[IMR] IMR89-09.TXT September 1989 INTERNET MONTHLY REPORTS ------------------------ The purpose of these reports is to communicate to the Internet Research Group the accomplishments, milestones reached, or problems discovered by the participating organizations. This report is for research use only, and is not for public distribution. Each organization is expected to submit a 1/2 page report on the first business day of the month describing the previous month's activities. These reports should be submitted via network mail to Ann Westine (Westine@ISI.EDU) or Karen Roubicek (Roubicek@NNSC.NSF.NET). TABLE OF CONTENTS INTERNET ACTIVITIES BOARD IAB MESSAGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 3 INTERNET RESEARCH REPORTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 3 AUTONOMOUS NETWORKS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 3 END-TO-END SERVICES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 3 PRIVACY AND SECURITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 3 USER INTERFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 3 INTERNET ENGINEERING REPORTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 4 Westine [Page 1]  Internet Monthly Report September 1989 Internet Projects BARRNET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 5 BOLT BERANEK AND NEWMAN, INC., . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 8 CERFNET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 8 CICNET. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 9 CORNELL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 9 ISI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 10 JVNCNET, NORTH EAST RESEARCH REGIONAL NETWORK . . . . . . page 12 LOS NETTOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 12 MERIT/UMNET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 13 MIDNET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 13 MIT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 13 MITRE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 13 MRNET. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 13 NCAR/USAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 13 NEW ENGLAND ACADEMIC AND RESEARCH NETWORK . . . . . . . . page 13 NNSC, UCAR/BOLT BERANEK and NEWMAN, INC., . . . . . . . . page 14 NORTHWESTNET. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 14 NSFNET BACKBONE, MERIT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 14 NTA-RE/NDRE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 15 NYSERNET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 15 OARNET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 15 Pennsylvania Research and Economic Partnership Network . page 16 PITTSBURGH SUPERCOMPUTER CENTER . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 16 SAN DIEGO SUPERCOMPUTER CENTER . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 16 SESQUINET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 16 SRI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 16 SURANET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 17 TEXAS HIGHER EDUCATION NETWORK . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 17 UCL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 17 UDEL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 18 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN/NCSANET . . . page 19 WESTNET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 19 Westine [Page 2]  Internet Monthly Report September 1989 IAB MESSAGE INTERNET RESEARCH REPORTS ------------------------- AUTONOMOUS NETWORKS ------------------- No progress to report this month. Deborah Estrin (Estrin@OBERON.USC.EDU) END-TO-END SERVICES ------------------- No progress to report. Bob Braden (Braden@ISI.EDU) PRIVACY AND SECURITY -------------------- The next quarterly meeting of the Privacy and Security Research Group will be in Hanover, NH this 24-26 October1989 hosted by Matt Bishop of Dartmouth College. Plans are to discuss security issues for gateway protocols and standard interfaces to DES and RSA. John Linn and Stephen Kent are presenting a paper, "PRIVACY FOR DARPA-INTERNET MAIL", at the NIST/NBS National Computer Security Conference in Baltimore in October. This summarizes the current status of the DARPA Internet Activities Board (IAB) Privacy and Security Research Group's ongoing effort to enhance privacy of electronic mail transferred in the DARPA-Internet. The results of this effort are detailed in RFC 1113, 1114, and 1115. Lyndalee Korn (lkorn@BBN.COM) USER INTERFACE -------------- No report received. Westine [Page 3]  Internet Monthly Report September 1989 INTERNET ENGINEERING REPORTS ---------------------------- No