A Uniform RESTful URL Query Pattern for RIRs
draft-newton-et-al-weirds-rir-query-00

Network Working Group                                          A. Newton
Internet-Draft                                                      ARIN
Intended status: Standards Track                              K. Ranjbar
Expires: March 24, 2012                                         RIPE NCC
                                                               A. Servin
                                                                  LACNIC
                                                      September 21, 2011

              A Uniform RESTful URL Query Pattern for RIRs
                 draft-newton-et-al-weirds-rir-query-00

Abstract

   This document describes uniform patterns for which to construct HTTP
   URLs that may be used to retreive information from Regional Internet
   Registries (RIRs) using "RESTful" web access patterns.

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   This Internet-Draft will expire on March 24, 2012.

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   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
   2.  Path Specification  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
     2.1.  IP Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
     2.2.  Autonomous Systems  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
     2.3.  Reverse DNS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
   3.  Response Formats  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

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1.  Introduction

   The Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) have begun experimenting with
   RESTful web services for access to Whois data.  This document
   presents uniform patterns which may be used to contruct URLs for
   accessing data from these RESTful web services.

   The patterns described in this document purposefully do not encompass
   all of the methods employed in the Whois and RESTful web services of
   all of the RIRs.  The intent of the patterns described here are to
   enable lookups of networks by IP address, autonomous system numbers
   by number, and reverse DNS meta-data reverse DNS domain labels.  It
   is envisioned that each RIR will continue to maintain NICNAME/WHOIS
   and/or RESTful web services specific to their needs and those of
   their constituencies, and the information retreived through the
   patterns described here may reference such services.

   Whois services, in general, are read-only services.  Therefore URL
   patterns presented here are only applicable to the HTTP GET and HEAD
   methods.

   This document does not describe the results or entities returned from
   issuing the described URLs with an HTTP GET.  It is envisioned that
   other documents will describe these entities in various serialization
   formats, such as XML and JSON.

   Additionally, resource management, provisioning and update functions
   are out of scope for this document.  RIRs have various and divergent
   methods covering these functions, and it is unlikely a uniform
   approach for these functions will ever be possible.

   And while HTTP contains mechanisms for servers to authenticate
   clients and clients to authenticate servers, from which authorization
   schemes may be built, both authentication of clients and servers and
   authorization for access to data are out-of-scope of this document.
   In general, these matters require "policy" and are not the domain of
   technical standards body.

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2.  Path Specification

   The uniform patterns start with a base URL specified by each RIR or
   any other service provider offering this service.  The base URL will
   be appended with resource type specific path segments.  The base URL
   may contain its own path segments (e.g. http://example.com/... or
   http://example.com/restful-whois/... ).

   The resource type path segments are:

   'ip'  IP networks and associated data referenced using either an IPv4
      or IPv6 address (i.e. not CIDR notation).

   'autnum'  Autonomous system registrations and associated data
      referenced using an AS Plain autonomous system number.

   'rdns'  Reverse DNS information and associated data referenced using
      a fully-qualified domain name.

2.1.  IP Networks

   Queries for information about IP networks are of the form /ip/
   XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX/... where the path segment following 'ip' is either
   an IPv4 or IPv6 address.  While an IP address may fall into multiple
   IP networks in a hierarchy of networks, this query targets the "most-
   specific" or lowest IP network in a hierarchy.

   Path segments following the IP address target specific information
   associated with the targetted IP network in the following way:

   'registration'  The query is for the network registration data.

   'operator'  The query is for data about the network operator of the
      IP network.  The network operator is not always considered to be
      the end user or end site customer of the IP network, a distinction
      made in some cases.  For example, a residential Internet
      installation may be assigned IP addresses, but the provider from
      whom they receive Internet access is considered the network
      operator.  Another rule of thumb is that the network operator is
      the entity contacted to coordinate network issues and has
      published contact information for this purpose, and operator
      information can be further decomposed into operator contact
      information, which is returned with the 'operator' query when not
      specifically targetted (see below).

   When no path segment follows the IP address, the semantics of the
   query are that both registration and operator information are to be
   returned.

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   The following example URL is a query for the IP network registrion
   information.

     http://example.com/somepath/ip/192.0.2.0/registration

   The following example URL is a query for the network operator
   information of the most specific network containing 192.0.2.0

     http://example.com/somepath/ip/192.0.2.0/operator

   And this is an example URL for both the registration and operator
   information of the most specific network containing 192.0.2.0

     http://example.com/somepath/ip/192.0.2.0

   The contact information of an operator maybe specifically targetted
   by following it with a 'contacts' path segment.  And the type of
   contact information may be further targetted by following that path
   segment with a type.  The types are:

   o  tech

   o  admin

   o  abuse

   o  noc

   For example:

     /ip/192.0.2.0/operator/contacts

   returns all the contact information for the network operator of the
   most specific network containing IP address 192.0.2.0.

   And this path targets only the abuse contacts of that network
   operator.

     /ip/192.0.2.0/operator/contacts/abuse

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2.2.  Autonomous Systems

   Queries for information regarding autonomous system number
   registrations are of the form /autnum/XXX/... where XXX is an
   autonomous system number.  In some registries, registration of
   autonomous system numbers is done on an individual number basis,
   while other registries may register blocks of autonomous system
   numbers.  The semantics of this query is such that if a number falls
   within a range of registered blocks, the target of the query is the
   block registration, and that individual number registrations are
   considered a block of numbers with a size of 1.

   For example, to find information on autonomous system number 65551,
   the following path would be used:

     /autnum/65551

   The autnum path segment may be followed by a 'registration' or
   'operator' path segment or no additional path segment, all of which
   follow the semantics above (Section 2.1).

2.3.  Reverse DNS

   Queries for reverse DNS information are of the form
   /rdns/XXXXXXXXX/... where XXXX is a fully-qualified domain name in
   either the in-addr.arpa or ip6.arpa zones.

   For example, to find information on the zone serving the network
   192.0.2/24, the following path would be used:

     /rdns/2.0.192.in-addr.arpa

   The rdns path segment may be follwed by a 'registration' or
   'operator' path segment or no additional path segment, all of which
   follow the semantics in Section 2.1.

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3.  Response Formats

   URLs may contain the 'format' query parameter.  The value of the
   query parameter contains the MIME type of the desired format of the
   response.  This parameter is used instead of the HTTP Accept header
   to defeat web caches and better support HTTP clients that do not
   support alteration of the Accept header.

   The following is an example of a URL for AS 65551 requesting the
   response be in text/plain format:

     http://example.com/autnum/65551?format=text%2Fplain

   This document does not specify the contents of the responses.  It is
   envisioned that multiple format types may be supported.  Other
   documents will specify the contents of responses.

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Authors' Addresses

   Andrew Lee Newton
   American Registry for Internet Numbers
   3635 Concorde Parkway
   Chantilly, VA  20151
   US

   Email: andy@arin.net
   URI:   http://www.arin.net

   Kaveh Ranjbar
   RIPE Network Coordination Centre
   Singel 258
   Amsterdam  1016AB
   NL

   Email: kranjbar@ripe.net
   URI:   http://www.ripe.net

   Arturo L. Servin
   Latin American and Caribbean Internet Address Registry
   Rambla Republica de Mexico 6125
   Montevideo  11300
   UY

   Email: aservin@lacnic.net
   URI:   http://www.lacnic.net

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