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rfc:ien:ien134
                                                             J. Postel

IEN 134 ISI

                                                      29 February 1980
          Internet Meeting Notes - 4, 5, & 6 February 1980

I. INTRODUCTION - Kunzelman, Shoch

 This meeting was held at SRI on Monday and Wednesday and at XEROX
 PARC on Tuesday.  Ron Kunzelman was the coordinator at SRI, and John
 Shoch was the coordinator at XEROX.

II. OVERVIEW AND OBJECTIVES - Cerf

 Vint briefly restated the current issues of concern in the internet
 program.  The principal issue is now performance.  The Fort Bragg
 users and the european users depend on the internet for access to
 their host computers.

III. STATUS REPORTS

 A.  DARPA - Cerf
    Vint reported that ARPA as a whole had been reorganized to better
    balance the various offices.  IPTO itself had not been affected.
    Vint noted that in the last few years IPTO had put more emphasis
    on test beds and demonstration projects to promote technology
    transfer, and that this had hurt basic research.  Vint thinks that
    there will be an increase in support for research.
    Vint reported that the protocol standardization effort in DOD is
    moving forward, and that IP and TCP as documented in IENs 128 and
    129 form the basis for the standards.
    Vint repeated his desire for each contractor to identify
    milestones and to make monthly progress reports.  Jon Postel will
    coordinate these reports.
 B.  BBN - Plummer, Strazisar, Haverty, Wingfield, McNeill, Brescia,
 Flood Page, Nelson
    Bill reported that TCP and IP on TOPS 20 are working and that he
    is begining work on the Tenex versions.  For this he is using a
    new host at BBNG.  The XNET program has been converted.  FTP on
    TCP is in the queue but not top priority.

Postel [Page 1]

                                                               IEN 134

Internet Meeting Notes

    Ginny reported that all gateways but one have been converted to
    MOS based systems, and that conversion of the bootstraps and
    loaders to use IP is in progress.  The gateways do participate
    with the CMCC by sending the monitoring reports.  A port expander
    has arrived at BBN.
    Jack reported on the development of XNET programs in the UNIX
    environment.  The Unix debugger has been extended to allow
    debugging of processes on another machine via XNET.  Two XNET
    servers have been created, one for debugging at the system level,
    and another for debugging at the process level.
    Jack also discussed the problems with connecting things via 1822
    style interfaces.  The problems arise because the available
    specification is for a host side interface, and the host side is
    allowed to be sloppy about its signals while the IMP side is not.
    Plugging two host side interfaces together sometimes doesn't work
    due to differences in signal levels allowed by the host side
    specification.  If these interfaces were built to the more
    stringent (and undocumented) IMP side specification these problems
    could be avoided.  ACTION:  Vint will investigate provision of
    1822 interfaces that meet IMP side specification.
    Jack noted that BBN is implementing IP and TCP for an HP3000 data
    management system for ARPA.
    Mike Wingfield reported that the "C" version of the unix IP and
    TCP will be used for both the ARPA Internet and AUTODIN II
    environments, and the macro version will be phased out.  MOS2 has
    been rewritten in "C."  The TCP has been studied for performance
    bottlenecks, with the current suspicion falling on the
    interprocess communication facility.  Fragmentation and reassembly
    are being added to TCP.  The AUTODIN II FTP is being implemented.
    Dale reported that SATNET is working well except for a 5 day
    period where there were hardware problems at Goonhilly.  SATNET
    continues to support ARPANET traffic to/from Europe via "line 77."
    Performance between the channel protocol modules has been
    measured.  A gateway between MATNET (a secure shipboard SATNET)
    and a secure subset of the ARPANET will come into existence.
    Mike Brescia discussed gateway operation and monitoring
    operations.  An NCC style gateway monitoring center is being
    setup.  A gateway is being developed for connecting the ARPANET
    and an X.25 net.  The X.25 side is still under development.
    David briefly mentioned the status of the Catenet monitoring
    programs.  These are discussed in another session of the meeting.

