Request For Comments (RFC’s) >
The Internet Protocol enables each computer on the Internet to communicate with other computers through the exchange of packets of digital information. There are also eight higher level protocols that run on top of the Internet Protocol, and provide additional functionality for different applications. These nine fundamental Internet protocols are listed below, together with the RFC’s that describe them.
Protocol |
Acronym |
Purpose |
RFC |
Internet Protocol |
IP |
Physical network |
|
Internet Control Message Protocol |
ICMP |
Status messaging |
|
Transmission Control Protocol |
Guaranteed delivery |
||
User Datagram Protocol |
UDP |
Coordination, Audio |
|
Telnet Protocol |
TELNET |
Remote login |
|
File Transfer Protocol |
FTP |
Network utility |
|
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol |
SMTP |
||
Network News Transfer Protocol |
NNTP |
||
Hypertext Transfer Protocol |
HTTP |