? BIND has always had a problem with polluting its own
database. These problems have been related to TCP
connections, NS RRs with small TTLs, and several other
causes. Experience suggests that the style of bug fixing
has often been that of reducing the problem by 90%
rather than eliminating it.
IBM's support for the DNS (outside of UNIX systems)
is interesting in its techniques, encouraging in its
improvement, but still somewhat depressing when compared
to most other DNS software. IBM also uses terminology
that varies somewhat from the usual DNS usage and
preserves some archaic syntax, e.g., "..".
The combination of an old BIND and an old IBM server
is just plain unpleasant.
Is the model used by the
domain name system for host names that the owner of a
name gets to choose its case? According to RFC 1034 [2], section 4.2.1, one
should not have to code glue RR's for name server's
names unless they are below the cut. When I don't put
glue RR's in, and do a query for NS records, the
"additional" field is left blank. As far as I
can tell, all other zones I query for NS records have
this filled with the IP addresses of the NS hosts.
Is this required or should I
not be concerned that the additional field is empty?
In practice, putting in the glue where it is not
required can cause problems if the servers named in the
glue are used for several zones. This is broken behavior
in BIND. Not putting in glue can cause other problems in
BIND, usually when the server name is difficult to
resolve. So, the bottom line is to put glue in only when
required, and don't use aliases or anything else tricky
when it comes to identifying name servers.
Questions About Network
Management Implementations Can vendors make their
enterprise-specific variables available to users through
a standard distribution mechanism?
On uu.psi.com in pilot/snmp-wg/, there are two files
The first will run on a Sun-Sparc, the second will
run on a Sun-3. After retrieving one of these files in
BINARY mode via anonymous FTP, the submittor can run
their MIB through it, e.g., % mosy mymib.my
Once your MIB passes, send it to: mib-checker@isi.edu
If everything is OK, the mib-checker will arrange to
have it installed in the /share/ftp/mib directory on
venera.isi.edu. Note: This processing does not offer an
official endorsement. The documents submitted must not
be marked proprietary, confidential, or the like.
I have a question regarding those pesky octet
strings again. I use the variable-type field of the
Response pdu to determine how the result should be
displayed to the user. For example, I convert
NetworkAddresses to their dotted decimal format
("132.243.50.4"). I convert Object Identifiers
into strings ("1.3.6.1.2....").
I would LIKE to just print Octet Strings as
strings. But, this causes a problem in such cases as
atPhysAddress in which the Octet string contains the 6
byte address instead of a printable ASCII string. In
this case, I would want to display the 6 bytes instead
of just trying to print the string.
Does anyone have a suggestion
as to how I can determine whether I can just print the
string or whether I should display the octet bytes?
In general, there is no way that you can tell what is
inside an OCTET STRING without knowing something about
the object that the OCTET STRING comes from. In MIB-II
[6], some objects are marked as DisplayString which has
the syntax of OCTET STRING but is restricted to
characters from the NVT ASCII character set (see the
TELNET Specification, RFC 854 [7], for further
information). These objects are:
If archived MIBs must be 1155-compatible [3], it
would be nice if those who submit them check them first.
Where are these MIB tools
available for public FTP? In the ISODE 6.0 release there is a tool called MOSY
which recognizes the 1155 syntax and produces a flat
ASCII file. If you can run it through MOSY without
problems then you are OK.
Suppose I want to create a
private MIB object for causing some action to happen,
say, do a reset. even though there is only a single value? Or, is it
ok to just allow a Set on this object with any value to
perform the desired action? If the later, how is this
specified?
For our SNMP manageable gizmos and doohickies with
similar "action" type MIB variables, I've
defined two values
And defined behavior so that the only valid value
that the variable may be set to is "reset"
(which is returned in the get response PDU) and at all
other times a get/getnext will respond with
"not-reset".
Questions about Serial Line
Internet Protocol (SLIP) and Point-to-Point Protocol
(PPP) Implementations Since we are very interested
in standards in this area, could someone tell me were I
can find more information on PPP? PPP was designed to be useful for many protocols
besides just IP. Whether it would be useful for your
particular application should probably be discussed with
the IETF's Point-to-Point Protocol Working Group
discussion list.
For general discussion:
ietf- ppp@ucdavis.edu.
To subscribe:
ietf-ppp-request@ucdavis.edu
The PPP specification is available as RFC 1171 [9],
and a PPP options specification is available as RFC 1172
[10].
In UnixWorld of April 1990 (Vol. VII, No. 4, Pg. 85),
Howard Baldwin writes:
Does anyone know if there is
a way to run a SLIP program on a IBM computer running
SCO Xenix/Unix, with a multi-port serial board?
Here's the setup
-- SunOS 3.5, with the 4.3BSD TCP, IP & SLIP
distributions installed. Slip is running between the
"ttya" ports of two Sun 3/60's.
"ping", "rlogin", etc., works fine,
but a NFS mount results in "server not responding:
RPC Timed Out".
SunOS 3.5 turns the UDP checksum off, which is legal
and works okay over interfaces such as ethernet which
has link- level checksumming. On the other hand, SLIP
doesn't perform checksums thus running NFS over SLIP
requires you to turn the UDP checksum on. Otherwise,
you'll experience erratic behavior such as the one
described above.
Save the older kernel and try,
% adb -k -w /vmunix /dev/kmem udpcksum?w 1
to patch up the kernel.
Questions About Routing
Other Protocol and Standards
Implementation Questions
Ethernet type 0x80F3 is used by AppleTalk for address
resolution. You must have Macs on your network which are
directly connected to Ethernet. These packets are used
by the Mac (generally at startup) to determine a valid
AppleTalk node number.
Additional Information:
Does anyone know the
significance of a high value for "Bad proto"
in the output from netstat on Unix machines using
ethernet? This probably indicates that you are getting tens of
thousands of broadcast packets from some host or hosts
on your network. You might want to buy or rent a LAN
monitor, or install one of the public-domain packages to
see what private protocol is guilty. "FYI on a
Network Management Tool Catalog: Tools for Monitoring
and Debugging TCP/IP Internets and Interconnected
Devices" (RFC 1147, FYI 2), [12] contains pointers
to tools that may help you zero in on the problem.
Which RFC would explain the
proper way to configure broadcast addresses when using
subnets? Can anyone tell me what .TAR
files exactly are? TAR stands for "Tape ARchive". It is a Unix
utility which takes files, and directories of files, and
creates a single large file. Originally intended to back
up directory trees onto tape (hence the name), TAR is
also used to combine files for easier electronic file
transfer.
Suggested Reading Security Considerations
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