report received. Westine [Page 4]  Internet Monthly Report September 1989 INTERNET PROJECTS ----------------- BARRNET ------- No report received. BOLT BERANEK AND NEWMAN INC. ---------------------------- REAL-TIME MULTIMEDIA CONFERENCING Release 2.0 of the BBN Multimedia Conferencing System was installed as the standard computer conferencing component of the DARPA packet voice/video/data conferencing system this month. This release includes a number of significant performance improvements, several new tools, and functionality enhancements to existing tools. New tools include a terminal emulator that runs under conferencing, a tool for displaying map projections, new tools for controlling analog video devices and a sketching tool that allows parallel activity at all sites in the conference (without requiring floor transfers). Presenter, the slide presentation tool, was enhanced with features to make it useful as a talk preparation, as well as presentation, tool. Contact Terry Crowley (tcrowley@bbn.com) for more information. INTERNET RESOURCE GUIDE The NSFNet Network Service Center (NNSC) is in the process of publishing a guide to resources on the Internet. These resources include facilities such as computational resources (e.g., supercomputers), library catalogs, on-line databases, archives, white pages, networks, network information centers,, or specialized programs on the Internet which are available to large numbers of users. Each entry in the guide will contain a description of the resource, a description of who may use the resource, the type of access supported (email, FTP, Telnet), and contact points for further information such as a phone number, email address, and name of a contact person where appropriate. We expect each listing to be approximately one page of text. If you're part of an organization that maintains a resource that should be included in the guide, please send a description of the resource to: resource-guide@nnsc.nsf.net. If you want to join the list to receive the guide, please send a message to resource- guide-request@nnsc.nsf.net. Westine [Page 5]  Internet Monthly Report September 1989 INTERNET R&D As part of the work on Open Routing we have fleshed out the virtual gateway protocol (VGP), a point of confusion for a number of people. This is the protocol that will run among and between clustered gateways that we are calling "virtual gateways." We have also worked on the Routing Agent Protocol (RAP) and are addressing, among other issues, database synchronization, authoritative agents, data dissemination. ST GATEWAY Unit testing and debugging of the merged IP/ST gateway was completed. This gateway successfully supported heavy concurrent loads of IP and ST (voice and video) traffic. Voice and video quality did not suffer under heavy loads. However, under saturation conditions, this version of software is tuned to favor real-time traffic and delivery times of IP datagrams will vary widely. Under normal conditions, both kinds of traffic experienced favorable delay and throughput. This version of the gateway software will be installed in the next month at video conference locations on the Terrestrial Wideband Net. The IETF PPP working group held a three-way conference between BBN, SRI and DARPA on Sept 25. The "Collaborative effort on Environments" group held a meeting between BBN and ISI on Sept 27. Barry Boehm, Director of DARPA/ISTO, at ISI, held 2 video conference meetings with his staff in Washington on September 5 and 19. ISO/TCP MIGRATION At SHAPE Technical Centre, the ISODE application level protocol conversion was demonstrated for file transfers between 2 hosts, one running FTAM over TP0 and X.25, and the other running FTP over TCP/IP on an ethernet. A third host in the middle provided the translation service. The local X.25 net was limited in speed to 2400 bits per second, and files were transferred faster than 2000 bits per second with little impact on cpu load on any of the three machines. A second test with all three functions (FTAM, conversion, and FTP) in a single SUN 3/260 system, resulted in 100% CPU saturation at a transfer rate of about 920K bits per second. The data line between STC and RSRE in England is being tested by the PTT's, as is the line between RSRE and BBN in the U.S. The butterfly gateway for STC has arrived finally, after many physical and bureaucratic diversions. Plans are to have the gateway Westine [Page 6]  Internet Monthly Report September 1989 installed and operating on the data line before the end of October. Upgrade Hardware for RSRE, UCL, NTA and CNUCE sites, and backup gateways for RSRE and UCL are ready to be shipped. Hope