rfc

rfc is a simple tool written in Bash to read RFCs from the command-line. It fetches RFCs and drafts from the Web and caches them locally.

Usage

Just type rfc followed by the RFC number or the draft name:

$ rfc <RFC number>

e.g.:

rfc 42 # Read the RFC 42
rfc 1234 # Read the RFC 1234
rfc draft-ietf-core-coap-18 # Read IETF draft core-coap version 18

Use rfc help to see all available subcommands.

Options

--version: same as the version subcommand
--help: same as the help subcommand

Exit codes

0: normal execution
1: the requested RFC or archive cannot be found
2: unrecognized option/subcommand
3: unable to connect to the network
4: can't find curl nor wget

Install

Basic install

mkdir -p ~/bin
curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bfontaine/rfc/v1.0.0/rfc > ~/bin/rfc
chmod u+x ~/bin/rfc

This creates the ~/bin directory if it doesn’t exist, and download rfc in it. If it’s not in your PATH, you have to add it:

echo 'export PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc

You may also want to install the manpage, located in man/rfc.1.

Using Homebrew

If you use Homebrew or Linuxbrew you can install rfc with one command:

brew install bfontaine/utils/rfc

Archlinux

For archlinux users, you can use the AUR package rfc-read.

The command for use it is rfc.

openSUSE

The openSUSE package is called rfc-read and can be installed via zypper in rfc-read.

Requirements

curl or wget. It uses $CURL if it’s set, and fallback on curl and then wget.
less or another pager. It uses $PAGER if it’s set.

Customization

You can choose which directory rfc uses by setting the RFC_DIR environment variable. The directory is automatically created if it doesn’t exist.

The default directory is $XDG_CACHE_HOME/RFCs if XDG_CACHE_HOME is set, otherwise ~/.cache/RFCs.

Troubleshooting

rfc version 0.2.5 and above has a special --debug flag that, if passed as the first argument, enables tracing of all the Bash commands in the script.

Credits

Baptiste Fontaine and contributors.