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Format for Literal IPv6 Addresses in URL's
draft-ietf-ipngwg-url-literal-04

The information below is for an old version of the document that is already published as an RFC.
Document Type
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft that was ultimately published as RFC 2732.
Authors Brian E. Carpenter , Bob Hinden , Larry M Masinter
Last updated 2020-01-21 (Latest revision 1999-09-29)
RFC stream Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
Intended RFC status Proposed Standard
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Additional resources Mailing list discussion
Stream WG state (None)
Document shepherd (None)
IESG IESG state Became RFC 2732 (Proposed Standard)
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draft-ietf-ipngwg-url-literal-04
INTERNET-DRAFT                                      R. Hinden,  Nokia
September 30, 1999                                  B. Carpenter, IBM
                                                     L. Masinter, Xerox

                Format for Literal IPv6 Addresses in URL's

                  <draft-ietf-ipngwg-url-literal-04.txt>

Status of this Memo

    This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with
    all provisions of Section 10 of RFC 2026 [STD-PROC].

    Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
    Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups.  Note that
    other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-
    Drafts.

    Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
    and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
    time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet- Drafts as reference
    material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

    The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at
    http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt

    The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at
    http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html.

    This Internet Draft will expire on March 29, 2000.

Abstract

    This document defines the format for literal IPv6 Addresses in URL's
    for implementation in World Wide Web browsers.  This format has been
    implemented in the IPv6 versions of several widely deployed browsers
    including Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla, and Lynx.  It is also
    intended to be used in the IPv6 version of the service location
    protocol.

    This document incudes an update to the generic syntax for Uniform
    Resource Identifiers defined in RFC 2396 [URL].  It defines a syntax
    for IPv6 addresses and allows the use of "[" and "]" within a URI
    explicitly for this reserved purpose.

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1. Introduction

    The textual representation defined for literal IPv6 addresses in
    [ARCH] is not directly compatible with URL's.  Both use ":" and "."
    characters as delimiters.  This document defines the format for
    literal IPv6 Addresses in URL's for implementation in World Wide Web
    browsers.  The goal is to have a format that allows easy "cut" and
    "paste" operations with a minimum of editing of the literal address.

    The format defined in this document has been implemented in the IPv6
    versions of several widely deployed browsers including Microsoft
    Internet Explorer, Mozilla, and Lynx.  It is also intended to be used
    in the IPv6 version of the service location protocol.

1.1 Requirements

    The keywords MUST, MUST NOT, REQUIRED, SHALL, SHALL NOT, SHOULD,
    SHOULD NOT, RECOMMENDED, MAY, and OPTIONAL, if and where they appear
    in this document, are to be interpreted as described in [KEYWORDS].

    World Wide Web browsers SHOULD implement the format of IPv6 literals
    in URL's defined in this document.  Other types of applications and
    protocols that use URL's MAY use this format.

2. Literal IPv6 Address Format in URL's Syntax

    To use a literal IPv6 address in a URL, the literal address should be
    enclosed in "[" and "]" characters.  For example the following
    literal IPv6 addresses:

       FEDC:BA98:7654:3210:FEDC:BA98:7654:3210
       1080:0:0:0:8:800:200C:4171
       3ffe:2a00:100:7031::1
       1080::8:800:200C:417A
       ::192.9.5.5
       ::FFFF:129.144.52.38
       2010:836B:4179::836B:4179

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    would be represented as in the following example URLs:

       http://[FEDC:BA98:7654:3210:FEDC:BA98:7654:3210]:80/index.html
       http://[1080:0:0:0:8:800:200C:417A]/index.html
       http://[3ffe:2a00:100:7031::1]
       http://[1080::8:800:200C:417A]/foo
       http://[::192.9.5.5]/ipng
       http://[::FFFF:129.144.52.38]:80/index.html
       http://[2010:836B:4179::836B:4179]

3. Changes to RFC 2396

    This document updates the generic syntax for Uniform Resource
    Identifiers defined in RFC 2396 [URL].  It defines a syntax for IPv6
    addresses and allows the use of "[" and "]" within a URI explicitly
    for this reserved purpose.

    The following changes to the syntax in RFC 2396 are made: change the
    'host' non-terminal to add an IPv6 option:

       host          = hostname | IPv4address | IPv6reference
       ipv6reference = "[" IPv6address "]"

    where IPv6address is defined as in RFC2373.  The definition of
    'IPv4address' is also replaced with that of RFC 2373, as it correctly
    defines an IPv4address as consisting of at most three decimal digits
    per segment.

    In addition, add "[" and "]" to the set of 'reserved' characters:

       reserved    = ";" | "/" | "?" | ":" | "@" | "&" | "=" | "+" |
                     "$" | "," | "[" | "]"

    and remove them from the 'unwise' set:

       unwise      = "{" | "}" | "|" | "\" | "^" | "`"

4. Security Considerations

    The use of this approach to represent literal IPv6 addresses in URL's
    does not introduce any known new security concerns.

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5. IANA considerations

    None.

6. Authors' Addresses

    Robert M. Hinden                  phone: +1 650 625 2004
    Nokia                             email: hinden@iprg.nokia.com
    313 Fairchild Drive               web: http://www.iprg.nokia.com/~hinden
    Mountain View, CA 94043
    USA

    Brian E. Carpenter
    IBM                               email: brian@icair.org
    iCAIR, Suite 150
    1890 Maple Avenue
    Evanston IL 60201
    USA

    Larry Masinter
    Xerox Corporation                 email: masinter@parc.xerox.com
    3333 Coyote Hill Road             web: http://purl.org/NET/masinter
    Palo Alto, CA 94034

7. References

    [ARCH]     Hinden, R., S. Deering, "IP Version 6 Addressing
               Architecture", RFC2373, July, 1998.

    [STD-PROC] Bradner, S., The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3,
               RFC 2026, October 1996.

    [URL]      Fielding, R., L. Masinter, T. Berners-Lee, "Uniform
               Resource Identifiers: Generic Syntax", RFC2396, August,
               1998.

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