Network Working Group J. Postel
Request for Comments: 48 S. Crocker
UCLA
April 21, 1970
A Possible Protocol Plateau
I. Introduction
We have been engaged in two activities since the network meeting of
March 17, 1970 and, as promised, are reporting our results.
First, we have considered the various modifications suggested from
all quarters and have formed preferences about each of these. In
Section II we give our preferences on each issue, together with our
reasoning.
Second, we have tried to formalize the protocol and algorithms for
the NCP, we attempted to do this with very little specification of a
particular implementation. Our attempts to date have been seriously
incomplete but have led to a better understanding. We include here,
only a brief sketch of the structure of the NCP. Section III gives
our assumptions about the environment of the NCP and in Section IV
the components of the NCP are described.
II. Issues and Preferences
In this section we try to present each of the several questions which
have been raised in recent NWG/RFC's and in private conversations,
and for each issue, we suggest an answer or policy. In many cases,
good ideas are rejected because in our estimation they should be
incorporated at a different level.
A. Double Padding
As BBN report #1822 explains, the Imp side of the Host-to-Imp
interface concatenates a 1 followed by zero or more 0's to fill
out a message to an Imp word boundary and yet preserve the
message length. Furthermore, the Host side of the Imp-to-Host
interface extends a message with 0's to fill out the message to
a Host word boundary.
BBN's mechanism works fine if the sending Host wants to send an
integral number of words, or if the sending Host's hardware is
capable of sending partial words. However, in the event that
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the sending Host wants to send an irregular length message and
its hardware is only capable of sending word-multiple messages,
some additional convention is needed.
One of the simplest solutions is to modify the Imp side of the
Host-to-Imp interface so that it appends only 0's. This would
mean that the Host software would have to supply the trailing
1. BBN rejected the change because of an understandably strong
bias against hardware changes. It was also suggested that a
five instruction patch to the Imp program would remove the
interface supplied 1, but this was also rejected on the new
grounds that it seemed more secure to depend only upon the Host
hardware to signal message end, and not to depend upon the Host
software at all.
Two other solutions are also available. One is to have "double
padding", whereby the sending Host supplies 10* and the network
also supplies 10*. Upon input, a receiving Host then strips
the trailing 10* 10*. The other solution is to make use of the
marking. Marking is a string of the form 0*1 inserted between
the leader and the text of a message. The original intent of
marking was to extend the leader so that the sending Host could
_begin_ its text on a word boundary. It is also possible to
use the marking to expand a message so that it _ends_ on a word
boundary.
Notice that double padding could replace marking altogether by
abutting the text beginning against the leader. For 32 bit
machines, this is convenient and marking is not, while for
other lengths, particularly 36 bit machines, marking is much
more convenient than double padding.
We have no strong preference, partially because we can send
word fragments. Shoshani, et al in NWG/RFC #44 claim that
adjusting the marking does not cause them any problems, and
they have a 32 bit machine. Since the idea of marking has been
accepted for some time, we suggest that double padding not be
used and that marking be used to adjust the length of a
message. We note that if BBN ever does remove the 1 from the
hardware padding, only minimal change to Host software is
needed on the send side.
A much prettier (and more expensive) arrangement was suggested
by W. Sutherland. He suggested that the Host/Imp interfaces be
smart enough to strip padding or marking and might even parse
the message upon input.
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B. Reconnection
A very large population of networkers has beat upon us for
including dynamic reconnection in the protocol. We felt it
might be of interest to relate how it came to be included.
After considering connections and their uses for a while, we
wondered how the mechanism of connections compared to existing
forms of intra-Host interprocess communication. Two aspects
are of interest, what formalisms have been presented in the
literature, and what mechanisms are in use. The formalisms are
interesting because they lead to uniform implementations and
parsimonious design. The existing mechanisms are interesting
because they point out which problems need solving and
sometimes indicate what an appropriate formalism might be. In
particular, we have noticed that the mechanisms for connecting
a console to the logger upon dial in, the mechanisms for
creating a job, and the mechanisms for passing a console around
to various processes within a job tend to be highly
idiosyncratic and distinct from all other structures and
mechanisms within an operating system.
