Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!BRL.MIL!reschly
From: reschly@BRL.MIL ("Robert J. Reschly Jr.")
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Do Butterflies Live Forever?
Message-ID: <8903191354.aa02953@SEM.BRL.MIL>
Date: 19 Mar 89 18:54:38 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 13


      Mike,

   I am not convinced that hanging your hat on rfc1009 provides an out
(see page 2 of rfc791, expanded upon on page 14 and repeated on page
30). The key point is (as stated on page 2) "If the time to live reaches
zero before the internet datagram reaches its destination, the internet
datagram is destroyed."  Since this field must be decremented as a part
of the packet processing (also stated in rfc791), you need to check
whether the outgoing TTL has reached zero.

				Later,
				    Bob