How many protocols...

Mon Jun 10 19:29:00 UTC 2002

On Mon, 10 Jun 2002, E.B. Dreger wrote:

>
> AD> Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 14:21:59 -0400 (EDT)
> AD> From: Andy Dills
>
>
> AD> How can you forget the king of all protocols, RIP? :)
>
> RIP isn't an IP protocol. :-)

No, but UDP is, and RIP runs on top of UDP. Oh, so you mean there IS some
sort of solid definition of 'protocol' for this discussion? See below...

> AD> But seriously, I still don't understand the semantics. If
> AD> you're "routing" those protocols, you're also routing SMTP,
> AD> DNS, POP, IMAP, HTTP, HTTPS...wacky multiplayer game
> AD> protocols...anything that runs on IP, basically.
>
> They run on TCP or UDP, which represent _two_ IP protocols.

Note my quotes around the word routing. The only protocol that people
route is IP. Therefore, if you "route" all of the other protocols you
mentioned, you must inherently route all protocols L4 on up that run on
IP. Routing is done at L3. Therefore, if you want to talk about things
running L4 and up, the question should be about filtering and not routing.

That's my point...that if we're talking about which protocols are being
routed, it's either "IP and IPv6" or "everything from L4 up that runs on
IP", depending on how you take the question.

Andy

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