With respect to the literature, it appears there is only one
idea with several variations, viz processes should share a
portion of their address spaces and cooperatively wake up each
other. Semaphores and event channels are handy extensions of
wake up signals, but the intent is basically the same. (Event
channels could probably function as connections, but it seems
not to be within their intended use. In small systems, the
efficiency and capacity of event channels are inversely
related.)
With respect to existing implementations, we note that several
systems allow a process to appear to be a file to another
process. Some systems, e.g. the SDS-940 at SRI impose a
master/slave relationship between two processes so connected,
but other systems provide for a coequal relationship e.g. the
AI group's PDP-6 system at MAC. The PDP-6 system also has a
feature whereby a superior process can "surround" an inferior
process with a mapping from device and file names to other
device and file names. Consoles have nearly the same semantics
as files, so it is quite reasonable for an inferior process to
believe it is communicating with the console but in fact be
communicating with another process.
The similarity between network connections and existing
sequential interprocess connections supports our belief that
network connections are probably the correct structure for
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using the network. Moreover, the structure is clean enough and
compatible with enough machines to pass as a formalism or
theory, at least to the extent of the other forms of
interprocess communication presented in the literature.
Any new formalism, we believe, must meet at least the following
two tests:
1. What outstanding problems does it solve?
2. Is it closed under all operations?
In the case of network connections, the candidates for the
first are the ones given above, i.e. all operations involving
connecting a console to a job or a process. Also of interest
are the modelling of sequential devices such as tape drives,
printers and card readers, and the modeling of their buffering
(spooling, symbiont) systems.
The second question mentions closure. In applying the
connection formalism to the dial-in and login procedures, we
felt the need to include some sort of switching or
reconnection, and an extremely mild form is presented in an
SJCC paper, which is also NWG/RFC #33. This mild form permits
only the substitution of AEN's, and even then only at the time
of connection establishment. However, it is a common experience
that if an operation has a natural definition on an extended
domain, it eventually becomes necessary or at least desirable
to extend its definition. Therefore, we considered the
following extensions:
1. Switching to any other socket, possibly in another Host.
2. Switching even after data flow has started.
There is even some precedent for feeling these extensions might
be useful. In one view of an operating system, we see all
available phone lines as belonging to a live process known as
the logger. The logger answers calls, screens users, and
creates jobs and processes. One of the features of most
telephone answering equipment is that many phone lines may
serve the same phone number by using a block of sequential
numbers and a rotary answering system. In our quest for
accurate models of practical systems, we wanted to be able to
provide equivalent service to network users, i.e. they should
be able to call a single advertised number and get connected to
the logger. Thus a prima facie case for switching is
established.
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Next we see that after the logger interrogates a prospective
user, it must connect the user to a newly created job. Data
flow between the user and the logger has already commenced, so
flow control has to be meshed with switching if it is desired
not to lose or garble data in transit.
With respect to inter-Host switching, we find it easy to
imagine a utility service which is distributed throughout the
network and which passes connections from one socket to another
without the knowledge of the user. Also, it is similar to the
more sophisticated telephone systems, to standard facilities of
telephone company operators, and to distributed private
systems.
These considerations led us to investigate the possibility of
finding one type of reconnection which provided a basis for all
known models. The algorithm did not come easily, probably
because of inexperience with finite state automata theory, but
eventually we produced the algorithm presented in NWG/RFC #36.
A short time later, Bill Crowther produced an equivalent
algorithm which takes an alternate approach to race conditions.
Networkers seem to have one of two reactions. Either it was
pretty and (perhaps ipso facto) useful, or it was complex and
(again perhaps ipso facto) unnecessary. The latter group was
far more evident to us, and we were put into the defensive
position of admitting that dynamic reconnection was only
1. pretty
2. useful for login and console passing
In response to persistent criticism, we have made the following
change in the protocol. Instead of calling socket <O,H,O> to
login, sockets of the form <U,H,O> and <U,H,1> are the input
and output sockets respectively of a copy of the logger or, if
a job has been stared with user id U, these sockets are the
console sockets. The protocol for login is thus to initiate a
connection to <U,H,O> and <U,H,1>. If user U is not in use, a
copy of the logger will respond and interrogate the caller. If
user id U is in use, the call will be refused. This
modification was suggested by Barry Wessler recently. (Others
also suggested this change much earlier; but we rejected it
then.)
