[ih] Protocol numbers (was IP version 7)

[Louis Mamakos]

Perhaps one way forward for the IANA is to take these old protocol
number assignments and also make them available for "local" or
"experimental" use.  Since they're only (probably) of note to the
end-systems, it's likely safe to reuse these protocol number for
future experiments.  Sort of like how network 10.0.0.0/8 got allocated
for RFC-1918 local-use after the ARPANET was turned off.

louie


On 23 Dec 2020, at 21:08, Barbara Denny via Internet-history wrote:

>  I will throw out a guess about the mystery EMCON protocol number 
> assignment.  It might be related to SRI's work for the Navy. We had 
> a  project called  Metanet that was looking at how to support TCP/IP 
> networking when ships were under emission control.  In 1984, I gave a 
> presentation about the work at a Gateway Special Interest Group 
> Meeting hosted by Jon Postel at ISI (see RFC 898).  I don't remember 
> us asking for a protocol number yet but we could have. I also wonder 
> if Jon may have created a placeholder for us. I was working on the Ada 
> implementation of the gateway at that point in time.  I don't think 
> we had the EMCON details worked out yet.  The project got cancelled 
> unexpectedly and on short notice due to a change in personnel if I 
> remember correctly. 
> barbara
>     On Tuesday, December 22, 2020, 06:32:29 PM PST, John Gilmore via 
> Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
>  Bob Hinden via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> 
> wrote:
>> BTW, I am not sure why 8 and 9 are labeled as historic, but 7 isn't.
>> I will ask IANA about this off list.
>
> While we're thinking about it, there is another small field that
> threatens to overflow sometime in the foreseeable future, the 
> "Assigned
> Internet Protocol Numbers".  These are 8 bits wide, and exist in 
> every IPv4
> and IPv6 packet:
>
>   
> https://www.iana.org/assignments/protocol-numbers/protocol-numbers.xhtml
>
> The frequently used ones are TCP (6), UDP (17), ICMP (1), etc.  Then
> there is the dross.  This registry is already more than half full, 
> and
> it lists as actively in use such flashes-in-the-pan as the BR-SAT-MON
> (Backroom SATNET Monitoring), the Sun-ND PROTOCOL ("Temporary") from 
> the
> early 1980s, Ipsilon Flow Management Protocol, Sprite-RPC from 1986,
> CPHB Computer Protocol Heart Beat, Source Demand Routing Protocol, 3PC
> 3rd Party Connect Protocol, and tons of other things that should have
> just gotten a UDP port number assigned from a 16-bit field.  Half of
> these protocols don't even have an RFC that defines the protocol.
>
> There is no defined process for reclaiming them, other than having the
> original requester write an email to IANA and tell them that it isn't 
> in
> use any more.  That seems to be true even if the original requester
> worked for a company that the protocol was used by, and the company
> still exists (like Sun/Oracle) even though the requester has moved on
> decades ago.  Probably, fewer than half of the people who got these
> protocol numbers assigned are now dead, but every year creates more
> such situations.
>
> I succeeded in asking John Ioannidis to release 2 of the 3 protocol
> numbers that he got assigned during the early packet encryption days.
> IANA wouldn't just de-allocate them, but they have at least marked 
> them
> "deprecated".  JI isn't sure if his IPIP, protocol 94, is in use
> anywhere.  We think everybody encapsulating IPv4 in IPv4 or IPv6 
> packets
> is using protocol 4 nowadays, but how would one actually tell?  So 94
> remains not deprecated.
>
> When designing IPv6, the designers made the address space huge, but 
> the
> protocol space is *smaller* than in IPv4.  Not only do the protocol
> numbers used in IPv4 overlap those used in IPv6, but both of them
> overlap the "IPv6 extension header" allocation space.  Assigning a 
> new
> protocol OR a new extension header burns up space for all three
> protocols.
>
> Could anybody who is reading this list, who at one point got a 
> protocol
> number assigned, please check if it can be released?  You can search 
> the
> above IANA page for your name, to find out if IANA thinks you are in
> charge of any.
>
> Or, perhaps notify a retired researcher not on the list, (e.g. is
> anybody running Noel Chiappa's CHAOSnet, protocol 16, on top of IP?  
> Or
> Zaw-Sing Su's Packet Radio Measurement protocol 21?  Or the mystery
> EMCON protocol 14 with no known contact person or protocol spec?)
>
> And let's together think up a viable way to release the protocols that
> were used for some research project, and were then left behind by a
> person who has since departed the planet for realms where the protocol
> number space is infinite.
>
>     John
>    
>
>
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