FYI on Questions and Answers Answers to Commonly asked "New Internet User" Questions
RFC 1325

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Network Working Group                                          G. Malkin
Request for Comments: 1325                                      Xylogics
FYI: 4                                                         A. Marine
Obsoletes: RFC 1206                                                  SRI
                                                                May 1992

                      FYI on Questions and Answers
        Answers to Commonly asked "New Internet User" Questions

Status of this Memo

   This memo provides information for the Internet community.  It does
   not specify an Internet standard.  Distribution of this memo is
   unlimited.

Abstract

   This FYI RFC is one of two FYI's called, "Questions and Answers"
   (Q/A), produced by the User Services Working Group of the Internet
   Engineering Task Force (IETF).  The goal is to document the most
   commonly asked questions and answers in the Internet.

New Questions and Answers

   In addition to updating information contained in the previous version
   of this FYI RFC, the following new questions have been added:

   Questions About the Internet:
     How do I get a list of all the hosts on the Internet?

   Questions About Internet Documentation:
     What is the RFC-INFO service?
     What is an FYI?
     What is an STD?
     What is the Internet Monthly Report?

   Questions About Internet Organizations:
     What is the Internet Society?

   Questions About Internet Services:
     What is "archie"?
     How do I Connect to archie?

   Mailing Lists and Sending Mail
     How Do I Send Mail to Other Networks?

User Services Working Group                                     [Page 1]
RFC 1325            FYI Q/A - for New Internet Users            May 1992

Table of Contents

   1. Introduction.................................................  2
   2. Acknowledgements.............................................  3
   3. Questions About the Internet.................................  3
   4. Questions About TCP/IP.......................................  5
   5. Questions About the Domain Name System.......................  6
   6. Questions About Internet Documentation.......................  6
   7. Questions about Internet Organizations and Contacts.......... 14
   8. Questions About Services..................................... 19
   9. Mailing Lists and Sending Mail............................... 23
   10. Miscellaneous "Internet lore" questions..................... 27
   11. Suggested Reading........................................... 28
   12. References.................................................. 29
   13. Condensed Glossary.......................................... 30
   14. Security Considerations..................................... 42
   15. Authors' Addresses.......................................... 42

1. Introduction

   New users joining the Internet community have the same questions as
   did everyone else who has ever joined.  Our quest is to provide the
   Internet community with up to date, basic Internet knowledge and
   experience, while moving the redundancies away from the electronic
   mailing lists so that the lists' subscribers do not have to read the
   same queries and answers over and over again.

   Future updates of this memo will be produced as User Services members
   become aware of additional questions that should be included, and of
   deficiencies or inaccuracies that should be amended in this document.
   Although the RFC number of this document will change with each
   update, it will always have the designation of FYI 4.  An additional
   FYI Q/A, FYI 7, is published that deals with intermediate and
   advanced Q/A topics [11].

   The Q/A mailing lists are maintained by Gary Malkin at Xylogics.COM.
   They are used by a subgroup of the User Services Working Group to
   discuss the Q/A FYIs.  They include:

   quail@xylogics.com      This is a discussion mailing list.  Its
                           primary use is for pre-release review of
                           the Q/A FYIs.  It is not necessary to be
                           on this list to get the FYI documents.

   quail-request@xylogics.com  This is how you join and leave the quail
                               mailing list.

   quail-box@xylogics.com  This is a write-only list which serves as a

User Services Working Group                                     [Page 2]
RFC 1325            FYI Q/A - for New Internet Users            May 1992

                           repository for candidate questions and
                           answers.  It is not necessary to be on the
                           quail mailing list to forward to the
                           quail-box.  Please note that this is not a
                           place to ask questions to which you don't
                           know the answers.

2. Acknowledgements

   The following people deserve thanks for their help and contributions
   to this FYI Q/A: Corinne Carroll (BBN), Vint Cerf (CNRI), Peter