rfc1594.txt

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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 the
      TCP/IP protocols and are thus often not considered part of the
      Internet.  However, it is possible to communicate between them and
      the Internet via electronic mail because of mail gateways that act
      as "translators" between the different network protocols involved.

      Note: You will often see "internet" with a small "i".  This could
      refer to any network built based on TCP/IP, or might refer to
      networks using other protocol families that are composites built
      of smaller networks.

      See FYI 20 (RFC 1462), "FYI on 'What is the Internet?'" for a
      lengthier description of the Internet [13].

   3.2  I just got on the Internet.  What can I do now?

      You now have access to all the resources you are authorized to use
      on your own Internet host, on any other Internet host on which you
      have an account, and on any other Internet host that offers
      publicly accessible information.  The Internet gives you the
      ability to move information between these hosts via file
      transfers.  Once you are logged into one host, you can use the
      Internet to open a connection to another, login, and use its
      services interactively (this is known as remote login or
      "TELNETing").  In addition, you can send electronic mail to users
      at any Internet site and to users on many non-Internet sites that
      are accessible via electronic mail.

      There are various other services you can use.  For example, some
      hosts provide access to specialized databases or to archives of
      information.  The Internet Resource Guide provides information
      regarding some of these sites.  The Internet Resource Guide lists
      facilities on the Internet that are available to users.  Such
      facilities include supercomputer centers, library catalogs and



User Services Working Group                                     [Page 3]

RFC 1594            FYI Q/A - for New Internet Users          March 1994


      specialized data collections.  The guide is maintained by the
      Directory Services portion of the InterNIC and is available online
      in a number of ways.  It is available for anonymous FTP from the
      host ds.internic.net in the resource-guide directory.  It is also
      readable via the InterNIC gopher (gopher internic.net).  For more
      information, contact [e-mail] or call the InterNIC at
      [phone] or [phone].

      Today the trend for Internet information services is to strive to
      present the users with a friendly interface to a variety of
      services.  The goal is to reduce the traditional needs for a user
      to know the source host of a service and the different command
      interfaces for different types of services.  The Internet Gopher
      (discussed more in the "Questions about Internet Services"
      section) is one such service to which you have access when you
      join the Internet.

   3.3  How do I find out if a site has a computer on the Internet?

      Frankly, it's almost impossible to find out if a site has a
      computer on the Internet by querying some Internet service itself.
      The most reliable way is to ask someone at the site you are
      interested in contacting.

      It is sometimes possible to find whether or not a site has been
      assigned an IP network number, which is a prerequisite for
      connecting an IP network to the Internet (which is only one type
      of Internet access).  To do so, query the WHOIS database,
      maintained by the Registration Services portion of the InterNIC.
      You have several options about how to do such a query.  The most
      common currently are to TELNET to the host rs.internic.net and
      invoke one of the search interfaces provided, or to run a WHOIS
      client locally on your machine and use it to make a query across
      the network.

      The RIPE Network Coordination Center (RIPE NCC) also maintains a
      large database of sites to whom they have assigned IP network
      numbers.  You can query it by TELNETing to info.ripe.net and
      stepping through the interactive interface they provide.

   3.4  How do I get a list of all the hosts on the Internet?

      You really don't want that.  The list includes more than 1.5
      million hosts.  Almost all of them require that you have access
      permission to actually use them.  You may really want to know
      which of these hosts provide services to the Internet community.
      Investigate using some of the network resource discovery tools,
      such as gopher, to gain easier access to Internet information.



User Services Working Group                                     [Page 4]

RFC 1594            FYI Q/A - for New Internet Users          March 1994


4. Questions About TCP/IP

   4.1  What is TCP/IP?

      TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) [4,5,6]
      is the common name for a family of over 100 data-communications
      protocols used to organize computers and data-communications
      equipment into computer networks.  TCP/IP was developed to
      interconnect hosts on ARPANET, PRNET (packet radio), and SATNET
      (packet satellite).  All three of these networks have since been
      retired; but TCP/IP lives on.  It is currently used on a large
      international network of networks called the Internet, whose
      members include universities, other research institutions,
      government facilities, and many corporations.  TCP/IP is also
      sometimes used for other networks, particularly local area
      networks that tie together numerous different kinds of computers
      or tie together engineering workstations.

   4.2  What are the other well-known standard protocols in the TCP/IP
        family?

      Other than TCP and IP, the three main protocols in the TCP/IP
      suite are the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) [8], the File
      Transfer Protocol (FTP) [3], and the TELNET Protocol [9].  There
      are many other protocols in use on the Internet.  The Internet
      Architecture Board (IAB) regularly publishes an RFC [2] that
      describes the state of standardization of the various Internet
      protocols.  This document is the best guide to the current status
      of Internet protocols and their recommended usage.

5.  Questions About the Domain Name System

   5.1  What is the Domain Name System?

      The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical, distributed method
      of organizing the name space of the Internet.  The DNS
      administratively groups hosts into a hierarchy of authority that
      allows addressing and other information to be widely distributed
      and maintained.  A big advantage to the DNS is that using it
      eliminates dependence on a centrally-maintained file that maps
      host names to addresses.

   5.2  What is a Fully Qualified Domain Name?

      A Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) is a domain name that
      includes all higher level domains relevant to the entity named.
      If you think of the DNS as a tree-structure with each node having
      its own label, a Fully Qualified Domain Name for a specific node



User Services Working Group                                     [Page 5]

RFC 1594            FYI Q/A - for New Internet Users          March 1994


      would be its label followed by the labels of all the other nodes
      between it and the root of the tree.  For example, for a host, a
      FQDN would include the string that identifies the particular host,
      plus all domains of which the host is a part up to and including
      the top-level domain (the root domain is always null).  For
      example, atlas.arc.nasa.gov is a Fully Qualified Domain Name for
      the host at 128.102.128.50.  In addition, arc.nasa.gov is the FQDN
      for the Ames Research Center (ARC) domain under nasa.gov.

6. Questions About Internet Documentation

   6.1  What is an RFC?

      The Request for Comments documents (RFCs) are working notes of the
      Internet research and development community.  A document in this
      series may be on essentially any topic related to computer
      communication, and may be anything from a meeting report to the
      specification of a standard.  Submissions for Requests for
      Comments may be sent to the RFC Editor ([e-mail]).  The
      RFC Editor is Jon Postel.

      Most RFCs are the descriptions of network protocols or services,
      often giving detailed procedures and formats for their