The process of looking up the correct RFC that covers a specified protocol is not complex, but is not exactly straightforward. While I'm sure there are many ways to do this, in this article I describe one way that works well for me. In this example, we will look up the RFC for the SMTP protocol.
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is the body that oversees the submission and standardization of network RFCs. However, the IETF website does not have a great search feature. To search for an RFC, you go to a different website, RFC Editor.
Once there, we go to the RFC Search page. We simply type "SMTP" into the textbox and click on the Search button.
When I do this, I get about 43 responses back. This can be a bit confusing since I was expecting only the SMTP protocol definition. As I look through the titles, though, I can see that many of them are related to SMTP, but are not defining the protocol itself.
As I look through the resulting titles, I do quickly come upon one with the title "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol", which appears to be the one I was looking for - RFC 821. At this point it is best for me to look under the column heading "More Info (Obs&Upd)" which shows how this RFC is related to others. Specifically, it shows the RFC numbers for those this RFC obsoletes or updates, along with RFC numbers for those that update or obsolete this RFC. If there is an RFC that obsoletes this one, I should use that one instead. In this case, I notice that another RFC - RFC 2821 - obsoletes RFC 821. I find RFC 2821 and see that it has not been obsoleted or updated, so this is the RFC I should refer to.
Once you find the RFC number you are looking for, you simply need to indicate the RFC with the number in the text you type. The wiki software will automatically link to the correct RFC text.
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