The logger may demand that the caller be from the same virtual
net, i.e. the caller may have user id U in some other Host, or
it may demand that the user supply a password matched to user
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id U, or it may demand both. Some systems may even choose to
permit anybody to login to any user id.
After login, AEN's 0 and 1 remain the console AEN's. Each
system presumably has mechanisms for passing the console, and
these would be extended to know about AEN's 0 and 1 for network
users. Passing the console is thus a matter of reconnecting
sockets to ports, and happens within the Host and without the
network.
In conversations with Meyer and Skinner after NWG/RFC #46 was
received, they suggested a login scheme different from both
Meyer's and ours in section above. Their new scheme seemed a
little better and we look forward to their next note.
It is generally agreed that login should be "third-level", that
is, above the NCP level. We are beginning to be indifferent
about particular logins schemes; all seem ok and none impress
us greatly. We suggest that several be tried. It is some
burden, of course, to modify the local login procedure, but we
believe it imposes no extra hardship to deal with diverse login
procedures. This is because the text sequences and interrupt
conventions are so heterogenous that the additional burden of
following, say, our scheme on our system and Meyer's on Multics
is minimal.
We are agreed that reconnection should not be required in the
initial protocol, and we will offer it later as an optional and
experimental tool. In addition, we would like to be on record
as predicting that general reconnection facilities will become
useful and will provide a unifying framework for currently ad
hoc operating system structures.
C. Decoupling Connections and Links
Bill Crowther (BBN) and Steve Wolfe (UCLA) independently have
suggested that links not be assigned to particular connections.
Instead, they suggest, include the destination socket as part
of the text of the message and then send messages over any
unblocked link.
We discussed this question a little in NWG/RFC #37, and feel
there is yet an argument for either case. With the current
emphasis on simplicity, speed and small core requirements, it
seems more efficient to leave links and connections coupled.
We, therefore, recommend this.
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D. Error Reporting
As mentioned by J. Heafner and E. Harslem of RAND, it is
important to treat errors which might occur. A good philosophy
is to guard against any input which destroys the consistency of
the NCP's data base.
The specific formulation of the error command given by Heafner
and Harslem in NWG/RFC #40 and by Meyer in NWG/RFC #46 seems
reasonable and we recommend its adoption. Some comments are in
order, however.
A distinction should be made between resource errors and other
types of errors. Resource errors are just the detection of
overload conditions. Overload conditions are well-defined and
valid, although perhaps undesirable. Other types of errors
reflect errant software or hardware. We feel that resource
errors should not be handled with error mechanisms, but with
mechanisms specific to the problem. Thus the <CLS> command may
be issued when there is no more room to save waiting <RFC>'s.
Flow control protocol is designed solely to handle buffering
overload.
With respect to true errors, we are not certain what the value
of the <ERR> command is to the recipient. Presumably his NCP
is broken, and it may only aggravate the problem to bombard it
with error commands. We therefore, recommend that error
generation be optional, that all errors be logged locally in a
chronological file and that <ERR> commands received likewise be
logged in a chronological file. No corrective action is
specified at this time.
In the short time the network has been up at UCLA, we have
become convinced that the network itself will generate very few
errors. We have watched the BBN staff debug and test the IMP
program, and it seemed that most of the errors affected timing
and throughput rather than validity. Hence most errors will
probably arise from broken Hosts and/or buggy NCP's.
E. Status Testing and Reporting
A valuable debugging aid is to be able to get information about
what a foreign NCP thinks is happening. A convenient way to do
this is to permit NCP's to send status whenever they wish, but
to always have them do it whenever they receive a request.
