RFC 1025 (rfc1025) - Page 1 of 6

TCP and IP bake off

Network Working Group                                          J. Postel
Request for Comments: 1025                                           ISI
                                                          September 1987


                          TCP AND IP BAKE OFF


Status of This Memo

   This memo describes some of the procedures, scoring, and tests used
   in the TCP and IP bake offs held in the early development of these
   protocols.  These procedures and tests may still be of use in testing
   newly implemented TCP and IP modules.  Distribution of this memo is
   unlimited.

Introduction

   In the early days of the development of TCP and IP, when there were
   very few implementations and the specifications were still evolving,
   the only way to determine if an implementation was "correct" was to
   test it against other implementations and argue that the results
   showed your own implementation to have done the right thing.  These
   tests and discussions could, in those early days, as likely change
   the specification as change the implementation.

   There were a few times when this testing was focused, bringing
   together all known implementations and running through a set of tests
   in hopes of demonstrating the N squared connectivity and correct
   implementation of the various tricky cases.  These events were called
   "Bake Offs".

   An early version of the list of tests included here appears in IEN-69
   of October 1978.  A demonstration of four TCP implementations was
   held at the Defense Communication Engineering Center in Reston,
   Virginia on 4 December 1978, and reported in IEN-70 of December 1978.
   A bake off of six implementations was held 27-28 January 1979 at
   USC-Information Sciences Institute in Marina del Rey, California and
   reported in IEN-77 of February 1979.  And a distributed bake off was
   held in April 1980 over the network and reported in IEN-145 of May
   1980.

   The following section reproduces (with very slight editing) the
   procedure, tests, and scoring of the April 1980 Bake Off.







Postel