the bureaucratic diversions are smoother the second and following times. TERRESTRIAL WIDEBAND NETWORK During September, the network has generally continued to behave well. However, there were several outages (> 30 minutes) -- 1 power failure, 3 line problems, and 3 modem problems. In addition, we are currently investigating up/down oscillations in the link between the SRI WPS and Stanford. There was also scheduled downtime for a new software release. Last month, we installed a WPS at the Chicago POP and a gateway at NCSA. The WPS was briefly checked out on the cross-country trunks, but was then placed in failsafe loop to await completion of the tail circuit to NCSA and installation of the dialup line that allows us to remotely control the WPS. On 9/11 this work was completed and we brought the WPS back onto the network. During the following week NYSERNET, NCSA and BBN staff worked together to check out the line and gateway. On 9/18, the NCSA-gateway came up on the Terrestrial Wideband. The NCSA folks have not yet connected up their local ethernet. At this point, the Terrestrial Wideband topology from East to West is: WPS site User site -------- --------- BBN BBN NY POP RADC Washington POP DARPA, NRL Chicago POP NCSA LA POP ISI SRI SRI, Stanford Future work: Ft. Monmouth (NY WPS) -- The site at Ft. Monmouth will be connected to the NY WPS as soon as the tail circuit is available. The availability of on-site wiring is uncertain due to the telephone company strike. CMU (Pittsburgh WPS) -- CMU reports that only some of the modems for on-campus wiring have arrived. Modems are needed for both Westine [Page 7]  Internet Monthly Report September 1989 Terrestrial Wideband and ARPANET connections at CMU. At last report, it was unclear when the remaining modems would arrive and where the modems received so far would be used (Wideband or ARPANET). Installation and shakedown are estimated at 2 weeks. POP wiring and tail circuit are being scheduled accordingly. The WPS and gateway were shipped 9/22 for installation as soon as POP wiring and tail circuit are complete. SURANet connection -- SURANet, NRL, and BBN staff are working to connect the SURANet to the Terrestrial Wideband via the NRL. This will require installation of a line from the nearest SURANet router to NRL, a SURANet router at NRL, and an ethernet between this new router and the BGWY. The gating factor is obtaining the line, which should take approximately 30 days. So allowing time for installation and shakedown, the connection should occur in about 1-2 months. Bob Hinden (Hinden@BBN.COM) CERFNET ------- Over the past six months 25 sites have been turned-up on CERFnet. Sites online to date include: The Agouron Institute California Institute of Technology California State University (CSU) SWRL Facility and 12 of the CSU campuses (Chico, Fresno, Fullerton, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Northridge, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Luis Obispo, Sonoma, Stanislaus.) Claremont Colleges Hughes Aircraft Company Qualcomm Incorporated San Diego Supercomputer Center University of California at Irvine University of California at Los Angeles University of California at Riverside University of California at San Diego University of California at Santa Barbara On September 19, the California State University (CSU) SWRL Facility's 1.544-Megabits-per-second link to the University of California at Irvine (UCI) was brought up on CERFnet. CERFnet staff worked with local carriers in early September to resolve troubles with the circuit. The troubles were isolated to one section of the circuit running between the central offices at Long Westine [Page 8]  Internet Monthly Report September 1989 Beach and Seal Beach. On Tuesday, September 19, General Telephone transferred the circuit over to a different line. The PING test and the binary file transfer test were successful. The circuit has now been switched back to the T1 line. On Wednesday, September 20, SWRL was getting input errors on the line as recorded by the cisco gateway box. A test was done on the CSU/DSU at UCI and it showed zero errors on both sides over a 12 hour period, thus eliminating the circuit, and indicating protocol as being the problem. The University of San Diego reported a 15% packet loss in their line to the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) on Wednesday, September 20. A test of electronic mail showed that they could retrieve mail from SDSC but could not reply back. There has been no problem with the name service. Pacific Bell exchanged the repeaters at the USD end and ran a loop back test. The new repeater jammed in loop back