Network Working Group E. Guttman
Request for Comments: 2609 C. Perkins
Updates: 2165 J. Kempf
Category: Standards Track Sun Microsystems
June 1999
Service Templates and Service: Schemes
Status of This Memo
This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
The "service:" URL scheme name is used to define URLs (called
"service: URLs" in this document) that are primarily intended to be
used by the Service Location Protocol in order to distribute service
access information. These schemes provide an extensible framework
for client-based network software to obtain configuration information
required to make use of network services. When registering a
service: URL, the URL is accompanied by a set of well-defined
attributes which define the service. These attributes convey
configuration information to client software, or service
characteristics meaningful to end users.
This document describes a formal procedure for defining and
standardizing new service types and attributes for use with the
"service:" scheme. The formal descriptions of service types and
attributes are templates that are human and machine understandable.
They SHOULD be used by administrative tools to parse service
registration information and by client applications to provide
localized translations of service attribute strings.
Guttman, et al. Standards Track [Page 1]
RFC 2609 Service Templates and URLs June 1999
Table of Contents
1. Introduction 2
1.1. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2. Service Location Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.2.1. Compatibility with SLPv1 . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2. Service URL Syntax and Semantics 5
2.1. Service URL Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2. Service URL Semantics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.3. Use of service: URLs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.4. Specifying the Service Type-Specific URL Syntax. . . . 10
2.5. Accommodating Abstract Service Types . . . . . . . . 10
2.5.1. Advertising Abstract Service Types . . . . . . 11
3. Syntax and Semantics of Service Type Specifications 12
3.1. Syntax of Service Type Templates . . . . . . . . . . 12
3.2. Semantics of Service Type Templates. . . . . . . . . . 15
3.2.1. Definition of a Service Template . . . . . . . 15
3.2.2. Service Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.2.3. Version Number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.2.4. Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.2.5. Syntax of the Service Type-specific URL Part . 17
3.2.6. Attribute Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4. A Process For Standardizing New Service Types 21
5. IANA Considerations 22
6. Internationalization Considerations 24
6.1. Language Identification and Translation. . . . . . . . 24
7. Security Considerations 25
A. Service Template Examples 26
A.1. FOO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . 26
A.2. Abstract Service Type: Net-Transducer . . . . . . . . 28
A.3. Concrete Service Type: Net-Transducer:Thermometer . . 29
A.4. service: URLs and SLP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
B. Acknowledgments 30
C. References 31
D. Authors' Addresses 32
E. Full Copyright Statement 33
1. Introduction
This document describes a URL scheme, called service: URL, which
defines network access information for network services using a
datatracker.ietf.org