Protocol Reference
This page contains a description for numerous protocols seen in diverse communication networks. See HowToEdit for some tips about adding a missing protocol.
Protocol Families
There are families of protocols, where the protocols relate to each other:
AppleTalkProtocolFamily: The suite of AppleTalk protocols, including: LLAP, AARP, DDP, NBP, ZIP, ATP, ASP, AFP, ...
FieldbusProtocolFamily: Fieldbus related protocols, including: BACnet, PROFIBUS, PROFINET, ...
InternetProtocolFamily: The famous TCP/IP suite of protocols, including: ARP, IP, ICMP, TCP, UDP, DCCP, HTTP, FTP, ...
InstantMessengerFamily: Instant Messaging Protocols, including AIM, MSN, Jabber, YMSG, Paltalk ...
IPCProtocolFamily: Inter Process Communication Protocols used e.g. in clusters, including: TIPC, LINX, ...
IPMIProtocolFamily: Intelligent Platform Management Interface Protocol used in board including: IPMB...
IsoProtocolFamily: The OSI suite of protocols from ISO, including: CLNP (ISO8473), COTP (ISO8073), FTAM, ...
LanProtocolFamily: Protocols for LANs and MANs, including: Ethernet, FDDI, TokenRing, IEEE_802.11, ...
MediaTransportProtocols: Protocols for transporting media, such as RTP, RDT, MSMMS, ...
MediaTypesFamily: A set of media types dissected by Wireshark, including: GIF, JPEG_JFIF, MIME_multipart, WBXML, ...
MobileTelephonyProtocolFamily: Protocols used in GSM, WCDMA, CDMA2000, etc: (Some one with better knowledge in this area please add info here)
NetworkFilesystemFamily: Suites of protocols related to NAS such as NFS, SMB (CIFS), AFS, DCE/DFS, Intermezzo, PVFS...
NovellProtocolFamily: The suite of Novell protocols, including: IPX, SPX, NCP, ...
OPC: Protocols used in automation technology to access process data in a standardized way: OPC Data Access, OPC Alarm & Events, OPC Historical Data Access, OPC XML-DA, OPC Unified Architecture
P2pProtocols: Protocols used by Peer-2-Peer applications, including BitTorrent, eDonkey, Jabber and JXTA
RPC: Suites of protocols related to Remote Procedure Calls, including ONC-RPC, DCE/RPC, ...
SIGTRAN: The suite of protocols used to transport packet-based PSTN signaling over IP Networks, including Q.931, ISUP, ...
StorageProtocolFamily: Suites of protocols related to block storage (SAN) and backup applications, including SCSI, iSCSI, NDMP, FibreChannel, ...
VendorLanProtocolFamily: Proprietary L2 protocols by various vendors, including: CDP, EDP, ISMP, ...
VOIPProtocolFamily: The suite(s) of Voice over IP protocols, including: SIP, H323, H225, H245, ...
WanProtocolFamily: Protocols for WANs, including: PPP, ATM, FrameRelay, ...
WapProtocolFamily: The suite of WAP protocols for enabling Internet services on wireless networks, including: WTP, WSP, ...
WiMaxProtocolFamily: Suite of protocols for WiMAX wireless broadband access, including WIMAXASNCP.
WPANFamily: Protocols for wireless personal area networks, including IEEE 802.15.4, ZigBee, and 6LoWPAN
A protocol can belong to more than one family.
General
OsiModel: The famous ISO/OSI 7 layer protocol stack reference model, see the definition at wikipedia.org.
RFC: Request For Comments: Not a protocol itself, but the place where a lot of the internet protocol standards can be found.
Organizations
ANSI: American National Standards Institute: Some protocol specifications like FDDI. The ANSI accredited standards developer for information technology standards, including protocol standards is the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards, INCITS.
CableLabs: Cable Television Laboratories: nonprofit research and development consortium founded by Cable MSOs, develops Cable-related standards, e.g. DOCSIS and PacketCable.
EPCglobal: Organization leading the development of industry-driven standards for the Electronic Product Code™ (EPC) to support the use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID).
ETSI: European Telecommunications Standards Institute: Here you can find some protocol specifications.
