Simple Internet Protocol (sip) ------------------------------ Charter Last Modified: 28-Feb-94 Current Status: Concluded Working Group Chair(s): Bob Hinden Steve Deering IP: Next Generation Area Director(s): Scott Bradner Allison Mankin IP: Next Generation Area Advisor: Scott Bradner Mailing Lists: General Discussion:sip@caldera.usc.edu To Subscribe: sip-request@caldera.usc.edu Archive: Description of Working Group: SIP is a candidate for IPng. The purpose of the working group is to finalize the SIP family of protocols, and to foster the early development and experimentation of this protocol. There are two major characteristics of the SIP proposal: it is very much a continuation of IP, and it aims at maximum simplicity. A short hand definition of SIP could be ``64-bit IP with useless overhead removed.'' Following the IP model, SIP uses globally-unique addresses, hierarchically structured for efficient routing. SIP addresses are 64 bits long, which is believed to be adequate to scale the Internet up to, say, thousands of internet-addressable devices in every office, every residence, and every vehicle in the world. The quest of simplicity in SIP has been described as parallel to the RISC philosophy. The minimal SIP header contains only those fields which are necessary to achieve our goal: routing packets efficiently in a very large internet. As a result of this design philosophy, the SIP header is much simpler than the IP header. Simplicity facilitates high-performance implementation and increases the likelihood of correct implementation. Contrary to several other IPng candidates, the SIP effort is focused mostly on the description of the final state, not on the description of the transition. This is due to a coordination with the IPAE Working Group, which has already engaged an intensive study of transition problems, with SIP in mind as a final state. Goals and Milestones: Done Post the complete SIP specification as an Internet-Draft. This specification shall include the header format, the address format, ICMP and IGMP, the fragmentation protocol, the source route protocol, and the the requirements SIP imposes on higher layer protocols and lower later protocols, e.g., ARP. Jan 93 Post as an Internet-Draft a specification for the SIP MIB. Detail the operation of SNMP over SIP. Jan 93 Make available a public domain version of modified TCP and UDP for the UNIX-BSD socket environment. Jan 93 Make available a public domain implementation of SIP for the UNIX-BSD socket environment. Done Post an Internet-Draft specifing the SIP addressing and routing architecture. Include discussion of multicast and mobile host support as well as a discussion of how policy routing can be supported. Detail the changes required to OSPF, BGP, and RIP. Mar 93 Post as an Internet-Draft a report on the initial implementation and experience with SIP. Jun 93 Incorporate security into SIP. Done Post an Internet-Draft specifying changes to RIP needed for SIP. Internet-Drafts: No Current Internet-Drafts. Request For Comments: None to date.