Protocol Reference
This page contains a description for numerous protocols seen in diverse communication networks. See HowToEdit for some tips about adding a missing protocol.
Protocol Families
There are families of protocols, where the protocols relate to each other:
AppleTalkProtocolFamily: The suite of AppleTalk protocols, including: LLAP, AARP, DDP, NBP, ZIP, ATP, ASP, AFP, ...
FieldbusProtocolFamily: Fieldbus related protocols, including: PROFIBUS, PROFINET, ...
InternetProtocolFamily: The famous TCP/IP suite of protocols, including: ARP, IP, ICMP, TCP, UDP, DCCP, HTTP, FTP, ...
InstantMessengerFamily : Instant Messaging Protocols, including AIM, MSN, Jabber, YMSG ...
LanProtocolFamily: Protocols for LANs and MANs, including: Ethernet, FDDI, TokenRing, IEEE 802.11, ...
VendorLanProtocolFamily: Proprietary L2 protocols by various vendors, including: CDP, EDP, ISMP, ...
IsoProtocolFamily: The OSI suite of protocols from ISO, including: CLNP (ISO8473), COTP (ISO8073), FTAM, ...
MediaTransportProtocols: Protocols for transporting media, such as RTP, RDT, MSMMS, ...
MediaTypesFamily: A set of media types dissected by Ethereal, including: GIF, JPEG JFIF, MIME multipart, WBXML, ...
MobileTelephonyProtocolFamily: Protocols used in GSM, WCDMA, CDMA2000, etc: (Some one with better knowledge in this area please add info here)
NetworkFilesystemFamily: Suites of protocols related to NAS such as NFS, SMB (CIFS), AFS, DCE/DFS, Intermezzo, PVFS...
NovellProtocolFamily: The suite of Novell protocols, including: IPX, SPX, NCP, ...
P2pProtocols: Protocols used by Peer-2-Peer applications, including BitTorrent, eDonkey, Jabber and JXTA
RPC: Suites of protocols related to Remote Procedure Calls, including ONC-RPC, DCE/RPC, ...
SIGTRAN: The suite of protocols used to transport packet-based PSTN signaling over IP Networks, including Q.931, ISUP, ...
StorageProtocolFamily: Suites of protocols related to block storage (SAN) and backup applications, including SCSI, iSCSI, NDMP, FibreChannel, ...
VOIPProtocolFamily: The suite(s) of Voice over IP protocols, including: SIP, H323, H225, H245, ...
WanProtocolFamily: Protocols for WANs, including: PPP, ATM, FrameRelay, ...
WapProtocolFamily: The suite of WAP protocols for enabling Internet services on wireless networks, including: WTP, WSP, ...
A protocol can belong to more than one family.
General
OsiModel: The famous ISO/OSI 7 layer protocol stack reference model, see the definition at
![[WWW]](/wiki/ethereal/img/ethereal-www.gif)
wikipedia.org. RFC: Request For Comments: Not a protocol itself, but the place where a lot of the internet protocol standards can be found.
Organizations
ANSI: American National Standards Institute: Some protocol specifications like FDDI. The ANSI accredited standards developer for information technology standards, including protocol standards is the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards,
INCITS. CableLabs: Cable Television Laboratories: nonprofit research and development consortium founded by Cable MSOs, develops Cable-related standards, e.g. DOCSIS and PacketCable.
ETSI: European Telecommunications Standards Institute: Here you can find some protocol specifications.
IANA: Internet Assigned Numbers Authority: Where you can find numbering used in different protocols, e.g. well known TCP ports, etc.
IEEE: Various standards, e.g. Ethernet, TokenRing, IEEE 802.11, ...
IETF: Internet Engineering Task Force: Where you can find the RFC's and InternetDrafts
ISO: The International Organization for Standardization, e.g. famous OsiModel and IsoProtocolFamily
ITU: International Telecommunication Union (formerly CCITT): Specifies some of the protocols used in e.g. the VOIPProtocolFamily, as well as X.25, SS7, ASN.1, ...
W3C: World Wide Web Consortium: web standards like: HTTP, CSS, XML, ...
3GPP: 3rd Generation Partnership Project: mobile telephony standards like GSM, GPRS, ...
3GPP2: 3rd Generation Partnership Project 2 : mobile telephony standards like CDMA2000,...
Hardware related protocols
ARP: AddressResolutionProtocol: A protocol to dynamically discover the mapping between layer 2 and layer 3 addresses.
Ethernet: The most common link layer technology used today.
FDDI: FiberDistributedDataInterface: fiber optical based link layer, obsolete
FibreChannel: fibre optical based link layer, used to connect storage devices
FR: FrameRelay: LAN/WAN technology, obsolete
ISDN: Integrated Services Digital Network (digital "telephone line")
- MAC Addresses: Ethereal's list of Ethernet vendor codes and well-known MAC addresses
Wi-Fi: WLAN: IEEE 802.11: The standard technology for wireless LANs.
X.25: data packet delivery over serial lines, obsolete
Unsorted
Session layer (Layer 5): According to Robert Graham, "
the Session layer is completely useless." LDAP: The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol: The protocol accessing data from directory services like OpenLDAP, Microsoft Active Directory, Netscape Directory Server or Novell eDirectory.
Netsync: The Monotone version control systems Netsync protocol.
UCP: Universal Computer Protocol
CMP: Certificate Management Protocol
STANAG 5066: Datacommunication protocol for HF
CIGI: Common Image Generator Interface Protocol
External links
- http://protocolinfo.org/wiki/List_of_protocols on protocolinfo.org (related to l7-filter)
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_protocol Network protocols on wikipedia.org
- http://www.protocols.com/pbook/ protocol directory at protocols.com
- http://www.javvin.com/protocolsuite.html Protocol Dictionary at javvin.com
- http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Communications_and_Networking/Protocols/ Protocols at Yahoo.com
- http://www.linkbit.com/support-decoder.html Linkbit online message parser
Discussion
UlfLamping: The OSI layered approach wasn't a good approach to sort the protocols, I've removed it and put the information into the family related pages.