and had be replaced. Unfortunately, the circuit remained in loop back even with a new repeater which indicated a problem with the CSU/DSU at USD. The CSU/DSU was replaced and the circuit was released from loop back. USD's connection is performing well. The University of California at Santa Barbara will turn up two new associate members, Advanced Computer Communications and Communications Machinery Corporation. The October-November issue of CERFnet News was completed and sent to production. Hard-copy distribution will begin October 16. Electronic Distribution will begin October 1. The current issue and back issues are available via anonymous ftp to sds.sdsc.edu in the subdirectory [.cerfnet_news]. Type cd [.cerfnet_news] to change the directory. The filename of the current issue is Oct- Nov89.txt. by Karen Armstrong (armstrongk@sds.sdsc.edu) CICNET ------- No report received. CORNELL ------- No report received. Westine [Page 9]  Internet Monthly Report September 1989 ISI --- INTERNET CONCEPTS PROJECT Implementation of the IP/SQ congestion control algorithm within UNIX for the SUN release 4.0 operating system is essentially finished. Numerous successful tests have been run and the author uses it in his standard kernel. Work is beginning on a formal series of tests, which involve large scale monitored transfers from SUNs running the modified kernel through another modified network site. That site will be modified (1) so that it generates a Source Quench message whenever its queues overflow, and (2) so that it acts as if it were configured with output channels of selected bandwidth. Greg Finn (finn@isi.edu) Bob Braden attended the IRSG and SIGCOMM '89 meetings in Austin, Texas, 18-21 September. Paul Mockapetris gave a presentation at SIGCOMM '89 in Austin, Texas. Paul Mockapetris attended the IETF/NREN planning meeting in Reston, VA, Septeber 6-8. Three RFCs were published this month. RFC 1118: Krol, E., "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Internet", University of Illinois Urbana, September 1989. RFC 1120: Cerf, V., "The Internet Activities Board", NRI, September 1989. RFC 1121: Postel, J., (ISI), L. Kleinrock (UCLA), V. Cerf, (NRI) B. Boehm, (UCLA), "Act One - The Poems", September 1989. Ann Westine (Westine.ISI.EDU) MULTIMEDIA CONFERENCING PROJECT As previewed last month, we have enhanced the packet video system to accommodate video codecs other than the Concept Communications Image30 which has been used until now. We conducted a parallel demonstration of Compression Labs and PictureTel codecs between ISI and DARPA. The PictureTel codec was also used for the second of two DARPA/ISTO staff meetings held by teleconference between ISI and DARPA this month. A three-way comparison including the VideoTelecom codec was planned, but delivery of the unit for the Westine [Page 10]  Internet Monthly Report September 1989 DARPA site was delayed. A separate demo will be held soon. To accommodate the additional codecs, we have developed serial line protocol conversion software on a PC-based coprocessor board with four high-speed serial ports. This software interprets the various line framing protocols of the codecs and encapsulates those frames in HDLC line framing to interface with the packet video program, PVP, running in the Butterfly. A codec control panel was added to MMCC, the multimedia conferencing control program, to select among the demo codecs and to set the data rate. Best results were obtained with the PictureTel codec. It provides twice the image resolution of the Image30, and allows filling between received frames so it can tolerate the asynchrony between transmit and receive clocks that results from packet transmission. Its primary disadvantage is a higher internal delay, about 1/2 second, which impacts interactivity. None of these codecs will allow multisite conferencing with all sites viewed simultaneously as we can do now with the Image30. Therefore, new codecs may be installed in parallel with the Image30 to give users a choice of high-res two-site or low-res multisite conferences. The quality tradeoff may not be as bad as it sounds: Concept has been working for several months on an improved coding algorithm for the Image30. We've now seen a demo tape, with hardware compression and a software simulation for the decompression, showing a substantial improvement in resolution. We hope real chips will finally be available soon. The image refresh algorithm in PVP was modified in order to prevent unnecessary refreshes upon connection, and to prevent an initial appearance of a small amount of scattered pixels upon connection establishment. Work to provide an integrated