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Since we view this feature as primarily a debugging tool, we
suggest that a distinct link, like 255, be used. The intent is
that processing of status requests and generating of status
messages should use as little of the normal machinery as
possible. Thus we suggest that link 255 be used to send
"request status" and "status is" commands. The form follows
the suggestion on page 2 of NWG/RFC #40.
Meyer's <ECO> command is easily implemented and serves the more
basic function of testing whether a foreign NCP is alive. We
suggest that the length of the <ECO> command be variable, as
there seems to be no significance in this context to 48 bits.
Also, the value of a (presumably) 8 bit binary switch is
unclear, so we recommend a pair of commands:
<ECO> <length> <text>
and
<ERP> <length> <text>
where
<length> is 8 bits.
Upon receipt of an <ECO> command the NCP would echo with the
<ERP> command.
F. Expansion and Experimentation
As Meyer correctly points out in NWG/RFC #46, network protocol
is a layered affair. Three levels are apparent so far.
1. IMP Network Protocol
2. Network Control Program Protocol
3. Special user level or Subsystem Level Protocol
This last level should remain idiosyncratic to each Host (or
even each user). The first level is well-specified by BBN, and
our focus here is on level 2. We would like to keep level 2 as
neutral and simple as possible, and in particular we agree that
login protocol should be as much on level 3 as possible.
Simplicity and foresight notwithstanding, there will arise
occasions when the level 2 protocol should change or be
experimented with. In order to provide for experimentation and
change, we recommend that only link numbers 2 through 31 be
assigned to regular connections, with the remaining link
numbers, 32 to 255, used experimentally. We have already
suggested that link 255 be used for status requests and
replies, and this is in consonance with our view of the
experimental aspects of that feature.
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We also recommend that control command prefixes from 255
downward be used for experimentation.
These two conventions are sufficient, we feel to permit
convenient experimentation with new protocol among any subset
of the sites. We thus do not favor inclusion of Ancona's
suggestion in NWG/RFC #42 for a message data type code as the
first eight bits of the text of a message.
G. Multiplexing Ports to Sockets
Wolfe in NWG/RFC #38 and Shoshani et al in NWG/RFC #44 suggest
that it should be possible to attach more than one port to a
socket. While all of our diagrams and prototypical system
calls have shown a one-to-one correspondence between sockets
and ports, it is strictly a matter of local implementation. We
note that sockets form a network-wide name space whose sole
purpose is to interface between the idiosyncratic structures
peculiar to each operating system. Our references to ports are
intended to be suggestive only, and should be ignored if no
internal structures corresponds to them. Most systems do have
such structures, however, so we shall continue to use them for
illustration.
H. Echoing, Interrupts and Code Conversion
1. Interrupts
We had been under the impression that all operating systems
scanned for a reserved character from the keyboard to
interpret it as an interrupt signal. Tom Skinner and Ed
Meyer of MIT inform us that model 37 TTY's and IBM 2741
generate a "long space" of 200-500 milliseconds which is
detected by the I/O channel hardware and passed to the
operating system as an interrupt. The "long space" is not a
character -- it has no ASCII code and cannot be program
generated.
Well over a year ago, we considered the problem of
simulating console interrupts and rejected the <INT> type
command because it didn't correctly model any system we
knew. We now reverse our position and recommend the
implementation of an INTERRUPT system call and an <INT>
control command as suggested by Meyer in NWG/RFC #46.
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Two restrictions of the interrupt facility should be
observed. First, when communicating with systems which scan
for interrupt characters, this feature should not be used.
Second, non-console-like connections probably should not
have interrupts. We recommend that systems follow their own
conventions, and if an <INT> arrives for a connection on
which it shouldn't the <INT> should be discarded and
optionally returned as an error.
2. Echoing and Code Conversion
We believe that each site should continue its current
echoing policy and that code conversion should be done by
the using process. Standardization in this area should
await further development.
Ancona's suggestion of a table-driven front-end transducer
seems like the right thing, but we believe that such
techniques are part of a larger discussion involving
higher-level languages for the network.
