The IESG has approved the following document: - 'Recommendations on Using Assigned Transport Port Numbers' (draft-ietf-tsvwg-port-use-11.txt) as Best Current Practice This document is the product of the Transport Area Working Group. The IESG contact persons are Spencer Dawkins and Martin Stiemerling. A URL of this Internet Draft is: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-tsvwg-port-use/ Technical Summary This document provides recommendations to application and service designers on how to use the transport protocol port number space. It complements (but does not update) RFC 6335, which focuses on IANA process. Working Group Summary The usual collection of controversial topics was raised and discussed in the working group (for example, the need to conserve assigned ports, given the current usage rate). The document provides guidance to protocol and application designers on best current practices for requesting and using ports; BCP status clearly conveys the nature, importance and relevance of that guidance. Some reviewers have noted that this application of BCP status may not be aligned with their understanding of BCP status (RFC 2026, Section 5) and/or with current IETF usage of BCP status in practice. The responsible AD is OK with doing this document as a BCP. Document Quality After IETF Last Call, Spencer asked Martin and Wes (current and former TSV ADs, and both active port registry expert reviewers) to re-review the document, making sure it describes the way other port expert reviewers work. We did get IETF Last Call comments that asked for more clarity on the relationship between this document and RFC 6335, resulting in the RFC Editor Note below. Personnel The Document Shepherd is G Fairhurst (TSVWG Co-Chair). The Responsible Area Director is Spencer Dawkins (TSV AD). RFC Editor Note In the Abstract --- OLD This document provides recommendations to application and service designers on how to use the transport protocol port number space. It complements (but does not update) RFC6335, which focuses on IANA process. --- NEW This document provides recommendations to application and service protocol designers on how to use the transport protocol port number space and when to request a port assignment from IANA. It provides designer guidelines on how to interact with the IANA processes defined in RFC6335, thus serving to complement (but not update) that document.