conference environment continues. A conference identifier is now assigned on a per conference basis. It in turn is used as the name of a "conference directory" to which shared applications connect and in which shared files are placed. The conference is distributed to participating sites by MMCC, the multimedia conference control program, which also makes sure the conference directory exists at each site. MMCC can now automatically establish and disconnect an MMConf session in parallel with voice and video connections, bringing up MMConf in the conference directory. New shell windows created during a tele-meeting also set this as their working directory. Westine [Page 11]  Internet Monthly Report September 1989 MBFTPTOOL now has a conference mode which sets special transfer modes and defaults for teleconferencing, as opposed to stand-alone use. MBFTPTOOL is currently being modified to help MMConf determine whether or not a file placed in the conference directory needs distribution to the other conference participants. This capability will allow file transfers to be performed by MBFTPTOOL ahead of time and avoid redundant distribution by MMConf. Eve Schooler, Steve Casner, Annette DeSchon, Dave Walden (schooler@ISI.EDU, casner@ISI.EDU, deschon@ISI.EDU, djwalden@ISI.EDU) FAST PARTS Alan began work on a mail-based FAX server for the FAST project. Alan has also been studying the ISO protocol suite, in particular the remote execution service element (ROSE), in order to finish his proposed remote execution protocol (T.REX). Paula Caruso and Alan Katz (CARUSO@ISI.EDU, Katz@ISI.EDU) JVNCNET, NORTH EAST RESEARCH REGIONAL NETWORK --------------------------------------------- No report received. LOS NETTOS ---------- Cisco Systems has given us a method for extending our routing filter list indefinitely. We are not limited to 50 entries as was reported last month. An SNMP trap demon was started for monitoring trap events. This works well with the ciscos. An SNMP based tool for character graphic display of network routing status was created. It tells us if Los Nettos member networks are known by the NSFNET and if optimal routes are being taken. Adding new networks to check routing status is manually done but customizing the tool is trivial. Equipment was ordered to connect Unisys in Cammarillo to Los Nettos as a regular member. The due date for the line is late October. Westine [Page 12]  Internet Monthly Report September 1989 We are in the process of getting upgrades for the last of our Datatel 3552 units to 1.3 firmware revision level. Walt Prue (Prue@ISI.EDU) MERIT/UMNET ----------- No report received. MIDNET ------ No report received. MIT-LCS ------- No report received. MITRE Corporation ----------------- No report received. MRNET ----- No report received. NCAR/USAN --------- No report received. NEW ENGLAND ACADEMIC AND RESEARCH NETWORK ----------------------------------------- NEARnet added Kodak Boston Technology Center and Northeastern University during September. The T1 link to JvNC was stabilized by the upgrade of router equipment. User Conference on September 21 attracted over 90 enthusiastic participants who listened to presentations ranging from technical topics to user information services. Dan Vanbelleghem of NSF explained the various funding vehicles available to colleges during a workshop on September 22. by John Rugo (jrugo@bbn.com) Westine [Page 13]  Internet Monthly Report September 1989 NNSC, UCAR/BOLT BERANEK and NEWMAN, INC. ---------------------------------------- Craig Partridge attended SIGCOMM and Karen Roubicek attended the FARNET meeting. The NNSC distributed revisions to Chapter 5 of the Internet Resource Guide. Requests to be added to or removed from the distribution list should go to resource-guide- request@nnsc.nsf.net. by Karen Roubicek (roubicek@nnsc.nsf.net) NORTHWESTNET ------------ NorthWestNet is moving forward on the process of reconfiguring the network to reduce the number of redundant links while providing better network latency. This reconfiguration is expected to take several weeks. Experimentation continues on providing backup links via dialup. The NorthWestNet 2nd annual meeting will be held in Boulder, Colorado October 30 through November 1. The meeting will be focused on the theme "Building An NSF Regional Network with Capacity: The Delivery of Value Added Services". It will provide tracks for vice-presidents, technical support, user services, and researchers. Contact Eric Hood (ocdeh@mtsunix1.bitnet) for details. by Dale Smith (DSMITH@oregon.uoregon.edu) NSF BACKBONE (Merit) ------------------- WHITE HOUSE ANNOUNCES SUPPORT OF NATIONAL NETWORK INITIATIVE On