I. Broadcast Facilities
Heafner and Harslem suggest in NWG/RFC #39 a broadcast
facility, i.e. <TER> and <BDC>. We do not fully understand the
value of this facility and are thus disposed against it. We
suspect that we would understand its value better if we had
more experience with OS/360. It is probably true in general
that sites running OS/360 or similar systems will find less
relevance in our suggestions for network protocol than sites
running time-sharing systems. We would appreciate any cogent
statement on the relationship between OS/360 and the concepts
and assumptions underlying the network protocol.
J. Instance Numbers
Meyer in NWG/RFC #46 suggests extending a socket to include an
_instance_ code which identifies the process attached to the
socket. We carefully arranged matters so that processes would
be indistinguishable. We did this with the belief that both as
a formal and as a practical matter it is of concern only within
a Host whether a computation is performed by one or many
processes. Thus we believe that all processes within a job
should cooperate in allocating AEN's. If an operating system
has facilities for passing a console from process to process
within a job, these facilities mesh nicely with the current
network protocol, even within reconnection protocol; but
instance numbers interfere with such a procedure.
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We suggest this matter be discussed fully because it relates to
the basic philosophy of sockets and connections. Presently we
recommend 40 bit socket numbers without instance codes.
K. AEN's
Nobody, including us, is particularly happy with our name AEN
for the low order 8 bits of the socket. We rejected _socket_
number_, and are similarly unhappy with Meyer's _socket_code_.
The word socket should not be used as part of the field name,
and we solicit suggestions.
III. Environment
We assume that the typical host will have a time-sharing operating
system in which the cpu is shared by processes.
Processes
We envision that each process is tagged with a _user_number_. There
may be more than one process with the same user number, and if so,
they should all be cooperating with respect to using the network.
We envision that each process contains a set of _ports_ which are
unique to the process. These ports are used for input to or output
from the process, from or to files, devices or other processes.
We also envision that each process has an event channel over which it
can receive very short messages (several bits). We will use this
mechanism to notify a process that some action external to the
process has occurred.
To engage in network activity, a process _attaches_ a _local_socket_
to one of its ports. Sockets are identified by user number, host and
AEN, and a socket is local to a process if their user numbers match
and they are in the same host. A process need only specify an AEN
when it is referring to a local socket.
Each port has a status which is modified by system calls and by
concurrent events outside the process. Whenever the status of a port
is changed, the process is sent an event over its event channel which
specifies which port's status has changed. The process may then look
at a port's status.
These assumptions are used descriptive material which follows.
However, these assumptions are not imposed by the network protocol
and the implementation suggested by section IV is in no way binding.
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We wish to make very clear that this material is offered only to
provide clues as to what the implementation difficulties might be and
not to impose any particular discipline.
For example, we treat <RFC>'s which arrive for unattached local
sockets as valid and queue them. If desired, an NCP may reject them,
as Meyer suggests, or it might hold them for awhile and reject them
if they're not soon satisfied. The offered protocol supports all
these options.
Another local option is the one mentioned before of attaching
multiple ports to a socket. We have shown one-one correspondence but
this may be ignored. Similarly, the system calls are merely
suggestive.
System Calls
These are typical system calls which a user process might execute.
We show these only for completeness; each site will undoubtedly
implement whatever equivalent set is convenient.
We use the notation
Syscall ( arg , arg ...; val ... )
1 2 1
where
Syscall is the system call
arg etc. are the parameters supplied with the call, and
1
val etc. are any values returned by the system call.
1
Init (P,AEN,FS,Bsiz;C)
P Specifies a port of the process.
AEN Specifies a local socket. The user number of this
process and host number of this host are implicit.
FS Specifies a socket with any user number in any host,
with any AEN.
Bsiz Specified the amount of storage in bits the user wants
to devote to buffering messages.
C The condition code returned.
Init attempts to attach the local socket specified by AEN to the port
P and to initiate a connection with socket FS. Possible returned
values of C are
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C = ok The Init was legal and the socket FS is being
contacted. When the connection is established or
when FS refuses, the process will receive an event.
C = busy The local socket was in use by a port on this or
some other process with the same user number. No
action was taken.
C = homosex The AEN and FS were either both send or both receive
sockets.
C = nohost The host designated within FS isn't known.
