Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!ll-xn!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!ALLSPICE.LCS.MIT.EDU!dab
From: dab@ALLSPICE.LCS.MIT.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: ARP hardware field
Message-ID: <8803241500.AA01297@PTT.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: 24 Mar 88 15:00:41 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 29


	    Does this make Proteon non-standard? I was quoting from rfc1010,
    and I must admit some confusion over the status of rfc's, I know that rfc
    stands for Request For Comment, but everyone seems to treat them as
    standards, so what are they? Standards or Drafts of proposed standards,
    and if they are drafts what are the final standards (if any exist) called?

The confusion comes from the fact that Assigned Numbers (RFC1010) and the
ARP RFC (RFC826) say slightly differing things.  Assigned numbers says that
protocol types are taken from the list of ethernet protocol types (as you
quoted).  The ARP RFC says (last paragraph on page 5):

"Generalization:  The ar$hrd and the ar$hln fields allow this protocol
and packet format to be used for non-10Mbit Ethernets.  For the
10Mbit Ethernet <ar$hrd, ar$hln> takes on the value <1, 6>.  For
other hardware networks, the ar$pro field may no longer
correspond to the Ethernet type field, but it should be
associated with the protocol whose address resolution is being
sought."

The people who implemented ARP for the ProNet-10 (CMU I believe)
implemented it from the ARP RFC instead of from Assigned Numbers.  They
therefore used protocol numbers from the protocol type field used on the
ProNet-10.

In a recent conversation with Postel and Reynolds, I was informed that
Assigned Numbers is now correct and all future implementations should use
Ethernet protocol types.
					David Bridgham