Re: TCPMUX (RFC 1078) status

[Bob Braden <[e-mail]>]

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