On 8/15/2013 6:23 PM, Wesley Eddy wrote:
I totally agree. In fact, in the update to the TCP roadmap [1], we
added TCPMUX to the section on "Historic and Undeployed Extensions",
though it definitely bears further discussion than is currently in the
roadmap. I think we should add a reference to your portnames doc to
explain why this should be Historic plus check a bit more to see if
the code that's out there is really being used or whether it's just
hanging out like a vestigal limb in the various inetd packages.
Wes,
Indeed, TCPMUX is quite historic... it represents a Road Not Taken. My
memory is a bit hazy after 30+ years,
but I think there was a serious discussion around 1979 of using strings
instead of contact port numbers
for opening TCP connections. Here is the hazy part... I *think* that
Chaosnet used strings, and two
well known MIT Daves introduced a proposal to adopt this mechanism for
TCP. (Also, maybe XNS
used strings? Not sure about that...) The internet working group
ultimately rejected the idea, I think when Jon Postel argued that
contact ports provided greater conceptual economy.
Maybe I got this wrong, but in any case I hope that someone else who was
in the room then will correct me. Jack? Vint? Dave? Danny?
Bob Braden