RFC 1312 (rfc1312) - Page 1 of 8
Message Send Protocol 2
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
Network Working Group R. Nelson
Request for Comments: 1312 Crynwr Software
Obsoletes: RFC 1159 G. Arnold
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
April 1992
Message Send Protocol 2
Status of this Memo
This memo defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet
community. Discussion and suggestions for improvement are requested.
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.
Discussion
The Message Send Protocol is used to send a short message to a given
user on a given terminal on a given host. Unix's write command
offers a limited form of this service through its host-local write
command. This service is also known on some hosts as "SEND".
As the Internet grows, more and more people are using hosts that do
not run Internet protocols at all times. These hosts may be able to
use a simple protocol that can be implemented using UDP and IP. The
Message Send Protocol is one such protocol.
Note that a message sending protocol is already defined using TCP.
The SMTP protocol includes a "SEND" command that will direct mail to
a user's terminal. SMTP's SEND is not useful in this instance
because SMTP's SEND is not implemented by the majority of vendors at
this time, and is difficult to use by unskilled users. For the
purposes of standardization, we will include a TCP based Message Send
Service.
Message Syntax
The message consists of several parts, all of which must be present
The first part is a single octet indicating the protocol revision,
currently decimal 66, 'B'. The remaining parts are null-terminated
sequences of eight-bit characters in the ISO 8859/1 alphabet. Some
parts may be empty. All comparisons of parts (e.g., recipient,
Nelson & Arnold