ISO presentation services on top of TCP/IP based internets
RFC 1085

• Status
• IESG evaluation record
• IESG writeups
• Email expansions
• History

• Versions

Network Working Group                                            M. Rose
Request for Comments: 1085                                           TWG
                                                           December 1988

                       ISO Presentation Services
                    on top of TCP/IP-based internets

Status of this Memo

   This memo proposes a standard for the Internet community.
   Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

1. Introduction

   [RFC1006] describes a mechanism for providing the ISO transport
   service on top of the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) [RFC793]
   and Internet Protocol (IP) [RFC791].  Once this method is applied,
   one may implement "real" ISO applications on top of TCP/IP-based
   internets, by simply implementing OSI session, presentation, and
   application services on top of the transport service access point
   which is provided on top of the TCP.  Although straight-forward,
   there are some environments in which the richness provided by the OSI
   application layer is desired, but it is nonetheless impractical to
   implement the underlying OSI infrastructure (i.e., the presentation,
   session, and transport services on top of the TCP).  This memo
   describes an approach for providing "stream-lined" support of OSI
   application services on top of TCP/IP-based internets for such
   constrained environments.

2. Terminology

   In as much as this memo is concerned primarily with concepts defined
   in the framework of Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) as promulgated
   by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the
   terminology used herein is intended to be entirely consistent within
   that domain of discourse.  This perspective is being taken despite
   the expressed intent of implementing the mechanism proposed by this
   memo in the Internet and other TCP/IP-based internets.  For those
   more familiar with the terminology used in this latter domain, the
   author is apologetic but unyielding.

   Although no substitute for the "correct" definitions given in the
   appropriate ISO documents, here is a short summary of the terms used
   herein.

Rose                                                            [Page 1]
RFC 1085               ISO Presentation Services           December 1988

      Application Context:
         The collection of application service elements which
         cooperatively interact within an application-entity.

      Application Service Element:
         A standardized mechanism, defined by both a service and a
         protocol, which provides a well-defined capability, e.g.,

         ROSE -  the Remote Operations Service Element,
                 which orchestrates the invocation of "total"
                 operations between application-entities [ISO9066/2].

         ACSE -  the Association Control Service Element,
                 which manages associations between application
                 entities [ISO8650].

      Object Identifier:
         An ordered set of integers, used for authoritative
         identification.

      Presentation Service:
         A set of facilities used to manage a connection between two
         application-entities.  The fundamental responsibility of the
         presentation service is to maintain transfer syntaxes which
         are used to serialize application protocol data units for
         transmission on the network and subsequent de-serialization
         for reception.

      Protocol Data Unit (PDU):
         A data object exchanged between service providers.

      Serialization:
         The process of applying an abstract transfer notation to an
         object described using abstract syntax notation one (ASN.1)
         [ISO8824] in order to produce a stream of octets.
         De-serialization is the inverse process.

         It is assumed that the reader is familiar with terminology
         pertaining to the reference model [ISO7498], to the service
         conventions in the model [ISO8509], and to the
         connection-oriented presentation service [ISO8822].

3. Scope

   The mechanism proposed by this memo is targeted for a particular
   class of OSI applications, namely those entities whose application
   context contains only an Association Control Service Element (ACSE)
   and a Remote Operations Service Element (ROSE).  In addition, a

Rose                                                            [Page 2]
RFC 1085               ISO Presentation Services           December 1988

   Directory Services Element (DSE) is assumed for use by the
   application-entity, but only in a very limited sense.  The
   organization of such an entity is as follows:

      +------------------------------------------------------------+
      |                                                            |
      |                     Application-Entity                     |
      |                                                            |