> Those of us who have been doing this for a while sometimes forget that > there are things that are not obvious to those just joining us. > > Protocol number assignments are at > http://www.iana.org/numbers.html. Application procedures are at > www.iana.org. IP Protocol numbers are at > http://www.iana.org/assignments/protocol-numbers > > To answer the first question - for proprietary protocols, don't apply > for your own number, use one of the already registered "any *" > protocols. E.g. 9 - IGP - Any private interior gateway protocol, 61 - > any host internal protocol. You should build sufficient robustness into > your protocol to ignore other private protocols of the same type - > e.g. a magic number in the payload, or Joe's recommendation of a private > checksum algorithm. > > Topic closed.... those of us who are mere snot-nosed kids and don't know what our oh so wise elders have been doing for millenia. so we write things like this down in documents called rfcs so others don't have to guess. randy