FYI on Questions and Answers - Answers to Commonly asked "New Internet User" Questions
RFC 1594
Document | Type |
RFC - Informational
(March 1994; No errata)
Obsoleted by RFC 2664
Obsoletes RFC 1325
Was draft-ietf-uswg-fyi4 (uswg WG)
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Authors | Gary Malkin , April Marine , Joyce Reynolds | ||
Last updated | 2013-03-02 | ||
Stream | Internent Engineering Task Force (IETF) | ||
Formats | plain text html pdf htmlized (tools) htmlized bibtex | ||
Stream | WG state | (None) | |
Document shepherd | No shepherd assigned | ||
IESG | IESG state | RFC 1594 (Informational) | |
Consensus Boilerplate | Unknown | ||
Telechat date | |||
Responsible AD | (None) | ||
Send notices to | (None) |
Network Working Group A. Marine Request for Comments: 1594 NASA NAIC FYI: 4 J. Reynolds Obsoletes: 1325 ISI Category: Informational G. Malkin Xylogics March 1994 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. This memo does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. 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 Internet Organizations and Contacts: What is the InterNIC? Questions About Internet Services: What is gopher? What is the World Wide Web? What is Mosaic? How do I find out about other Internet resource discovery tools? User Services Working Group [Page 1] RFC 1594 FYI Q/A - for New Internet Users March 1994 Table of Contents 1. Introduction................................................. 2 2. Acknowledgements............................................. 2 3. Questions About the Internet................................. 3 4. Questions About TCP/IP....................................... 5 5. Questions About the Domain Name System....................... 5 6. Questions About Internet Documentation....................... 6 7. Questions about Internet Organizations and Contacts.......... 13 8. Questions About Services..................................... 18 9. Mailing Lists and Sending Mail............................... 24 10. Miscellaneous "Internet lore" questions..................... 26 11. Suggested Reading........................................... 28 12. References.................................................. 29 13. Condensed Glossary.......................................... 31 14. Security Considerations..................................... 44 15. Authors' Addresses.......................................... 44 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. 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]. 2. Acknowledgements The following people deserve thanks for their help and contributions to this FYI Q/A: Matti Aarnio (FUNET), Susan Calcari (InterNIC), Corinne Carroll (BBN), Vint Cerf (MCI), Peter Deutsch (Bunyip), Alan Emtage (Bunyip), John Klensin (UNU), Thomas Lenggenhager (Switch), Doug Mildram (Xylogics), Tracy LaQuey Parker (Cisco), Craig Partridge (BBN), Jon Postel (ISI), Matt Power (MIT), Karen Roubicek (BBN), Patricia Smith (Merit), Gene Spafford (Purdue), and Carol Ward (Sterling Software/NASA NAIC). User Services Working Group [Page 2] RFC 1594 FYI Q/A - for New Internet Users March 1994 3. Questions About the Internet 3.1 What is the Internet? The Internet is a collection of thousands of networks linked by a common set of technical protocols which make it possible for users of any one of the networks to communicate with or use the services located on any of the other networks. These protocols are referred to as TCP/IP or the TCP/IP protocol suite. The Internet started with the ARPANET, but now includes such networks as the National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET), the Australian Academic and Research Network (AARNet), the NASA Science Internet (NSI), the Swiss Academic and Research Network (SWITCH), and about 10,000 other large and small, commercial and research, networks. There are other major wide area networks that are not based on theShow full document text