RFCs (Request For Comments) are a collection of documents which are referred to by the Internet community and which describe, specify and assist in the implementation, standardization and discussion of the majority of norms, standards, technologies and protocols related to the Internet and networks in general.
The TCP/IP protocol suite represents a collection of norms drawn up by an organization called the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force). This organization officially publishes their reports in the form of requests, available to all, making it possible to clarify a great number of subjects relating to TCP/IP.
Each of these documents represents a specification proposal which can be made obsolete at any time by a new RFC document. So, RFCs are text files where the name is "rfcxxxx.txt" where xxxx is a number incremented for each new RFC. There are currently more than 2000, representing a size of approximately 130MB (25MB once compressed). However a number of these files have been replaced by more recent files.
In reality, anyone can write a RFC and submit it to the IETF by sending it to the coordinator: rfc.editor@rfc.editor.org. If it is accepted, it will appear after having been appraised by the coordinators. RFC1543, entitled instructions to RFC authors, explains how to compose an RFC.
The most interesting RFCs are the recent RFCs which talk about the most common protocols or services:
| Specification | RFC |
|---|---|
| UDP protocol | RFC768 |
| IP protocol | RFC791 |
| ICMP protocol | RFC792 |
| TCP protocol | RFC793 |
| FTP protocol | RFC959 |
| Webmail | RFC822 |
| Telnet protocol | RFC854 |
| NNTP protocol | RFC977 |
| Netbios | RFC1001 |
| SLIP protocol | RFC1055 |
| MIB | RFC1156 |
| TCP/IP | RFC1180 |
| FAQ for beginners | RFC1206 |
| FAQ for experienced users | RFC1207 |
| Network glossary | RFC1208 |
| RFCs | RFC1325 |
| MIME (MultiPurpose Mail Extension) | RFC2045, RFC2046 and RFC2047 |
| Allocation of IP addresses for intranets | RFC1597 |
| PPP protocol | RFC1661 |
| Port numbers | RFC3232 |
| HTTP protocol | RFC2068 |
| LDAPv3 protocol | RFC2251 |
| SMTP protocol | RFC2821 |
These documents are available on a large number of FTP sites:
The website http://www.rfc-editor.org also allows these documents to be downloaded, as well as providing the opportunity to download the archive of more than 20MB containing all the RFCs.