Friday, September 8, the White House presented a plan to spend nearly $2 billion enhancing the nation's technological know-how, including the creation of a high-speed network that would link more than 800 research sites around the country. The new network would be called the National Research and Education Network (NREN). "A future national high-speed computer network could have the kind of catalytic effect on our society, industries, and universities that the telephone system has had during the twentieth century," wrote D. Allan Bromley, Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, in an introduction to the report. This report should be available electronically on the Merit/NSFNET Information Services mainframe within the next six weeks. For further Westine [Page 14]  Internet Monthly Report September 1989 information send electronic mail to "nis-info@nis.nsf.net" or "nis-info@merit" (Bitnet). NSFNET RESEARCH AND TEST NETWORK ADDS CIRCUITS The NSFNET Research and Test Network has expanded to a total of eight circuits with the addition of three new circuits. The new circuits are: Milford, CT - Reston, VA; Ann Arbor, MI - Yorktown, NY; and Gaithersburg, MD - Reston, VA. The Merit Computer Network is located in Ann Arbor; IBM research facilities are in Milford and Yorktown; and MCI's research facility is located in Reston. FDDI Developments Working with the IBM Milford NSFNET Development team, Merit has completed a device driver for a prototype implementation of the Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) on the NSFNET backbone. The prototype FDDI implementation in the NSFNET uses an experimental adaptor manufactured by Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. A BSD Unix 4.3 device driver was written by Merit, allowing the board to be used in the IBM RT/PCs on the NSFNET backbone. In conjunction with the software development, an Internet Request for Comments has been published which proposes a standard method for the use of the Internet Protocol over FDDI. Other ongoing research areas include packet video, and X.400 and X.500. by Patricia G. Smith (patricia_g._smith@um.cc.umich.edu) NTA-RE and NDRE --------------- No report received. NYSERNET -------- No report received. OARNET ------ No report received. Westine [Page 15]  Internet Monthly Report September 1989 Pennsylvania Research and Economic Partnership Network ------------------------------------------------------ PREPnet added The Software Engineering Institute as a new member during September. Thomas W. Cummings PITTSBURGH SUPERCOMPUTER CENTER ------------------------------- No report received. SAN DIEGO SUPERCOMPUTER CENTER ------------------------------ Our EN641 from Network Systems is in production use supporting our UNICOS XMP (2 hours/day) and, later, our YMP. It is now announcing the path to our UNICOS system. This is the first host using our new Class B network 132.249. Our Fuzzball is back striking the hours Our old PSN (26) hasn't yet been removed. Should be soon. SDSC continues to be active in CaliNet, IETF, and FARnet. S. Arnold and P. Love attended the ACT ONE seminar at UCLA during last month. by Paul Love (loveep@sds.sdsc.edu) SESQUINET --------- No report received. SRI ---- Internet Research Jose Garcia-Luna attended the IESG Workshop on 7 Sep, 1989. Jose Garcia-Luna presented two papers on routing at the SIGCOMM '89 Symposium, September 19-22, 1989. The first paper, entitled "A Unified Approach to Loop-Free Routing Using Distance Vectors or Link States," describes a unified approach for the dynamic computation of shortest paths in a computer network using either distance vectors or link states. The Westine [Page 16]  Internet Monthly Report September 1989 new approach treats the problem of distributed shortest-path routing as one of diffusing computations, which was first proposed by Dijkstra and Scholten. The paper verifies the loop-freedom of the new routing algorithm proposed, and also demonstrates that it converges to the correct routing entries a finite time after an arbitrary sequence of topological changes. The second paper was written together with C. Cheng, R. Riley, and P. Kumar of Northwestern University, and is entitled "A Loop-Free Extended Bellman-Ford Routing Protocol without Bouncing Effect." This paper presents a new algorithm that maintains entire loop-free paths from source to destination in a distributed manner and using only the shortest distance and second-to-last hop in the updates and routing tables maintained by nodes. This new algorithm improves over previous schemes for loop-freedom used in such protocols as the Border Gateway Protocol. The paper verifies