Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!sdsu!polyslo!cindy!csusac!ucdavis!ccruss
From: ccruss@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu (Russ Hobby)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Router interoperability
Message-ID: <5724@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu>
Date: 27 Oct 89 17:09:32 GMT
References: <8910241346.AA21092@iapetus.rice.edu>
Reply-To: rdhobby@ucdavis.edu
Organization: University of California, Davis
Lines: 43

Well here is the word from the Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP)
workgroup.  We will have a final draft at the end of IETF next week.
The major router vendors (as well as workstation and terminal server
vendors) have been participating in the workgroup all along. Most of
the router vendors say that they will have PPP in their next release.

PPP has been designed to handle multiple protocols, not just IP, so
DECNET and other protocols will be transported in a standard method
over the link. PPP has many other features such as link establishment,
error detection, link testing, authentication, encryption and IP
address negotiation and is extendible for adding new protocols and
features and as such there is still work to be done on the protocol. 
For example only a simple user/password authentication is currently
defined. A more secure method would be desirable. Also, although the
method of encryption can be negotiated, no methods have been define
at this time.

In answer to Guy's question, it will be equilvalent to pluging the two
routers into an ethernet.  PPP does not solve all the router
interoperability problems though.  It does provide a standard method of
getting the packets across the wire, but it doesn't solve the routing
problem. Currently RIP can be used, but it has a lot of limitations. It
seems that OSPF will be the next improvement and it appears the
Internet community has agreed that it will be the next step. But even
OSPF will not solve all the long term routing problems.  That is still
a subject for research.

There have been to independent implementations of PPP. One by
UC Davis for PCs based on the KA9Q code and the other by CMU for
4.3BSD.  These implementations were done to test the protocol and to
find any weakness.  As we know one implementation may be perfectly
compatible with itself but not with others, so that's why we did two
independent ones.  Both of these systems were demonstrated
interoperating at INTEROP. The implementations will soon be publicly
available and we encourage porting to other systems.

Russ
                                Russell Hobby               
                         Data Communications Manager 
     U. C. Davis                 
     Computing Services      INTERNET: rdhobby@ucdavis.edu  
     Davis Ca 95616          BITNET:   RDHOBBY@UCDAVIS  
     (916) 752-0236          UUCP:     ...!ucbvax!ucdavis!rdhobby