Network Working Group T. Hansen
Request for Comments: 4395 AT&T Laboratories
Obsoletes: 2717, 2718 T. Hardie
BCP: 115 Qualcomm, Inc.
Category: Best Current Practice L. Masinter
Adobe Systems
February 2006
Guidelines and Registration Procedures for New URI Schemes
Status of This Memo
This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the
Internet Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006).
Abstract
This document provides guidelines and recommendations for the
definition of Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) schemes. It also
updates the process and IANA registry for URI schemes. It obsoletes
both RFC 2717 and RFC 2718.
Hansen, et al. Best Current Practice [Page 1]
RFC 4395 New URI Schemes February 2006
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Guidelines for Permanent URI Scheme Definitions . . . . . . . 4
2.1. Demonstratable, New, Long-Lived Utility . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2. Syntactic Compatibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.3. Well-Defined . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.4. Definition of Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.5. Context of Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.6. Internationalization and Character Encoding . . . . . . . 7
2.7. Clear Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.8. Scheme Name Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3. Guidelines for Provisional URI Scheme Registration . . . . . . 8
4. Guidelines for Historical URI Scheme Registration . . . . . . 8
5. URI Scheme Registration Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5.1. General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5.2. Registration Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5.3. Change Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.4. URI Scheme Registration Template . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
7. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
8. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
9. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
9.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
9.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Hansen, et al. Best Current Practice [Page 2]
RFC 4395 New URI Schemes February 2006
1. Introduction
The Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) protocol element and generic
syntax is defined by RFC 3986 [5]. Each URI begins with a scheme
name, as defined by Section 3.1 of RFC 3986, that refers to a
specification for identifiers within that scheme. The URI syntax
provides a federated and extensible naming system, where each
scheme's specification may further restrict the syntax and semantics
of identifiers using that scheme. This document provides guidelines
for the definition of new URI schemes, for consideration by those who
are defining, registering, or evaluating those definitions, as well
as a process and mechanism for registering URI schemes within the
IANA URI scheme registry. The registry has two parts: 'provisional'
and 'permanent', with different requirements. Guidelines and
requirements for both parts are given.
This document obsoletes both RFCs 2717 [7] and 2718 [8]. RFCs 2717
and 2718 drew a distinction between 'locators' (identifiers used for
accessing resources available on the Internet) and 'names'
(identifiers used for naming possibly abstract resources, independent
of any mechanism for accessing them). The intent was to use the
designation "URL" (Uniform Resource Locator) for those identifiers
that were locators and "URN" (Uniform Resource Name) for those
identifiers that were names. In practice, the line between 'locator'
and 'name' has been difficult to draw: locators can be used as names,
and names can be used as locators.
As a result, recent documents have used the term "URI" for all
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