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The Official Documents of the Web

On This Page: Introduction | Archive Sites | Which RFC?
Related Documents: Other Standards Organizations

1. Introduction

Internet technologies, including those of the World Wide Web, are defined by semi-formal collaborative bodies called Working Groups. There are many dozens of these groups, covering everything from the HTML language to HTTP to new versions of the TCP/IP Internet protocols.

Formal documents prepared by these groups are published as what are know as RFC, for Requests For Comments. For example, RFC 1866 is the formal specification for HTML Version 2. These are the documents that define the technologies used on the Internet. RFCs are stored, as plain text documents, at a number of Internet anonymous FTP archive sites. The main site for these documents is is the machine ds.internic.net. In this case, the RFC documents are found at the URL (the second URL points directly to the HTML 2.0 RFC): 

 ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/
 ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc1866.txt

Official Anonymous FTP Archive Sites

There are several machines around the world housing these documents. These are:

Africa
ftp.is.co.za (196.4.160.8)
Europe
nic.nordu.net (192.36.148.17)
ftp.nis.garr.it (192.12.192.10)
Pacific Rim
munnari.oz.au (128.250.1.21)
US East Coast
ds.internic.net (198.49.45.10)
US West Coast
ftp.isi.edu (128.9.0.32)

You should select the closest machine, to reduce network bandwidth.

Which RFC Do You Want?

There are literally thousands of RFCs, and it is hard to find the ones you want. Most RFC archive sites also have indexes -- look about and see if you can find one.

Some standards, such as ASCII codes for languages and countries, are set by the International Standards Organization. These are also important on the Internet, and are incorporated into a number of Web standards.

Here is a list of the more important RFCs, and their meanings

HTML

ICADD Information

in support of easy transformation to the International Committee for Accessible Document Design (ICADD) produced a DTD for alternative access to documents. ICADD applications are designed to support usable access to structured information by print-impaired individuals through Braille, large print and voice synthesis. For more information on SDA ( SGML Document Access (SDA) fixed attributes ) & ICADD, see: