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Retrieving information about Object Identifiers using the WHOIS protocol
draft-viathinksoft-oidwhois-00

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This is an older version of an Internet-Draft whose latest revision state is "Replaced".
Author Daniel Marschall
Last updated 2021-02-09
Replaced by draft-viathinksoft-oidip, draft-viathinksoft-oidip
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draft-viathinksoft-oidwhois-00
INTERNET-DRAFT                                              D. Marschall
Intended Status: Informational                              ViaThinkSoft
Expires: August 13, 2021                                   February 2021

            Retrieving information about Object Identifiers
                        using the WHOIS protocol
                     draft-viathinksoft-oidwhois-00

Abstract

   This document defines a method for retrieving information about
   Object Identifiers (OIDs) and their associated Registration
   Authorities (RAs) using the WHOIS protocol, in a way that is both
   human-readable and machine-readable.

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   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."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on August 13, 2021.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2021 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
 

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   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
     1.1  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   2  Request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
     2.1  Authentication Tokens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
     2.2  Request ABNF Notation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   3  Response  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
     3.1  Format and Encoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
     3.2  Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
       3.2.1  Query-Section (Information about Query and Result)  . .  7
       3.2.2  Object-Section (Information about the OID)  . . . . . .  8
       3.2.3  RA-Section (Information about the Current RA) . . . . . 11
       3.2.4  Sections for Previous Registration Authorities  . . . . 13
     3.3  Digital Signature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
     3.4  Date/Time Format  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
       3.4.1  Date/Time Format ABNF Notation  . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
       3.4.2  Date/Time Format Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
   4  Referral  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
   5  Full Example  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
     5.1  Request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
     5.2  Response  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
   6  Alternative Namespaces  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
     6.1  Example: UUID Namespace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
   7  Internationalization Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
   8  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
   9  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
   10  References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
     10.1  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
     10.2  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
   Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
   Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

 

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1  Introduction

   An Object Identifier (OID) is an extensively used identification
   mechanism jointly developed by ITU-T and ISO/IEC for naming any type
   of object with a globally unambiguous name.  OIDs provide a
   persistent identification of objects based on a hierarchical
   structure of Registration Authorities (RA), where each parent has an
   Object Identifier and allocates Object Identifiers to child nodes. 
   More information about Object Identifiers can be found in
   Recommendation ITU-T X.660 (2011) | ISO/IEC 9834-1:2012 [X660].

   There are a few methods of retrieving information about an OID, like:

   (A) Searching through web repositories like <http://www.oid-info.com>
   or <http://www.alvestrand.no/objectid/>.  This has the disadvantage
   that the information is usually not machine-readable without
   functionalities like an API.

   (B) Retrieving information using the Object Identifier Resolution
   System (ORS) as defined in Recommendation ITU-T X.672 (2010) |
   ISO/IEC 29168-1:2011 [X672].  This has the disadvantage that
   Registration Authorities need to include specific DNS Resource
   Records to their domains, and additionally, all RAs of the superior
   OIDs must implement the ORS.

   This document describes an additional method for retrieving
   information about OIDs, which is both human-readable and machine-
   readable.

   Three of many possible use-case scenarios are:

   (1) Many web-browsers and Operating Systems can handle ITU-T X.509
   certificates [X509] and usually contain a viewer application that
   shows the contents of these certificates.  Attributes which are
   unknown by the application are either only displayed by their OID, or
   hidden to avoid confusion to the user.  With OID-WHOIS, the
   application could query the name of these unknown OIDs or even
   retrieve instructions on how the data described by this OID can be
   parsed and displayed.

   (2) Applications that handle SNMP (Simple Network Management
   Protocol) [RFC1157] might need information about additional MIB files
   or their OIDs.  OID-WHOIS could aid these applications in gathering
   the required information.

   (3) In directory services like LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access
   Protocol) [RFC4511], applications could query the name of attributes
   that are described by an OID the application doesn't know.
 

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1.1  Terminology

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119].

   In this document, "RA" is an abbreviation for "Registration
   Authority" and "OID" is an abbreviation for "Object Identifier".

2  Request

   OID-WHOIS is based on the WHOIS protocol specified in RFC 3912
   [RFC3912].

   During the request, the client sends a query beginning with "oid:",
   followed by an OID in dot-notation, as defined in RFC 3061, section 2
   [RFC3061], but with the following differences:

   (1) The OID MAY contain a leading dot.

   (2) To query the root of the OID tree, the OID MUST be either missing
   or consisting only of a single dot.

   Examples of valid queries are:

       oid:
       oid:.
       oid:2.999
       oid:.2.999

   All OIDs MUST be interpreted as absolute OIDs.  Relative OIDs (e.g.
   relative to the OID of the Registration Authority operating the WHOIS
   service) are not allowed.

   The namespace identifier (i.e. "oid") MUST be written in lower-case.

   Note: Existing WHOIS servers can add the functionalities described in
   this document in addition to their usual operation, i.e. they may
   accept queries beginning with "oid:" as well as other types of
   queries.

2.1  Authentication Tokens

   Some organizations might not want to present their OID information
   (or part of it) to the public, e.g. for reasons like privacy or
   confidentiality.  Therefore, at the end of the query, the client can
   append case-sensitive, non-empty alphanumeric authentication tokens
   to control the display of confidential information.
 

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   Each authentication token MUST be prepended by a dollar sign ("$").

   Examples of valid queries are:

       oid:2.999$firstToken
       oid:2.999$firstToken$secondToken

   Please note that authentication tokens are only weak protection.  For
   more information, see section 8 "Security Considerations".

2.2  Request ABNF Notation

   To define the query string, the following Augmented BNF definitions
   will be used.  They are based on the ABNF styles of RFC 5234
   [RFC5234].

   query           = namespace ":" optional-oid *( "$" authtoken )

   namespace       = %x6F %x69 %x64  ; "oid"

   optional-oid    = [ "." ] [ oid ]

   oid             = unsigned-number *( "." unsigned-number )

   authtoken       = 1*( char-or-digit )

   digit           = %x30-39  ; 0-9

   nonzero-digit   = %x31-39  ; 1-9

   uppercase-char  = %x41-5A  ; A-Z

   lowercase-char  = %x61-7A  ; a-z

   char-or-digit   = uppercase-char / lowercase-char / digit

   unsigned-number = "0" / nonzero-digit *( digit )

 

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3  Response

3.1  Format and Encoding

   (1) The response MUST be UTF-8 encoded (as defined in RFC 3629
   [RFC3629]), without Byte-Order-Mark (BOM).

   (2) The response contains multiple lines with field names and values,
   which MUST be separated by a double colon (":").  Whitespace
   characters after the double colon are allowed.

   (3) If possible, each line SHOULD be limited to 80 characters,
   including the field name, double colon, value, and whitespaces.

   (4) Field names and values MUST be treated case-sensitive.

   (5) If a value needs to be split into multiple lines, e.g. if the
   line would exceed the length limit, the same field name including
   double colon MUST be repeated at the beginning of the next line.

   (6) If an attribute has multiple values (e.g. multiple Unicode
   labels, alternative email-addresses, etc.), each value MUST be
   written in a new line with the same field name.

   (7) Lines with the same field name SHALL be kept together.

   (8) Comment lines MUST start with a percent sign ("%") at the
   beginning of a line, without prepending whitespaces.  They MUST NOT
   be evaluated by machines (except for signature validation, as
   mentioned in section 3.3 "Digital Signature").

3.2  Structure

   A response consists of sections, which SHOULD be separated by at
   least one empty line and/or comment line.

   This document specifies the following sections (which SHALL stay in
   this order):

   (1) Query-Section which contains the request and the result.  This
   section MUST start with the field "query".

   (2) Object-Section which contains information about the OID.  This
   section MUST start with the field "object".

   (3) RA-Section which contains information about the current
   Registration Authority.  This section MUST start with the field "ra".

 

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   (4) Optional RA-Sections containing information about RAs which were
   previously in charge of managing the OID.

   The WHOIS service MAY define additional sections after any of these
   sections, but the Query-Section MUST be the first section in the
   response.

3.2.1  Query-Section (Information about Query and Result)

   This section MUST always be present and MUST start with the field
   "query".  It MUST be the first section in the response.

   Possible fields are:

   (1) "query" MUST be present and contain the request of the client
   (beginning with the namespace identifier and double colon, i.e.
   "oid:").  Canonization or sanitation (like removing a leading dot)
   SHOULD NOT be applied at this step.  Authentication tokens SHOULD be
   omitted, though.

   (2) "result" MUST be present and SHALL be one of the following
   values:

       "Found" means that the WHOIS service can verify that the
       requested OID exists.  The following sections will contain
       information about this OID.

       "Not found; superior object found" means that the WHOIS service
       cannot verify that the requested OID exists, or it denies that
       the OID exists (e.g. because it is confidential).  However, the
       WHOIS service knows a superior OID which does exist.  The
       following sections will contain information about that superior
       OID instead.

       "Not found" means that the WHOIS service cannot verify that the
       requested OID exists, or it denies that the OID exists (e.g.
       because it is confidential).  Additionally, the WHOIS service
       does not have information about any superior OID, or their
       existence is also denied.

       "Service error" means that an internal error occurred, or that
       the system is in maintenance mode.  The client should try again
       later.

   (3) "distance" SHOULD be present if it is applicable in the requested
   namespace (it is always applicable for OIDs) and if the result is
   "Not found; superior object found".  A distance of 1 means that the
   direct parent was found.  A distance of 2 means that the grand-parent
 

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   was found, etc.

   (4) "message" SHOULD be present if the result is "Service error".  It
   contains a message explaining why the service is not available (e.g.
   displaying an error message).  It MUST NOT be present if the result
   has a different value.

   The WHOIS service SHOULD NOT add additional fields to this section.

3.2.2  Object-Section (Information about the OID)

   This section MUST be present if the result is "Found" or "Not found;
   superior object found".  It MUST start with the field "object".  It
   MUST NOT be present if the result is "Not found" or "Service error".

   Possible fields are:

   (1) "object" contains the OID in dot-notation, prepended by the
   namespace identifier and double colon ("oid:").  This field MUST be
   present.

   (2) "status" MUST be present and SHALL be one of the following
   values:

       "Information available" means that information about the OID is
       fully available.

       "Information partially available" means that part of the
       information about the OID is not available.  Possible reasons
       could be that part of the information is redacted due to
       confidentiality, or the WHOIS service does only know basic
       information, while the full information can be found somewhere
       else (e.g. at a referred WHOIS service).  The field "attribute"
       MAY be used with the value "confidential".

       "Information unavailable" means that the information about the
       OID is missing, redacted due to confidentiality, or otherwise
       unavailable.  The field "attribute" MAY be used with the value
       "confidential".

   (3) "name" (OPTIONAL) contains the name of the OID.  It SHOULD be as
   short as possible.

   (4) "description" (OPTIONAL) contains a short description of the OID.
    The description SHOULD only be a single sentence.

   (5) "information" (OPTIONAL) contains additional information, e.g.
   Management Information Base (MIB) definitions.
 

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   (6) "url" (OPTIONAL, multiple values allowed) contains a URL (as
   defined in RFC 3986 [RFC3986]) leading to more information about the
   OID.

   (7) "asn1-notation" (OPTIONAL, multiple values allowed) contains one
   or more possible notations in the ASN.1 syntax, as defined in
   Recommendation ITU-T X.680 (2015) | ISO/IEC 8824-1:2015, clause 32.3
   [X680], e.g. {joint-iso-itu-t(2) example(999)}.

       Note: A line-break, to break up lines which are too long, as
       defined in section 3.1 ("Format and Encoding") SHOULD be used. 
       This is no problem because multiple ASN.1 notations can be
       distinguished by their opening curly bracket and their closing
       curly bracket.

   (8) "iri-notation" (OPTIONAL, multiple values allowed) contains one
   or more possible notations in the OID-IRI syntax, as defined in
   Recommendation ITU-T X.680 (2015) | ISO/IEC 8824-1:2015, clause 34.3
   [X680] (but without quotation marks), e.g. /Joint-ISO-ITU-T/Example.

       Note: A line-break, to break up lines which are too long, as
       defined in section 3.1 ("Format and Encoding") SHALL NOT be used,
       otherwise, it would be ambiguous if the line-break was used to
       shorten the line, or if the line-break indicates a new value in
       case multiple OID-IRI notations are supplied.

   (9) "identifier" (OPTIONAL, multiple values allowed) contains an
   alphanumeric identifier ("NameForm") as defined in Recommendation
   ITU-T X.680 (2015) | ISO/IEC 8824-1:2015, clause 12.3 [X680].

   (10) "standardized-id" (OPTIONAL, multiple values allowed) contains
   an alphanumeric identifier that has a standardized "NameForm", i.e.
   in ASN.1 notation, it can be written without its associated number. 
   See more information in Recommendation ITU-T X.680 (2015) | ISO/IEC
   8824-1:2015, clause 32.7 [X680].

   (11) "unicode-label" (OPTIONAL, multiple values allowed) contains a
   Non-integer Unicode label, as defined in Recommendation ITU-T X.680
   (2015) | ISO/IEC 8824-1:2015, clause 12.27 [X680].

   (12) "long-arc" (OPTIONAL, multiple values allowed) contains a Non-
   integer Unicode label that can be used as the first identifier in an
   OID Internationalized Resource Identifier (OID-IRI), shortening it. 
   More information can be found in Recommendation ITU-T X.660 (2011) |
   ISO/IEC 9834-1:2012, clause 3.5.8 [X660].

   (13) "whois-service" (OPTIONAL) contains an IP-address or hostname of
   a system that offers a WHOIS service that can supply information
 

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   about the OID and/or its subordinate OIDs.  If the result is "Found"
   (i.e. the OID is existing in the local database), then the
   information "whois-service" is only informational; its existence is
   most likely a hint that subordinate OIDs will be found at that WHOIS
   server.  If the result is "Not found; superior object found", then
   the client SHOULD query the referred WHOIS server to receive more
   information about the OID.  See more information in section 4
   "Referral".

   (14) "attribute" (OPTIONAL, multiple values allowed) contains
   attributes of the OID.  An attribute MUST be one of the following
   values:

       "confidential" means that information about the OID or part of it
       is confidential.

       "draft" means that the allocation of the OID is not yet official
       and the information is subject to change without notice.  This
       includes deletion and relocation.

       "frozen" means that no more child OIDs can be created under this
       OID, e.g. because the RA has stopped operating, but the existing
       child OIDs stay valid.

       "leaf" means that no child OIDs can be allocated under this OID. 
       The field "subordinate" SHALL therefore not be present.

       "no-identifiers" means that the RA is not allocating alphanumeric
       identifiers.

       "no-unicode-labels" means that the RA is not allocating Non-
       integer Unicode labels.

       "retired" means that the OID is withdrawn, revoked, retired,
       expired, etc.  Please consult Recommendation ITU-T X.660 (2011) |
       ISO/IEC 9834-1:2012 [X660] for more information about such cases.

   (15) "parent" (OPTIONAL) contains the OID of the nearest known parent
   OID, prepended by namespace identifier and double colon, i.e. "oid:".
    It MAY be followed by additional human-readable information, e.g. a
   description or a list of ASN.1 identifiers.  There SHALL be at least
   1 whitespace in between.