Postel [Page 2]

                                                               IEN 134

Internet Meeting Notes

    Ruth reported on the development of a local net for the ACCAT
    testbed at NOSC.  There will be a gateway to the secure subset of
    the ARPANET.  An MBB Unix will be used.  This work is in the
    design stage.  IP and TCP will be used in the local network, which
    uses an 8 megabit base band cable with collision detection.  This
    is based on the MIT CHAOS net experience.
 C.  DCA - Cain
    Ed reported that the local net which has operated for several
    years based on an old version of the ARPANET IMPs will now have to
    be brought up to date to use 96 bit leaders so this net can
    participate in experiments with BCRs.
 D.  COMSAT - Mills
    Dave reported that work continues on the PSP and NET, however the
    main effort in recent months has been the demonstration for the
    NTC.  The "demo" system has been configured to run on a variety of
    PDP-11 models.  In the process of preparing for the demo some
    performance problems were detected, and since the demo some study
    has been done to isolate them (more on this in a later session).
    These performance issues also prompted some tuning of parameters
    and strategy in the MOS TCP.  On another front Dave found a way to
    decode compressed FAX files.  Dave has several written reports
    giving more detail on the work of COMSAT.
 E.  DOD - McFarland
    Ray reported that Ken Shotting is attempting a formal
    specification of IP in SPECIAL, and may be ready to give a report
    at the next meeting.
 F.  ISI - Postel
    Jon noted that ISI is working in three task areas:  (1) Protocol
    Development, which includes the work on IP and TCP specifications;
    (2) Internet Mail, which includes development of mechanisms for
    delivery of mail in an internet and provision for multi-media data
    in the mail; and (3) protocol verification, which aims at the
    analysis of IP and TCP for correct operation.
 G.  Linkabit - Hoversten
    Estil noted Linkabit's involvement in SATNET and the WBC
    experiment, and his participation in the development of the ST
    protocol.  Estil claimed to be the advocate of wild ideas.  [Danny

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                                                               IEN 134

Internet Meeting Notes

    Cohen immediately claimed to be the advocate of tame ideas.]
    Linkabit is also considering a set of local networks.
 H.  LL - Forgie
    Jim reported on efforts to make the SATNET voice conferencing more
    robust.  Dale McNeill helped by fine tuning the SATNET but there
    were still problems in the overall path.  It seems that the ELF
    based gateway introduces too much delay into the system.  The idea
    of a film on SATNET conferencing has been canceled due to the poor
    performance of the system.  There appears to be no further need
    for the ELF gateway in SATNET.
    Jim also briefly mentioned the status of the ST protocol, which
    will be reviewed in a later session.  Jim did discuss the WBC
    experiment and indicated the goals of having the LL, ISI, and SRI
    sites up for point-to-point packet voice by September 1980, and
    multiplexing of cells through a Voice Funnel by September 1981.
 I.  MIT - Clark
    Dave noted that version 1 of the LCSNET is in operation with a PDP
    11 Unix system and a VAX connected, and the MIT-XX TOPS 20 to be
    connected in April.  Version 2 of the LCSNET is being debugged.
    Version 2 operates the cable at 8 megabits (version 1 operates at
    1 megabit).
    Dave described the development of a personal terminal to be built
    for LCS by Zenith.  The prototype was built by Steve Ward at MIT.
    LCS expects to have 10 of these by the end of May, 40 by the end
    of 1980 and 150 by the end of 1981.  These personal computers will
    interface directly to the LCSNET.
    Dave also reported continuing problems with the port expander and
    ARPANET hosts.  A testing session will be set up at BBN involving
    people from BBN and SRI.  ACTION:  Ron Kunzelman and Bill Plummer
    will test port expander with BBNF.
    Dave also noted that MIT received a gift of 20 Altos and an
    ethernet from XEROX, and that some effort will be needed to
    integrate them into the environment.  A common Trivial FTP is in
    progress, the plan is to develop IP, TCP, and Telnet for the
    Altos.
    There will be an improved Telnet server on Multics soon, and a
    mail queuer for local net users.  IP reassembly code will be
    added.

