How To Use Request For Comments (RFC's)

Several sites store RFC's in convenient hyperlinked web indexes, described below. Typically, these indexes enable you to enter an RFC number and retrieve a copy of the RFC. Some include keyword search, global listing, and other capabilities.

When RFC's are updated they are given a new RFC number. SunSITE includes links in each document to older RFC's as well as to newer RFC's, and the official RFC-Editor site includes old and new links in search engine listings. These links enable you to go backward and forward in time -- you can read the earliest RFC's on a subject, and then move forward to read the later RFC's. Some RFC's replace more than one predecessor and unify the documentation on a subject, and some RFC's are replaced by several successors as a protocol breaks into two or more related technologies. You can follow these intertwining threads back and forth through the RFC tree.

Indexes. The authoritative RFC site is RFC-Editor.org. Some other good index sites are listed below:

• Internet RFC/STD/FYI/BCP Archives
• Internet Notes, including FYI's, STD's, and IMR's
• RFC Ref, formerly Zvon RFC
• SunSITE DK RFC *.

• Search site: RFC-Surf.com

• Drafts: IETF Drafts, ftp.isi.edu, munnari.oz.au

Some early RFC's are missing or exist only in scanned in form, such as RFC 007, RFC 008, RFC 009, RFC 011 and a few others.