C = bufbig Bsiz is too large.
Listen (P,AEN,Bsize;C)
P Specifies a port of the process.
AEN Specifies a local socket.
Bsiz Specified a buffer size.
C The returned legality code.
Codes for C are
C = ok
C = busy
C = bufbig
The local socket specifies by AEN is attached to P. If there is a
waiting call, it is processed; otherwise no action is taken. When a
call comes in, a connection will be established and the process
notified via an event.
Close (P)
P Specifies a port of the process.
Any activity is stopped, and the port becomes free for other use.
Transmit (P,M,L1;L2,C)
P Specifies port with an open connection.
M The text to be transmitted.
L1 Specifies the length of the text.
L2 The length actually transmitted.
C The error code.
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Transmission between the processes on either side of the port takes
place.
Codes for C are
C = ok
or
C = not open if no connection is currently open and
otherwise uninhibited
Status (P;C)
The status of port P is returned as C.
IV. The NCP
We view the NCP as having five component programs, three associative
tables, some queues and buffers, and a link assignment table. Each
site will of course, vary this design to meet its needs, so our
design is only illustrative.
The Component Programs
1. The Input Handler
This is an interrupt driven input routine. It initiates Imp-
to-Host transmission into a resident buffer and wakes up the
Input Interpreter when transmission is complete.
2. The Output Handler
This is an interrupt driven output routine. It initiates
Host-to-Imp transmission out of a resident buffer and wakes up
the Output Scheduler when transmission is complete.
3. The Input Interpreter
This program decides whether the input is a regular message
intended for a user, a control message, an Imp-to-Host message,
or an error. For each class of message, this program takes the
appropriate action.
4. The Output Scheduler
Three classes of message are sent to the Imp
(a) Host-to-Imp messages
(b) Control messages
(c) Regular messages
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We believe that a priority should be imposed among these
classes. The priority we suggest is the ordering above. The
Output Scheduler selects the highest priority message and
gives it to the Output Handler.
5. The System Call Interpreter
This program interprets requests from the user.
The two interesting components are the Input Interpreter and the
System Call Interpreter. These are similar in that the Input
Interpreter services foreign requests and the System Call Interpreter
services local requests.
Associative Tables
We envision that the bulk of the NCP's data base is in three
associative tables. By "associative", we mean that there is some
lookup routine which is presented with a key and either returns
successfully with a pointer to the corresponding entry, or fails if
no entry corresponds to the key.
1. The Rendezvous Table
"Requests-for-connection" and other attributes of a
connection are held in this table. This table is accessed by
local socket, but other tables have pointers to existing
entries.
The components of an entry are:
(a) local socket (key)
(b) foreign socket
(c) link
(d) queue of callers
(e) text queue
(f) connection state
(g) flow state
(h) pointer to attached port
An entry is created when a user executes either an Init or a
Listen system call or when a <RFC> is received. Some fields
are unused until the connection is established, e.g. the
foreign socket is not known until a <RFC> arrives if the
user did a Listen.
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2. The Input Link Table
The Input Interpreter uses the foreign host and link as a
key to get a pointer to the entry in the rendezvous table
for the connection using the incoming link.
3. The Output Link Table
In order to interpret RFNM's, the Input Interpreter needs a
table in the same form as the Input Link Table but using
outgoing links.
Link Assignment Table
This is a very simple structure which keeps track of which links are
in use for each host. One word per host probably suffices.
The following diagram is our conception of the Network Control
Program. Boxes represent tables and Buffers, boxes with angled
corners and a double bottom represent Queues, and jagged boxes
represent component programs, the arrows represent data paths.
The abbreviated names have the following meanings.
ILT - Input Link Table
OLT - Output Link Table
LAT - Link Assignment Table
RT - Rendezvous Table
HIQ - Host to Imp Queue
OCCQ - Output Control Command Queue
ORMQ - Output Regular Message Queue
IHBuf - Buffer filled by the Input Handler from the IMP and
emptied by the Input Interpreter
OHBuf - Buffer of outgoing messages filled from the Queues
by the Output Scheduler and emptied by the Output
Handler.