the correctness of the algorithm. At the SIGCOMM '89 presentations, simulation results were given for the average performance of both algorithms, using the ARPANET topology of January 1988 as an example. The new algorithms were compared favorably against the distributed Bellman-Ford algorithm and an optimum topology broadcast algorithm (similar to the new ARPANET routing algorithm). Jose J. Garcia-Luna SURANET ------- No report received. TEXAS HIGHER EDUCATION NETWORK ------------------------------ No report received. UCL ---- UCL hosted a meeting between NSF, NASA, DARPA, JNT and representatives of other interested parties to discuss the possibilities for increased bandwidth between Europe (and more specifically the UK in the short term) and the US. The International Collaborative Board and CCIRN had meetings at the Defence Research Establishment, Ottawa, Canada (DREO) at the end of September. A number of presentations on topics for collaboration were made at a joint meeting. Westine [Page 17]  Internet Monthly Report September 1989 UCL were partly off the air for some part of September due to routing update problems in our first hop gateway to anywhere. An upgrade solved the problem. John Crowcroft (jon@CS.UCL.AC.UK) UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE ---------------------- 1. Paul Schragger's gigabit network scheduling simulator tool is sputtering to life. It now produces candidate link and switch schedules for a four-node network with arbitrary arrivals. Mike Davis is compiling data from various sources to analyze network behavior during periods of congestive stress. Mark Shaw and Stefan Levie have begun implementation of the hardware and software for a PC-based time-server implementation. Ken Monington completed installation of another precision oven-compensated quartz timebase, bringing to three the number of precision-synchronized fuzzballs. Erik Perkins began studying RIG-related documents in preparation for future experiments. Dave Mills presented a briefing on synchronization and NTP to a SAFENET meeting on protocol standards for shipboard LANs. 2. As part of our regular curriculum in VLSI engineering, a gang of undergrads have embarked on a project to design and build a VLSI prototype of a crossbar switch/controller for our gigabit project. This effort, which is supported by an NSF grant and uses the MOSIS rapid-prototype system, should be completed by next Spring. 3. We have found an opportunity to borrow an HP 5061 Cesium Beam Standard and Austron 2000 LORAN-C Receiver for a few months. A gang of four undergrads is being pursued to design, build and test a suitable computer interface for use in precision time and frequency transfer on high-speed networks. We are collaborating with Paal Spilling and staff at NTARE, which have similar capabilities. 4. We have been notified to expect installation of a 1.5-Mbps tail circuit to the DOE segment of the RIG testbed. This segment now consists of CalTech, SRI, LANL, ANL and UDel. We plan to pursue experiments in flow/congestion management and engineered queueing disciplines. 5. The Network Time Protocol (NTP) specification appeared in PostScript form as RFC-1119. Two additional documents on NTP Westine [Page 18]  Internet Monthly Report September 1989 were submitted, one describing the concepts and principles of network time synchronization and the other the results of the glorious NTP experiments of last month, both sprinkled lavishly with figures, graphs and tables for PostScript lasers. New NTP primary servers engaged chime at Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, University of Texas and HP Labs at Bristol, UK. The NTP subnet now includes 15 primary servers synchronized to national standards of the US, Canada and UK. Dave Mills (Mills@UDEL.EDU) UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN/NCSANET -------------------------------------------------- No report received. WESTNET -------- 1. A T-1 line was installed from New Mexico Technet to NCAR. This will be run in parallel with the existing 56 kbps circuit until it becomes stable. The circuit costs are being shared between the NSF (the 56 kbps costs) and New Mexico Technet (the difference between T-1 and 56 kbps). A progress report/renewal request was forwarded to the NSF including the proposed operation of Westnet for FY'90. Seven of Westnet's seventeen circuits are exhibiting congestion at 56 kbps, and we are requesting that they be upgraded to T-1, with the incremental circuit costs being born by the region, and the hardware is being requested from the NSF. by Pat Burns (pburns@csupwb.colostate.edu) Carol Ward (cward@spot.colorado.edu)