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Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)
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The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is the central
coordinator for the assignment of unique parameter values for Internet
protocols.

The IANA is chartered by the Internet Society (ISOC) and the Federal
Network Council (FNC) to act as the clearinghouse to assign and
coordinate the use of numerous Internet protocol parameters.

The Internet protocol suite, as defined by the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF) and its steering group (the IESG), contains numerous
parameters, such as internet addresses, domain names, autonomous
system numbers (used in some routing protocols), protocol numbers,
port numbers, management information base object identifiers,
including private enterprise numbers, and many others.

The common use of the Internet protocols by the Internet community
requires that the particular values used in these parameter fields be
assigned uniquely.  It is the task of the IANA to make those unique
assignments as requested and to maintain a registry of the currently
assigned values.

Requests for parameter assignments (protocols, ports, etc) should be
sent to <iana@isi.edu>.

Requests for SNMP network management private enterprise number
assignments should be sent to <iana-mib@isi.edu>.

The most recent summary of these assigned parameter values is
"Assigned Numbers" which is STD-2 and RFC-1700 published in October
1994.  The current information is available via the web at
http://www.iana.org/iana/

The IANA is located at and operated by the Information Sciences
Institute (ISI) of the University of Southern California (USC).

The name Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) was established in
1989 to describe this activity that has been performed at ISI since
1977, and since the beginning of the ARPANET in 1969 by Jon Postel.

Jon Postel 
Director, Computer Networks Division
Information Sciences Institute
University of Southern California

<iana@isi.edu>

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