IANA: Internet Assigned Numbers Authority: Where you can find numbering used in different protocols, e.g. well known TCP ports, etc.
IEEE: Various standards, e.g. Ethernet, TokenRing, IEEE_802.11, ...
IETF: Internet Engineering Task Force: Where you can find the RFC's and InternetDrafts
ISO: The International Organization for Standardization, e.g. famous OsiModel and IsoProtocolFamily
ITU-T: International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector (formerly CCITT): Specifies some of the protocols used in e.g. the VOIPProtocolFamily, as well as X.25, SS7, ASN.1, ...
Pro-MPEG Forum: Interests in realizing interoperability of professional television equipment. Specifies a 2dParityFEC for MPEG2-TS transmission.
W3C: World Wide Web Consortium: web standards like: HTTP, CSS, XML, ...
3GPP: 3rd Generation Partnership Project: mobile telephony standards like GSM, GPRS, ...
3GPP2: 3rd Generation Partnership Project 2 : mobile telephony standards like CDMA2000,...
Hardware related protocols
ARP: AddressResolutionProtocol: A protocol to dynamically discover the mapping between layer 2 and layer 3 addresses.
Ethernet: The most common link layer technology used today.
FDDI: FiberDistributedDataInterface: fiber optical based link layer, obsolete
FibreChannel: fibre optical based link layer, used to connect storage devices
FR: FrameRelay: LAN/WAN technology, obsolete
I2C: bi-directional two wires bus used in most of embeded system to transfer data. this include IPMB protocol
IEEE_802.15.4: Low-power wireless networking protocol intended for sensor networks.
ISDN: Integrated Services Digital Network (digital "telephone line")
MAC Addresses: Wireshark's list of Ethernet vendor codes and well-known MAC addresses
PRP: ParallelRedundancyProtocol: A protocol for network redundancy.
Wi-Fi: WLAN: IEEE_802.11: The standard technology for wireless LANs.
X.25: data packet delivery over serial lines, obsolete
Unsorted
ACN: ANSI BSR E1.17, Architecture for Control Networks.
AMQP: Advanced Message Queueing Protocol.
Bluetooth: Popular wireless protocols for mobile phone assessories.
CIGI: Common Image Generator Interface Protocol
CMP: Certificate Management Protocol.
DECT: Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications. Popular cordless telephone interface.
DICOM: Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine.
FP Hint: Frame Protocol Hints, provides hints for dissecting FP traffic transmitted over the UMTS Iub interface.
ISMACryp: Short for ISMA Encryption & Authentication.
IEEE C37.118: Synchrophasors for Power Systems
LDAP: The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol: The protocol accessing data from directory services like OpenLDAP, Microsoft Active Directory, Netscape Directory Server or Novell eDirectory.
LLRP: EPCglobal Low-Level Reader Protocol for communication between RFID Readers and Client Applications.
META: TLV-based protocol for adding metadata to frames.
MS-LLTD: Link Layer Topology Discovery (LLTD) Protocol.
Netsync: The Monotone version control systems Netsync protocol.
OMRON-FINS: SCADA protocol called FINS made by OMRON for controlling industrial devices.
SIMULCRYPT: A DVB / ETSI protocol used in IPTV / broadcast TV head-ends to handle multiple key management systems.
STANAG_5066: Datacommunication protocol for HF.
TeamSpeak2: The TeamSpeak2 VoIP protocol.
Tor: The Tor Protocol.
UCP: Universal Computer Protocol.
Ventrilo: The well-known VoIP program Ventrilo's own protocol.
WOL: WakeOnLAN protocol for remotely waking a remote host via the so-called Magic Packet.
External links
http://protocolinfo.org/wiki/List_of_protocols on protocolinfo.org (related to l7-filter)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_protocol Network protocols on wikipedia.org
http://www.protocols.com/pbook/ protocol directory at protocols.com
http://www.javvin.com/protocolsuite.html Protocol Dictionary at javvin.com
http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Communications_and_Networking/Protocols/ Protocols at Yahoo.com
http://www.linkbit.com/support-decoder.html Linkbit online message parser