Re: [Taps] RFC 6458 etc. in draft-welzl-taps-transports

[Joe Touch <[e-mail]>]

On 11/3/2015 5:27 PM, Karen Elisabeth Egede Nielsen wrote:
> HI,
> 
> As a general comment then I believe that when describing what is supported
> by TCP/SCTP (or UDP) as standard then it does not suffice to look into
> IETF RFCs.
> One need at least to relate to the *basic functions* of the POSIX/Berkeley
> socket api standard.
> 
> My understanding of the TCP API, for example, is that while RFC793 did
> specify an abstract API for TCP, then
> the true defacto standard for the socket api is the Berkeley socket api
> from .?. around 1990.
> Not saying the different socket api standards don't differ and that there
> is *one* standard to look at.
> But making is be RFC793 rather then what emerged as defacto in the 1990's
> seems a "bit odd" to me.

There are implementations of TCP that do not use the Berkeley sockets
model. Note, though, that the concept of a socket for communications
itself comes from RFC793, not Unix.

> Especially since we have RFCs RFC1122 dating back to 1989 already
> clarifying part of RFC793 (namely the PUSH bit)
> And one, much more recent, RFC6093, clarifying the urgent bit.

When we talk about TCP, we certainly mean more than just RFC793 - we
include all updates to that spec, which include these documents. In some
cases, the updates came from implementation experience; in other cases,
they came from the standards community because of more fundamental concerns.

Joe