Hitchhiker's Guide to the Internet, Ed Krol [best classic literature txt] 📗

There are two ways in which a campus could spread the news and not cause these messages to inundate the wide area networks. One is to re-reflect the message on the campus. That is, set up a reflector on a local machine which forwards the message to a campus distribution list. The other is to create an alias on a campus machine which places the messages into a notesfile on the topic. Campus users who want the information could access the notesfile and see the messages that have been sent since their last access. One might also elect to have the campus wide area network liaison screen the messages in either case and only forward those which are considered of merit. Either of these schemes allows one message to be sent to the campus, while allowing wide distribution within.

Address Allocation

Before a local network can be connected to the Internet it must be allocated a unique IP address. These addresses are allocated by ISI. The allocation process consists of getting an application form received from ISI. (Send a message to hostmaster@sri-nic.arpa and ask for the template for a connected address). This template is filled out and mailed back to hostmaster. An address is allocated and e-mailed back to you. This can also be done by postal mail (Appendix B).

IP addresses are 32 bits long. It is usually written as four decimal numbers separated by periods (e.g., 192.17.5.100). Each number is the value of an octet of the 32 bits. It was seen from the beginning that some networks might choose to organize themselves as very flat (one net with a lot of nodes) and some might organize hierarchically

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(many interconnected nets with fewer nodes each and a backbone). To provide for these cases, addresses were differentiated into class A, B, and C networks. This classification had to with the interpretation of the octets. Class A networks have the first octet as a network address and the remaining three as a host address on that network. Class C addresses have three octets of network address and one of host. Class B is split two and two. Therefore, there is an address space for a few large nets, a reasonable number of medium nets and a large number of small nets. The top two bits in the first octet are coded to tell the address format. All of the class A nets have been allocated. So one has to choose between Class B and Class C when placing an order. (There are also class D (Multicast) and E (Experimental) formats. Multicast addresses will likely come into greater use in the near future, but are not frequently used now).

In the past sites requiring multiple network addresses requested multiple discrete addresses (usually Class C). This was done because much of the software available (not ably 4.2BSD) could not deal with subnetted addresses. Information on how to reach a particular network (routing information) must be stored in Internet gateways and packet switches. Some of these nodes have a limited capability to store and exchange routing information (limited to about 300 networks). Therefore, it is suggested that any campus announce (make known to the Internet) no more than two discrete network numbers.

If a campus expects to be constrained by this, it should consider subnetting. Subnetting (RFC-932) allows one to announce one address to the Internet and use a set of addresses on the campus. Basically, one defines a mask which allows the network to differentiate between the network portion and host portion of the address. By using a different mask on the Internet and the campus, the address can be interpreted in multiple ways. For example, if a campus requires two networks internally and has the 32,000 addresses beginning 128.174.X.X (a Class B address) allocated to it, the campus could allocate 128.174.5.X to one part of campus and 128.174.10.X to another. By advertising 128.174 to the Internet with a subnet mask of FF.FF.00.00, the Internet would treat these two addresses as one. Within the campus a mask of FF.FF.FF.00 would be used, allowing the campus to treat the addresses as separate entities. (In reality you don't pass the subnet mask of FF.FF.00.00 to the Internet, the octet meaning is implicit in its being a class B address). A word of warning is necessary. Not all systems know how to do subnetting. Some 4.2BSD systems require additional software. 4.3BSD systems subnet as released. Other devices

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and operating systems vary in the problems they have dealing with subnets. Frequently these machines can be used as a leaf on a network but not as a gateway within the subnetted portion of the network. As time passes and more systems become 4.3BSD based, these problems should disappear.

There has been some confusion in the past over the format of an IP broadcast address. Some machines used an address of all zeros to mean broadcast and some all ones. This was confusing when machines of both type were connected to the same network. The broadcast address of all ones has been adopted to end the grief. Some systems (e.g. 4.2 BSD) allow one to choose the format of the broadcast address. If a system does allow this choice, care should be taken that the all ones format is chosen. (This is explained in RFC-1009 and RFC-1010).

Internet Problems

There are a number of problems with the Internet. Solutions to the problems range from software changes to long term research projects. Some of the major ones are detailed below:

Number of Networks

When the Internet was designed it was to have about 50 connected networks. With the explosion of networking, the number is now approaching 300. The software in a group of critical gateways (called the core gateways of the ARPAnet) are not able to pass or store much more than that number. In the short term, core reallocation and recoding has raised the number slightly. By the summer of '88 the current PDP-11 core gateways will be replaced with BBN Butterfly gateways which will solve the problem.

Routing Issues

Along with sheer mass of the data necessary to route packets to a large number of networks, there are many problems with the updating, stability, and optimality of the routing algorithms. Much research is being done in the area, but the optimal solution to these routing problems is still years away. In most cases the the routing we have today works, but sub-optimally and sometimes unpredictably.

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Trust Issues

Gateways exchange network routing information. Currently, most gateways accept on faith that the information provided about the state of the network is correct. In the past this was not a big problem since most of the gateways belonged to a single administrative entity (DARPA). Now with multiple wide area networks under different administrations, a rogue gateway somewhere in the net could cripple the Internet. There is design work going on to solve both the problem of a gateway doing unreasonable things and providing enough information to reasonably route data between multiply connected networks (multi-homed networks).

Capacity & Congestion

Many portions of the ARPAnet are very congested during the busy part of the day. Additional links are planned to alleviate this congestion, but the implementation will take a few months.

These problems and the future direction of the Internet are determined by the Internet Architect (Dave Clark of MIT) being advised by the Internet Activities Board (IAB). This board is composed of chairmen of a number of committees with responsibility for various specialized areas of the Internet. The committees composing the IAB and their chairmen are:

         Committee Chair
      Autonomous Networks Deborah Estrin
      End-to-End Services Bob Braden
      Internet Architecture Dave Mills
      Internet Engineering Phil Gross
           EGP2 Mike Petry
           Name Domain Planning Doug Kingston
           Gateway Monitoring Craig Partridge
           Internic Jake Feinler
           Performance & Congestion ControlRobert Stine
           NSF Routing Chuck Hedrick
           Misc. MilSup Issues Mike St. Johns
      Privacy Steve Kent
      IRINET Requirements Vint Cerf
      Robustness & Survivability Jim Mathis
      Scientific Requirements Barry Leiner

Note that under Internet Engineering, there are a set