koreth@ssyx.ucsc.edu (Steven Grimm) (12/24/87)
With all the interest in interprocess communication nowadays, there are bound to be some port number clashes between peoples' programs. What does everyone think of starting up a registry for port numbers? That way, if you planned to distribute a program outside of your local net, you would ask for a range of port numbers that nobody else's utility was using, and be ensured that no other programs would clash with yours. The process could be automated -- it should be possible to write a little daemon that people telnet into to request port numbers or to ask if a range of numbers is being used by someone else. Of course, the initial work of tracking down existing utilities' port numbers would be large, but in the end I think it would be worth it. I'm willing to run the service, for a while anyway, if there is enough interest. Since there are likely to be a number of responses to this idea, please reply with E-Mail. I'll post the results in a couple of weeks. Steve +New! Improved! Now 100% Artificial-+-+-----------------------------------+ |# # @@@ **** &&&&& $$$$$ % %| |Steven Grimm | |# # @ @ * * & $ % %+-+ ARPA: koreth@ssyx.ucsc.edu | |### @ @ **** &&&& $ %%%%%| | UUCP: ...!ucbvax!ucscc!ssyx!koreth| |# # @ @ * * & $ % %+-+ ______________________________| |# # @@@ * ** &&&&& $ % %| | |"Let's see what's out there."| +-----with NutraSour(TM)! No natural colors or preservatives!------------+
davy@ea.ecn.purdue.edu (Dave Curry) (12/25/87)
In article <1480@saturn.ucsc.edu> koreth@ssyx.ucsc.edu (Steven Grimm) writes: >With all the interest in interprocess communication nowadays, there are bound >to be some port number clashes between peoples' programs. What does everyone >think of starting up a registry for port numbers? Swell idea. So swell, in fact, that the Network Information Center already does it. They publish the numbers every so often (6 months?) as a Request for Comments; the most recent is RFC1010, I believe. You can get this by using anonymous FTP to SRI-NIC.ARPA, and grabbing the file RFC:RFC1010.TXT. The folks who answer mail to NIC@SRI-NIC.ARPA could probably tell you all about just exactly what numbers they register, etc. I believe there are restrictions on some things (like, they only register ports below 1024 or something). For those of you who haven't dealt with them, the folks at the address NIC@SRI-NIC.ARPA are always very helpful with general questions about the Internet, and you'd be surprised how much of the stuff you'd think they *should* keep track of they already *do* keep track of...) --Dave
koreth@ssyx.ucsc.edu (Steven Grimm) (12/25/87)
In article <1374@ea.ecn.purdue.edu> davy@ea.ecn.purdue.edu.UUCP (Dave Curry) writes: >In article <1480@saturn.ucsc.edu> koreth@ssyx.ucsc.edu (Steven Grimm) writes: >>With all the interest in interprocess communication nowadays, there are bound >>to be some port number clashes between peoples' programs. What does everyone >>think of starting up a registry for port numbers? > >Swell idea. So swell, in fact, that the Network Information Center >already does it. They publish the numbers every so often (6 months?) >as a Request for Comments; the most recent is RFC1010, I believe. You >can get this by using anonymous FTP to SRI-NIC.ARPA, and grabbing the >file RFC:RFC1010.TXT. > >The folks who answer mail to NIC@SRI-NIC.ARPA could probably tell you >all about just exactly what numbers they register, etc. I believe >there are restrictions on some things (like, they only register ports >below 1024 or something). In fact, they only register ports below 256, which is why another registry seems like a good idea. Here at UCSC (and, I suspect, at many other sites), there are quite a number of user-developed programs that use IPC; since they aren't owned by the system administrators, they aren't installed by the superuser. Of course, that means they can't sit on privileged port numbers, which means the NIC doesn't register them. What I'm proposing is an unofficial registry for such programs. (By the way, the RFCs are interesting reading; I encourage anyone interested in the innards of the internet to poke around in the archives. There's a lot of information there.) +New! Improved! Now 100% Artificial-+-+-----------------------------------+ |# # @@@ **** &&&&& $$$$$ % %| |Steven Grimm | |# # @ @ * * & $ % %+-+ ARPA: koreth@ssyx.ucsc.edu | |### @ @ **** &&&& $ %%%%%| | UUCP: ...!ucbvax!ucscc!ssyx!koreth| |# # @ @ * * & $ % %+-+ ______________________________| |# # @@@ * ** &&&&& $ % %| | |"Let's see what's out there."| +-----with NutraSour(TM)! No natural colors or preservatives!------------+