[ih] Syncrhonization problems for Telnet Option 6 (RCTE)

[Dave Crocker]

Folks,

My first technical work was co-authoring the Remote Controlled
Transmission and Echoing Telnet option with Jon Postel. It provides a
way for the server to tell the client when to echo characters and when
to send chunks to the server. It was intended to reduce per-character
handling across the net.

A couple of places implemented it, but then it fell into disuse. Jon
later told me the client and the server would have handling tables
that lost syncrhonization with each other.

This experience causes me to view simple add/delete protocol actions
as susceptible to syncrhonization problems, unless there is an
explicit way to make sure that both participants have tables that are
in synch.

The problem is that I do not have any of the real data from the
original "experiment", so I cannot convince folks of the potential
problem.  I never asked Jon for more than a summary of the problem.

Does anyone have any detail about the operational history of this
Telnet Option?

Thanks.

d/
--
 Dave Crocker <dcrocker-at-brandenburg-dot-com>
 Brandenburg InternetWorking <www.brandenburg.com>
 Sunnyvale, CA  USA <tel:+1.408.246.8253>