Subject: Re: [Idr] RFC911 to Historic

From: Brian Dickson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2022 13:16:00 -0700

Hi, Nick,
During and after the transition from EGP to BGP the general model was
placing EGP networks behind BGP networks.
I personally supported some EGP networks for a period of time after the
general deployment of BGP had been completed. (That would have been
1994-1995, for context.)

I'd say there is no easy way to determine whether/where EGP networks might
still exist, short of first hand knowledge, specifically because the
EGP/BGP mechanism worked quite well.
There was no technical barrier to continuing to maintain/support such EGP
networks, other than it not being easy or fun.

So, while it is unlikely, pretty much the only way to know would be to
survey every ASN (at least those in existence at the time of the EGP
exodus).

Brian

On Sun, Mar 27, 2022 at 11:10 AM Nick Hilliard <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Hi Sue,
>
> Maybe I misunderstood your first email, but are there still networks which
> use the EGP protocol?  If so, do you have specific information about which
> networks use the protocol?
>
> Nick
>
> Susan Hares wrote on 27/03/2022 16:39:
>
> Nick:
>
> RFC904 is the reference.
>
> I was a member of the NSFNet staff when the transition from EGP to BGP happened.
>
> Cheers,  Sue
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Nick Hilliard [mailto:[email-masked] <[email-masked]>]
> Sent: Saturday, March 26, 2022 4:39 PM
> To: Susan Hares
> Cc: 'Greg Skinner'; [email-masked]; [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: [Idr] RFC911 to Historic
>
> Susan Hares wrote on 26/03/2022 19:36:
>
> Some networks still use RFC904 (EGP protocol) even though it is deprecated.
>
> Do you have reference for this?  EGP became obsolete when CIDR took off.
>
> Nick
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Idr mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/idr
>

---

From: Nick Hilliard <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2022 00:12:20 +0100

Hi Brian,

> general deployment of BGP had been completed. (That would have been 

yep, btdt at the time too.

> I'd say there is no easy way to determine whether/where EGP networks 
> might still exist, short of first hand knowledge, specifically because 
> the EGP/BGP mechanism worked quite well.

You're correct that there's no way to tell.  That said, support for the 
protocol was ripped out of all routing stacks years ago, as it's not 
CIDR compatible.

> There was no technical barrier to continuing to maintain/support such 
> EGP networks, other than it not being easy or fun.

or useful, due to inability to handle CIDR subnets.

> So, while it is unlikely, pretty much the only way to know would be
> to survey every ASN (at least those in existence at the time of the
> EGP exodus).

I'm not sure how relevant this is.  What's relevant in this context is 
the point at which it's appropriate to relegate a protocol or document 
to historic status. The implication here is that it's at the point that 
we're guaranteed that the protocol is not used anywhere.  A more useful 
approach would be to declare historical status at the point where the 
protocol is functionally and practically moribund. In the case of EGP, 
this was in the mid 1990s, after it was no longer feasible to run 
non-CIDR networks, and that was nearly 30 years ago.  More generally, 
there is a terrific pile of cruft in the rfc archive.  Good stewardship 
of standards and related documentation includes pruning when necessary. 
This is obviously a much bigger issue than rfc911 / egp or anything in 
IDR though.

Nick

---

From: Gyan Mishra <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2022 23:29:11 -0400

There is a graveyard stock pile of RFC’s out there from the 80s and 90s:

SNA APPN, DLSW, DECENT, Banyan Vines, AppleTalk, Novell IPX, ATM, Frame
Relay, L2TPv3
XOT X.25 over TCP, FDDI, Token Ring and the list goes on and on ..

Gyan

-- 

<http://www.verizon.com/>

*Gyan Mishra*

*Network Solutions A**rchitect *

*Email [email-masked] <[email-masked]>*

*M 301 502-1347*

---

From: "Susan Hares" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2022 07:53:36 -0400

Nick:

The protocol standard for EGP is RFC904, and this protocol specification is historic.   RFC911 is simply an implementation report.  

Cheers, Sue 

-----Original Message-----
From: Idr [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Nick Hilliard
Sent: Monday, April 4, 2022 7:12 PM
To: Brian Dickson
Cc: [email-masked]; IETF IDR
Subject: Re: [Idr] RFC911 to Historic

Hi Brian,

Nick