Status:

Verified

Type:

Editorial

Reported By:

Fernando Gont

Date Reported:

2023-07-10

Verified by:

Eric Vyncke

Date Verified:

2023-08-03

Section 3.2 says:

  Identification

    The choice of the Identifier for a datagram is based on the need to
    provide a way to uniquely identify the fragments of a particular
    datagram.  The protocol module assembling fragments judges fragments
    to belong to the same datagram if they have the same source,
    destination, protocol, and Identifier.  Thus, the sender must choose
    the Identifier to be unique for this source, destination pair and
    protocol for the time the datagram (or any fragment of it) could be
    alive in the internet.

    It seems then that a sending protocol module needs to keep a table
    of Identifiers, one entry for each destination it has communicated
    with in the last maximum packet lifetime for the internet.

    However, since the Identifier field allows 65,536 different values,
    some host may be able to simply use unique identifiers independent
    of destination.

It should say:

  Identification

    The choice of the Identification for a datagram is based on the need to
    provide a way to uniquely identify the fragments of a particular
    datagram.  The protocol module assembling fragments judges fragments
    to belong to the same datagram if they have the same source,
    destination, protocol, and Identification.  Thus, the sender must choose
    the Identification to be unique for this source, destination pair and
    protocol for the time the datagram (or any fragment of it) could be
    alive in the internet.

    It seems then that a sending protocol module needs to keep a table
    of Identification values, one entry for each destination it has communicated
    with in the last maximum packet lifetime for the internet.

    However, since the Identification field allows 65,536 different values,
    some host may be able to simply use unique identifiers independent
    of destination.

Notes:

The field is called "Identification", and not "Identifier" (please note the capitalization in the text).