Internet Draft Richard Hartmann Intended status: Informational Expires: March 27, 2011 Updates: 1459, 2810, 2811, 2812, 2813 September 28, 2010 Default Port for IRC via TLS/SSL draft-hartmann-default-port-for-irc-via-tls-ssl-02.txt Status of this Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2010 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved. This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License. Comments Comments are solicited and should be addressed to the author at richih.mailinglist@gmail.com. Hartmann [Page 1] Internet Draft Default Port for IRC via TLS/SSL September 28, 2010 Abstract This document describes the established best industry practice of listening on TCP port 6697 for incoming IRC connections encrypted via TLS/SSL. This document does not try to limit the use of lesser-used ports like 7000 and 9999. Table of Contents Hartmann [Page 2] Internet Draft Default Port for IRC via TLS/SSL September 28, 2010 1. Rationale Although system port assignments for both plain text (TCP port 194) and TLS/SSL encrypted (TCP port 994) IRC traffic exist [RFC1700], [IANALIST], it is common practice amongst IRC networks not to use them for reasons of convenience and general availability on systems where no root access is granted or desired. IRC networks have defaulted to listening on TCP port 6667 for plain text connections for considerable time, now. This is covered by the IRCU assignment of TCP/UDP ports 6665-6669. Similar consensus has been reached within the IRC community about listening on TCP port 6697 for incoming IRC connections encrypted via TLS/SSL. 2. Security Considerations This document does not directly discuss security issues, however the lack of a common, well established listening port for IRC via TLS/SSL could lead to end users being unaware of their IRC network of choice supporting TLS/SSL. 3. IANA Considerations An assignment of TCP port 6697 for IRC via TLS/SSL will be requested. 4. APPENDIX A: Supporting data As of September 2010, out of the top twenty IRC networks [TOP100],[MAVERICK], ten support TLS/SSL. Only one of those networks does not support TLS/SSL via port 6697 and has no plans to support it. All others supported it already or are in the process of sup- porting it since being contacted by the author. A detailed analysis is available but does not fit within the scope of this document. 5. Normative References [RFC1700] http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1700.txt , Sep 28, 2010 6. Informative References [IANALIST] http://www.iana.org/assignments/port-numbers , Sep 15, 2010 [TOP100] http://irc.netsplit.de/networks/top100.php , Sep 15, 2010 Hartmann [Page 3] Internet Draft Default Port for IRC via TLS/SSL September 28, 2010 [MAVERICK] http://irc.netsplit.de/networks/lists.php?query=maverick , Sep 27, 2010 Hartmann [Page 4] Internet Draft Default Port for IRC via TLS/SSL September 28, 2010 7. Acknowledgements Thanks go to the IRC community at large for reaching a consensus. Special thanks go to the IRC operators who were eager to support port 6697 on their respective networks. 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Versions of these Legal Provisions that are published by third parties, including those that are translated into other languages, should not be considered to be definitive versions of these Legal Provisions. For the avoidance of doubt, each Contributor to the IETF Standards Process licenses each Contribution that he or she makes as part of the IETF Standards Process to the IETF Trust pursuant to the provisions of RFC 5378. No language to the contrary, or terms, conditions or rights that differ from or are inconsistent with the rights and licenses granted under RFC 5378, shall have any effect and shall be null and void, whether published or posted by such Contributor, or included with or in such Contribution. Version History 00 - initial version 01 - fixed [MAVERICK] 02 - removed self-reference as RFC added reference to [RFC1700] Hartmann [Page 6]