EFTP was a very simple

file transfer File transfer is the transmission of a computer file through a communication channel from one computer system to another. Typically, file transfer is mediated by a communications protocol. In the history of computing, numerous file transfer protoc ...

protocol developed as part of the

PARC Universal Packet The PARC Universal Packet (PUP or PuP, although the original documents usually use Pup) was one of the two earliest internetworking protocol suites; it was created by researchers at Xerox PARC in the mid-1970s. (Technically, the name ''PUP'' on ...

protocol suite The protocol stack or network stack is an implementation of a computer networking protocol suite or protocol family. Some of these terms are used interchangeably but strictly speaking, the ''suite'' is the definition of the communication protoc ...

Xerox PARC Future Concepts division (formerly Palo Alto Research Center, PARC and Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. It was founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, as a div ...

in the late 1970s. It was the inspiration for the

Trivial File Transfer Protocol The Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) is a simple Lockstep (computing), lockstep communication protocol for transmitting or receiving files in a client-server application. A primary use of TFTP is in the early stages of nodes booting on a l ...

(TFTP) in the

TCP/IP The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suite are ...

suite. As with its descendant, TFTP, it did not use the

reliable byte stream A reliable byte stream is a common service paradigm in computer networking; it refers to a byte stream in which the bytes which emerge from the communication channel at the recipient are exactly the same, and in exactly the same order, as they we ...

protocol of the suite ( Byte Stream Protocol in the case of PUP); rather, it ran directly on top of the basic internetwork layer. (An early version of EFTP ran on top of bare

Ethernet Ethernet ( ) is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...

packets.) Also, like TFTP, it was a simple lock-step protocol; there was only ever one packet outstanding at any time, and every packet received by either party caused one packet to be sent in reply (until the termination of the transfer). Unlike TFTP, it made no provisions for sending the file-name as part of transfers, so it could only be used either in places that didn't need a file name (as with spooling), or in conjunction with another protocol that provided the file-name (as in booting). Since EFTP was so simple, it was easy to implement in a very small amount of

memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembe ...

, an important consideration at that time. It was used for

booting In computing, booting is the process of starting a computer as initiated via Computer hardware, hardware such as a physical button on the computer or by a software command. After it is switched on, a computer's central processing unit (CPU) h ...

Xerox Alto The Xerox Alto is a computer system developed at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) in the 1970s. It is considered one of the first workstations or personal computers, and its development pioneered many aspects of modern computing. It featu ...

s over the Ethernet, and also to send files to the print spoolers of laser printers. Various expansions of the initialism ''EFTP'' have been given, including Easy File Transfer Protocol, Ether File Transfer Protocol, and Experimental File Transfer Protocol.

References

{{reflist

Notes

* Ed Taft, ''Spruce Protocols'' (Xerox PARC, Palo Alto, June 1979) * Ed Taft,

David Boggs David Reeves Boggs (June 17, 1950 – February 19, 2022) was an American electrical and radio engineer who developed early prototypes of Internet protocols, file servers, gateways, network interface cards and, along with Robert Metcalfe and o ...

,
Alto Boot Protocol
' (Xerox PARC, Palo Alto, February 1979) * John Shoch, ''EFTP: A PUP-based Ether File Transfer Protocol'' (Xerox PARC, Palo Alto, June 1976) Network file transfer protocols