RFC 1682 (rfc1682) - Page 2 of 10

IPng BSD Host Implementation Analysis

RFC 1682         IPng BSD Host Implementation Analysis       August 1994


   Christian Huitema (INRIA), and Werner Volgels (INESC).  The author
   would also like to thank Digital Equipment Corporation for the
   opportunity to work on IPng within the IETF as part of his job.

1. Introduction

   A host in the context of this white paper is a system that contains
   an operating system supporting a network subsystem as one of its
   parts, and an interprocess communications facility to access that
   network subsystem.  These hosts are often referenced as a
   Workstation, Server, PC, Super Computer, Mainframe, or an Embedded
   System (Realtime Devices).

   IPng will require changes to a hosts network software architecture.
   Those changes should be as transparent as possible to the existing
   IPv4 applications executing on hosts.

   After discussing the network software architecture for a BSD host the
   paper will discuss the perceived network software alterations,
   extended capabilities, transition software, and a deployment
   consideration for IPng hosts.

   The inclusive OR of all IPng proposals was used to develop the
   engineering considerations discussed in this paper.

2. Network Software Architecture

   The BSD host network software architecture consists essentially of
   three components: the interprocess communications facility, the
   network communications subsystem, and the network protocols
   supported. These three components are tightly coupled and must be
   integrated in a way that affords high performance for the
   applications that are dependent on these components to interoperate
   efficiently.  A BSD host implementation view of the TCP/IP protocol
   suite is depicted in the following network architecture diagram.
















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