[RFC] Basic Socket
Interface Extensions for IPv6
The de facto standard application program interface (API) for TCP/IP
applications is the 'sockets' interface. Although this API was
ndeveloped for Unix in the early 1980s it has also been implemented on a
wide variety of non-Unix systems. TCP/IP applications written using the
sockets API have in the past enjoyed a high degree of portability and we
would like the same portability with IPv6 applications. But changes are
required to the sockets API to support IPv6 and this memo describes
these changes. These include a new socket address structure to carry
IPv6 addresses, new address conversion functions, and some new socket
options. These extensions are designed to provide access to the basic
IPv6 features required by TCP and UDP applications, including
multicasting, while introducing a minimum of change into the system and
providing complete compatibility for existing IPv4 applications.
Additional extensions for advanced IPv6 features (raw sockets and access
to the IPv6 extension headers) are defined in another document [4].
draft-ietf-ipngwg-rfc2553bis-03.txt