RFC 791 · INTERNET STANDARD · 1981
MON · 27 JUL 2026
Internet Protocol
Overview
RFC 791, “Internet Protocol”, is an Internet Standard document published in September 1981 by J. Postel. It obsoletes RFC 760. It has since been updated by RFC 1349, RFC 2474, RFC 6864. The canonical text is published by the RFC Editor.
What “Internet Standard” means
A mature, widely-implemented specification that has completed the full IETF standards process — the highest maturity level on the standards track.
Read this RFC
The canonical text of RFC 791 is hosted at rfc-editor.org. Available in TXT,HTML.
Relationships to other RFCs
Other RFCs from 1981
- RFC 790 Assigned numbers
- RFC 792 Internet Control Message Protocol
- RFC 789 Vulnerabilities of network control protocols: An example
- RFC 793 Transmission Control Protocol
- RFC 788 Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
- RFC 794 Pre-emption
- RFC 787 Connectionless data transmission survey/tutorial
- RFC 795 Service mappings