Postel [Page 4]

                                                               IEN 134

Internet Meeting Notes

    Dave did not prepare a memo for this meeting on congestion
    control, but expects to have a presentation on the topic for the
    next meeting.
 J.  NDRE - Lundh
    Yngvar reported that the plans of NDRE are quite behind schedule
    due to lack of staff.  The problems with the VDH connection have
    been solved and TCP is working.  NDRE is developing a local net
    involving NORD-10 and NORD-100 computers.
 K.  RSRE - Davies
    Brian reported on the development of the RSRE gateway and the
    experiences with the gateway-gateway protocol and CMCC monitoring
    protocol.  Things seem to work well except for a few special
    cases.  For example, when a "tail" gateway crashes it takes many
    gateway routing update steps to get the hop count up to
    "infinity."  The temporary fix is to use a smaller value for
    "infinity" (today "infinity" = 5).
    Another problem is that the host routing in TOPS 20s does not
    switch to the NDRE gateway when the BBN gateway is down.  ACTION:
    Bill Plummer to change TOPS 20 host routing procedures, Vint Cerf
    to get the priority for this task.
    RSRE has also experienced problems using TCP between RSRE and
    ISIE.  There may be a data stream capture problem.  Even when all
    is going well there are many duplicates, seemingly due to the
    round trip time being longer than the TOPS 20 TCP retransmission
    timeout.  Brian estimates the delay at six (6) seconds.
    RSRE will be working on a connection to PSS and a new X.25-TCP
    interconnection.
 L.  SRI - Kunzelman, Cone, Nelson, Frankel
    Ron discussed the status of the TIU, and reported that it is now
    fully converted to IP and TCP.  The PRNET at SRI has been
    converted to the CAP5 protocol.  A PDP-11/44 will be installed as
    a PRNET measurement facility.
    Don reported that six port expanders have been delivered and that
    five more are in the works.
    Holly discussed the state of the port expander software.
    Mike discussed the Ft. Bragg PRNET status.  Six radio units are

Postel [Page 5]

                                                               IEN 134

Internet Meeting Notes

    installed.  There are problems of response delays to the users
    from Ft. Bragg to ISIE.  There may be a data stream capture
    problem.  The gateway seems to be a thruput bottleneck.
    Raphi reported on a local network development at SRI.  This will
    be based on XEROX Ethernet PDP-11 interface boards.  These come
    from XEROX with a unibus interface, SRI will convert them to Qbus
    interface to be able to use LSI-11s to front end the host systems.
    The hosts will be the TOPS20, Unix, B6700 systems now at SRI.  The
    first service will be computer mail based on the Deleware MMDF and
    the SRI Deafnet.  Telex and TWX will also be connected into the
    online mail system.
 M.  UCL - Jones
    Ron discussed the UCL involvement in the NTC demonstrations, and
    in the RSRE interconnection to the internet.  Several tasks were
    delayed due to the development machine being out of service for 6
    weeks.  An ARPANET/PSS gateway is under development.  This will be
    a protocol translation gateway converting between X.25 and TCP and
    eventually up to the Telnet protocol level.  Experiments are
    beginning with a connection to IPSS.  An NCP/TCP gateway was
    demonstrated on ISIE.  The NIFTP now runs on both ISIE and UCL
    Unix.  UCL has also been active with the development of a FAX
    protocol.  The UCL local net (a cambridge ring) now has 5
    stations.  It is planned to use TCP as the protocol above the ring
    driver.
 N.  MITRE - Skelton
    Anita reported that the local net (a cable bus) is up and running.
    There is work to upgrade the BIUs to allow larger packets and
    higher data rates on the net.  A second net is to be installed at
    DCEC.  There is also work to create an X.25 BIU interface.
 O.  UCLA - Braden
    Bob reported that the machine at UCLA-CCN is now a 3033 running
    OS/MVT.  IP and TCP are up, and a server telnet is in place.

