NWG/RFC# 695                       MCK 5-JUL-75 15:38  32908
Official Change in Host-Host Protocol

Mark Krilanovich     1

         Official Change in Host-Host Protocol             2

This is an official change to the Host to Host

protocol, this document should be filed with the

protocol specification (nic -- 8246,) in the Current

Network Protocols Notebook (nic -- 7104,). 3

                                         -- Jon Postel    3a

This document corrects an ambiguity in the current

host-host protocol, concerning the ERR command.

Paragraph "f", page 35, of NIC 8246 defines the

meaning of an ERR command with error code of 5 to be

"socket (link) not connected". The error code is

stated to apply to two cases, one in which a control

command other than STR or RTS refers to a socket that

is neither fully open nor fully closed, and the other

in which a (non-control) message arrives over a link

not being used for a connection. 4

The difficulty arises from the fact that the contents

of the "data" field of the ERR command has distinctly

different formats in the two cases. In the first, it

is a host-host command, and in the second it is a

message header. There is no reliable way for the code

in the NCP receiving the ERR command (or a human

reviewing an error log) to distinguish between the two

cases, and therefore fullest use cannot be made of the

ERR command. 5

The two cases are now defined to have different error

codes. In addition, a new error code is defined,

meaning "invalid host leader received". Therefore,

paragraph "f" under "ERR - Error detected" is now

replaced by the following: 6

f. Request on a non-open socket (Error code = 5) 7

NWG/RFC# 695 MCK 5-JUL-75 15:38 32908

Official Change in Host-Host Protocol

A request other than an STR or RTS was made for a
socket (perhaps referenced by link number) that is
not party to an fully established connection. The
socket's inappropriate state could either be that
only one RFC has been sent (not yet open) or that
only one CLS has been sent (not yet closed). The
"data" field contains the command in error; the

   value of any fill necessary is zeros.                  7a

g. Message on an unknown link (Error code = 6) 8

A message was received over a user link which is
not currently being used for any connection. The
contents of the "data" field are the message header
followed by the first eight bits of text, if any,

   or zeros.                                              8a

h. Invalid host header (Error code = 7) 9

A message was received either over the control link
or a valid user link that had a host header with
invalid format. Examples of when this subtype would
be appropriate are the following: the M1 or M2
fields were non-zero, the byte size was invalid
(not 8 for a control link, zero for any link), or
the declared length (byte size times byte count)
exceeded the actual length. The contents of the
"data" field is the message header padded with

   eight bits of zeros.                                   9a

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