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Re: TCPMUX (RFC 1078) status

2013-08-21 13:04:36
On 8/15/2013 6:23 PM, Wesley Eddy wrote:
I totally agree. In fact, in the update to the TCP roadmap [1], we added TCPMUX to the section on "Historic and Undeployed Extensions", though it definitely bears further discussion than is currently in the roadmap. I think we should add a reference to your portnames doc to explain why this should be Historic plus check a bit more to see if the code that's out there is really being used or whether it's just hanging out like a vestigal limb in the various inetd packages.
Wes,

Indeed, TCPMUX is quite historic... it represents a Road Not Taken. My memory is a bit hazy after 30+ years, but I think there was a serious discussion around 1979 of using strings instead of contact port numbers for opening TCP connections. Here is the hazy part... I *think* that Chaosnet used strings, and two well known MIT Daves introduced a proposal to adopt this mechanism for TCP. (Also, maybe XNS used strings? Not sure about that...) The internet working group ultimately rejected the idea, I think when Jon Postel argued that contact ports provided greater conceptual economy.

Maybe I got this wrong, but in any case I hope that someone else who was in the room then will correct me. Jack? Vint? Dave? Danny?

Bob Braden

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