Description

This article is from the Amiga Networking FAQ, by Richard Norman with numerous contributions by others.

05 SLIP

SLIP  Serial Line Internet Protocol   See   RFC   1055 for details. CSLIP adds a
compression technique. For details read RFC 1144.
SLIP allows your computer to run TCP/IP over the serial port. This allows your
computer to have a TCP/IP address. TCP/IP  applications such as FTP can now use
TCP/IP to deliver packets  directly to your address. An analogy would be instead
of having to go  to the post office to get your mail, you now have a mailbox to
which the  postman can deliver your mail. In more technical terms you are no
longer a terminal; you have become a node.
SLIP is a "data link" protocol.  It sits between the serial port and the IP stack.
It pretty much takes the packets from IP, adds a wrapper to them, and sends them
out the serial port. It also takes packets from the serial port, unwraps them, and
passes them up to IP.  SLIP has  several problems, including the fact that it is
designed entirely for  TCP-IP, and is therefore of limited use for other
protocols. Too many people ask for "SLIP" when they really want "TCP/IP" with a
SLIP  driver. You have to have both. Just like a terminal program is of little use
without a serial.device driver.
SLIP is not a full protocol. It fits in one of the layers between hardware and the
TCP/IP protocol. It acts more like a device driver. It also acts like a protocol
because it has to be at both ends of the physical link, but it must have the
TCP/IP protocol in order to talk to the applciations.
    --------------
    application layer: (AMosaic, telnet, ftp, etc.)
    --------------
    protocol layer: (TCP/IP)
    --------------
     *** SLIP or PPP ***
    --------------
    hardware layer: (serial port)
    --------------

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