RFC 1413 (rfc1413) - Page 1 of 8

Identification Protocol

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Network Working Group                                       M. St. Johns
Request for Comments: 1413                      US Department of Defense
Obsoletes: 931                                             February 1993


                        Identification Protocol

Status of this Memo

   This RFC specifies an IAB standards track protocol for the Internet
   community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements.
   Please refer to the current edition of the "IAB Official Protocol
   Standards" for the standardization state and status of this protocol.
   Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

1.  INTRODUCTION

   The Identification Protocol (a.k.a., "ident", a.k.a., "the Ident
   Protocol") provides a means to determine the identity of a user of a
   particular TCP connection.  Given a TCP port number pair, it returns
   a character string which identifies the owner of that connection on
   the server's system.

   The Identification Protocol was formerly called the Authentication
   Server Protocol.  It has been renamed to better reflect its function.
   This document is a product of the TCP Client Identity Protocol
   Working Group of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

2.  OVERVIEW

   This is a connection based application on TCP.  A server listens for
   TCP connections on TCP port 113 (decimal).  Once a connection is
   established, the server reads a line of data which specifies the
   connection of interest.  If it exists, the system dependent user
   identifier of the connection of interest is sent as the reply.  The
   server may then either shut the connection down or it may continue to
   read/respond to multiple queries.

   The server should close the connection down after a configurable
   amount of time with no queries - a 60-180 second idle timeout is
   recommended.  The client may close the connection down at any time;
   however to allow for network delays the client should wait at least
   30 seconds (or longer) after a query before abandoning the query and
   closing the connection.







St. Johns
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