Postel [Page 6]

                                                               IEN 134

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IV. DOCUMENT STATUS - Postel

 Jon reported that the following documents were issued since the last
 meeting:
 IEN 120 by Radia Perlman on "Internet Routing and the Network Portion
 Problem."
    This memo discusses ways in which gateway routing data could be
    used to overcome the problems of partitioned networks.
 IEN 121 by Postel on "Internet Meeting Notes - 10, 11, 12, 13
 September 1979."
    This is simply the notes of the last meeting.
 IEN 122 by Cohen on "Addressing and Related Issues (or Fuel for a
 Discussion)."
    A suggestion that not all local networks need to be registered as
    full networks in the internet and some ways of addressing the
    hosts on such unregistered networks.
 IEN 123 and 124 were the December versions of the IP and TCP
 specifications.  These were the first try at the DOD Standard
 versions.
 IEN 125 by Cerf on "Pre-emption."
    This is a note detailing how pre-emption can be handled at the
    application level.
 IEN 126 by Cohen on a "Summary of the ARPA/ETHERNET Community
 Meeting."
    This describes a plan for the co-existence of the PUP internet and
    the ARPA internet protocols.
 IEN 127 by Postel on "Assigned Numbers."
    This is the latest edition of the list of network, protocols,
    ports socket, and links.
 IEN 128 and 129 by Postel on IP and TCP.
    These are the second try at the DOD Standard versions of the IP
    and TCP specifications.  These are also the current specifications
    for our own (ARPA internet) use.

Postel [Page 7]

                                                               IEN 134

Internet Meeting Notes

 In addition to these, four more IENs were received since the Thursday
 before the meeting:
 IEN 130 is a "Comparison of X.25 and TCP as Cable Bus Network
 Protocols" by International Computing.
 IEN 131 and IEN 132 by David Flood Page on "Gateway Monitoring
 Protocol" and "The CMCC Terminal Process."
 IEN 133 by Karen Sollins on "The TFTP Protocol."
 Two IENs which were desired but not produced were:
 "How to Build a Host IP" by Bill Plummer
 and
 "Congestion Control" by Dave Clark.

V. FAX STATUS - Cerf

 Vint reported that Duane Adams of ARPA/IPTO is starting a program on
 graceful interaction and the test application will be multi-media
 computer mail.  Since some of the internet project participants have
 FAX equipment there was a small meeting on how to cooperate to
 exchange FAX data.  The internet program has interest in seeing that
 the exchange of multi-media data is possible in the internet and that
 the representation of such data is compatible between these programs.

VI. INTERNET MAIL - Postel

 Jon presented the current status of the internet mail system.  The
 system replaces the traditional "Mailer-FTPSRV" processes with new
 processes called MPM's.  The MPM exchange messages which are list
 structured data of various types (not just text).  The MPMs use TCP
 to transmit these messages.  Some other programs have been modified
 or created to create test messages in this new format.  No user
 interface to this new system exists yet.

VII. BBN - FAX - MAIL - Myer

 Ted described BBN's work on a user interface program to manipulate
 messages composed of mixtures of text and FAX data.  The focus is on
 the creation of such messages and on their presentation.  The RAPICOM
 450 will be used experimentally, and the files will be kept in a
 format very close to that used by Postel's MPMs.

Postel [Page 8]

                                                               IEN 134

Internet Meeting Notes

VIII. GATEWAY MONITORING - Flood Page

 David reviewed the operation of the Catenet monitoring center and the
 terminal process, indicating the types of information available.
 Please see IENs 131 and 132 for more details.

IX. DEMOS

 A.  David Flood Page gave a demo of the CMCC by using a terminal
     process to examine the statistics sent in by various gateways.
 B.  Greg Finn gave a demo of the Internet Mail system by running
     instrumented versions of the MPMs such that the progress of
     message processing could be followed.

X. PUP - Shoch, Taft, Boggs, Stewart

 John presented a review of the PARC developed ETHERNET and PUP
 protocol environment.  This was a very thorough presentation.  Rather
 than try to capture it here the reader is referred to "PUP - An
 Internetwork Architecture", a paper to appear in the IEEE
 Transactions on Communication in April, and available as a Xerox
 report from John.
 John demonstrated some simple programs which use the PUP protocols
 and some monitoring programs.  Ed demonstrated the Laural Mail
 Program, Dave demonstrated a cross network debugger, and Larry
 demonstrated the PRNET/ETHERNET interconnection and some digital
 audio transmission on the ETHERNET.

XI. PUP-IP COEXISTENCE - Cohen

 Danny presented the scheme described in IEN 126 for the "mutual
 encapsulation" (credit Bob Metcalfe for the term) of PUP in IPs and
 IPs in PUPs.

XII. DELTA-T PROTOCOL - Watson

 Dick made a presentation highlighting the critical assumptions about
 time in both the Delta-T protocol and TCP.  The claim is that for
 either of these protocols to operate correctly these critical time
 factors must exceed specific minimum values based on the Maximum
 Packet Lifetime, the retransmission time, and the Ack holding time.

Postel [Page 9]

                                                               IEN 134

Internet Meeting Notes

XIII. LIMITING PACKET LIFETIMES - Sloan

 Lansing presented a scheme for measuring the time a packet spends on
 a link.  This would enable a network to age packets and if necessary
 kill them off if they get older than an established maximum packet
 lifetime.  This method will be reported in a paper to appear in
 Computer Networks.

XIV. ST - Forgie

 Jim reviewed the discussion and evolution of ST since last meeting.
 IEN 119 remains a reasonable reference to the intention and general
 mechanisms of ST, though some details may now differ.  A revised
 version is to be issued soon.  Plans are moving ahead for
 implementations of a host and a gateway ST at LL and a host ST at
 ISI.

XV. PORT EXPANDER - Lieb

 Jim presented a very detailed explanation of the Port Expander.  This
 simple concept of multiplexing the IMP port for a set of host becomes
 fairly tricky when all the IMP emulation tasks are identified.

XVI. SERVICES IN AN INTERNET ENVIRONMENT - Rom

 Raphi proposed that some gateways may wish to offer services to
 higher level protocols by having application-dependent modules that
 could be invoked to process messages of that application.  These
 modules could be called "functional agents."

XVII. NBS STANDARDIZATION - Wingfield

 Mike reported that BBN is under contract to NBS to prepare a
 host-to-host protocol specification to be a Federal Information
 Processing Standard.  This is part of a larger effort by NBS which
 includes the following contractors and protocols:
    BBN - Host, FTP, IP, Interprocess.
    SDC - Telnet, Remote Job Entry, Common Command Language.
    SEI - Computer Mail.
    NAC - Cost/Benefit of Standards.

Postel [Page 10]

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Internet Meeting Notes

XVIII. INTERNET PERFORMANCE - Davies

 Brian discussed some measurements of TCP conducted by RSRE to various
 other places in the internet.  The performance is regular for round
 trips from RSRE to various points at UCL, and is consistent with the
 physical facilities.  Once the round trip path includes the SATNET,
 however, the performance becomes irregular, with a few messages
 subject to very high delay.  Also some unnecessary retransmissions
 are detected in the tests form RSRE to ISIE and back, these may be
 due to a too low retransmission threshold.
 This prompted some discussion of the source of the variability in the
 delay.  Jim Forgie presented some data from the SATNET speech testing
 that seemed to confirm Brian's data.  Dale McNeill showed some data
 on the SATNET channel delays which show performance at that level to
 be very regular.  Suspicion seems to be cast on the SIMPs or the
 Gateways or their interface.

XIX. CONGESTION CONTROL - Mills

 Dave described some measurements of TCP traffic between the COMSAT
 DEMO Terminal and ISIE.  There is evidence of lost and delayed
 packets.
 It seems clear from this and the preceeding discussion that a
 definite effort is needed to isolate and correct these performance
 problems.

XX. MISCELLANEOUS - Cerf

 Vint noted the following loose ends that need to be tied up:
    1.  96 bit leader changes to all ARPANET hosts, and carried
    through system and application software.
    2.  TCP implementations brought up to the JAN 80 specifications.
    3.  IP implementations brought up to the JAN 80 specifications,
    and modified to including reassembly/fragmentation, gateway
    routing advice, alternate gateway selection, and source quenching.
    4.  Gateway addresses needed in all host IP tables.
 Vint also noted that work on a TCP TIP has been started.  That an
 ARPANET/TELENET gateway is in progress, and that an ARPANET AUTODIN
 II gateway is expected in first quarter of 1981.

Postel [Page 11]

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Internet Meeting Notes

XXI. NEXT MEETING - Cerf

 The next meeting is scheduled for 14 & 15 May at MIT.  The contact is
 Dave Clark (Clark@MIT-Multics).

XXII. DOCUMENTS DISTRIBUTED

 IEN        Author       Title
 ---        ------       -----
 127        Postel       Assigned Numbers
 128        Postel       IP Spec
 129        Postel       TCP Spec
 130                     Comparison of TCP & X.25
            Watson       Comparison of TCP & Delta-T
            Lieb         Port Expander
            Mills        COMSAT Reports
            Postel       Internet Host and Gateways
            Postel       IEN Index

Postel [Page 12]

                                                               IEN 134

Internet Meeting Notes

XXIII. ATTENDEES

 Vint Cerf                ARPA               Cerf@ISIA
 Mike Brescia             BBN                Brescia@BBNE
 Jack Haverty             BBN                JHAVERTY@BBND
 Dale McNeill             BBN                DMCNEILL@BBNE
 David Flood Page         BBN                DFLOODPAGE@BBNE
 Ted Myer                 BBN                Myer@BBNA
 Ruth Nelson              BBN                RNelson@BBND
 William Plummer          BBN                Plummer@BBNA
 Bob Resnick              BBN                Resnick@BBNA
 Virginia Strazisar       BBN                STRAZISAR@BBNA
 Mike Wingfield           BBN                Wingfield@BBND
 Hoi Y. Chong             COMSAT             Chong@ISIE
 David Mills              COMSAT             Mills@ISIE
 Chris Elliott            CTEC           c/o Chips@BBNC
 Ed Cain                  DCEC               DCEC-R850@BBNB
 Ray McFarland            DoD                McFARLAND@ISIA
 Danny Cohen              ISI                Cohen@ISIB
 Greg Finn                ISI                Finn@ISIE
 Jon Postel               ISI                Postel@ISIE
 Carl Sunshine            ISI                Sunshine@ISIE
 Lansing Sloan            LLL                DWatson@BBNB
 Dick Watson              LLL                DWatson@BBNB
 Estil Hoversten          Linkabit           Hoversten@ISIA
 Jim Forgie               Lincoln Lab        FORGIE@BBN
 David Clark              MIT                Clark@MIT-Multics
 Anita Skelton            MITRE              Anita@MITRE
 Frank Deckelman          NAVELEX            DECKELMAN@ISIA
 Yngvar Lundh             NDRE               Yngvar@SRI-KA
 Paal Spilling            NDRE/SRI           Spilling@SRI-KL
 Merle Neer               NOSC               Neer@ISIA
 Brian Davies             RSRE               RSRE-T4@ISIA
 John Laws                RSRE               RSRE-T4@ISIA
 David Kaufman            SDC                Kaufman@ISIE
 Don Cone                 SRI                Cone@SRI-KL
 William Croft            SRI                Croft@SRI-KL
 Elizabeth Feinler        SRI                Feinler@SRI-KL
 Mike Frankel             SRI                Frankel@SRI-KL
 Michael Heathman         SRI                Heathman@SRI-KL
 Ron Kunzelman            SRI                Kunzelman@SRI-KL
 Jim Mathis               SRI                Mathis@SRI-KL
 Stevan Milunovic         SRI                Milunovic@SRI-KL
 Holly Nelson             SRI                HNelson@SRI-KL
 Ed Perry                 SRI                Perry@SRI-KL
 John Pickens             SRI                Pickens@SRI-KL
 Raphael Rom              SRI                Rom@SRI-KL
 Ron Jones                UCL                UKSAT@ISIE

Postel [Page 13]

                                                               IEN 134

Internet Meeting Notes

 Peter Kirstein           UCL                Kirstein@ISIA
 Steve Treadwell          UCL                UKSAT@ISIE
 Bob Braden               UCLA OAC           Braden@UCLA-CCN
 David Boggs              Xerox              Boggs@PARC
 Steve Butterfield        Xerox              Butterfield@PARC
 Dave Redell              Xerox              Redell@PARC
 John Shoch               Xerox              Shoch@PARC
 Larry Stewart            Xerox              LStewart@PARC
 Ed Taft                  Xerox              Taft@PARC

Postel [Page 14]

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