   (16) "subordinate" (OPTIONAL, multiple values allowed) contains a
   list of subordinate OIDs, prepended by namespace identifier and
   double colon, i.e. "oid:".  It MAY be followed by additional human-
   readable information, e.g. a description or a list of ASN.1
   identifiers.  There SHALL be at least 1 whitespace in between.
 

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   (17) "created" (OPTIONAL) contains the date and time (as specified in
   section 3.4 "Date/Time Format") when the OID was first allocated by
   the RA of the superior OID.

   (18) "updated" (OPTIONAL) contains the date and time (as specified in
   section 3.4 "Date/Time Format") when the OID information was last
   updated.

   Additional fields can be defined by the WHOIS service.  The field
   names SHALL only consist of the lower-case letters "a..z", hyphens
   ("-") and numbers, and SHOULD be written in the English language. 
   The field name MUST NOT begin or end with a hyphen and a hyphen MUST
   NOT be followed by another hyphen.

3.2.3  RA-Section (Information about the Current RA)

   This section MUST NOT be present if the result is "Not found" or
   "Service error", otherwise it MAY be present.  If it is present, it
   MUST start with the field "ra".

   Possible fields are:

   (1) "ra" contains a general name of the RA, like the name of a
   person, the name of a group, or the name of an organization.  This
   field MUST be present.

   (2) "ra-status" MUST be present and SHALL be one of the following
   values:

       "Information available" means that information about this RA is
       fully available.

       "Information partially available" means that part of the
       information is not available.  A possible reason could be that
       part of the information is redacted due to confidentiality.  The
       field "attribute" MAY be used with the value "confidential".

       "Information unavailable" means that the data is missing (if the
       WHOIS service does only know the name of the RA and nothing
       else), redacted due to confidentiality or otherwise unavailable. 
       The field "attribute" MAY be used with the value "confidential".

   (3) "ra-contact-name" (OPTIONAL, multiple values allowed) contains
   the name of a person responsible for the allocation of subordinate
   OIDs, in case "ra" is a group or organization.

   (4) "ra-address" (OPTIONAL) contains the physical location of the RA.
    While a fully qualified postal address is recommended, the field can
 

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   also just contain a rough location like city and country name, state
   and country name, or just the country name, etc.  The name of the
   country SHOULD always be present.

   (5) "ra-phone" (OPTIONAL, multiple values allowed) contains a
   landline phone number of the Registration Authority.  It SHOULD be
   written in the international number format specified in
   Recommendation ITU-T E.164 (2010) [E164], e.g. +1 206 555 0100.

   (6) "ra-mobile" (OPTIONAL, multiple values allowed) contains a mobile
   phone number of the Registration Authority.  It SHOULD be written in
   the international number format specified in Recommendation ITU-T
   E.164 (2010) [E164], e.g. +1 206 555 0100.

   (7) "ra-fax" (OPTIONAL, multiple values allowed) contains a fax
   number of the Registration Authority.  It SHOULD be written in the
   international number format specified in Recommendation ITU-T E.164
   (2010) [E164], e.g. +1 206 555 0100.

   (8) "ra-email" (OPTIONAL, multiple values allowed) contains an email
   address of the Registration Authority.

   (9) "ra-url" (OPTIONAL, multiple values allowed) contains a URL (as
   defined in RFC 3986 [RFC3986]) leading to more information about the
   RA (usually the website of the RA).

   (10) "ra-attribute" (OPTIONAL, multiple values allowed) contains
   attributes of the RA.  An attribute MUST be one of the following
   values:

       "confidential" means that the information about the RA or part of
       it is confidential.

       "retired" means that the RA is defunct.  If this attribute is set
       to the current RA, then the OID MUST have the attribute "frozen"
       (until the responsibility is transferred to a non-defunct RA, or
       until the current RA becomes active again).

   (11) "ra-created" (OPTIONAL) contains the date and time (as specified
   in section 3.4 "Date/Time Format") when the RA was created/registered
   in the database.

   (12) "ra-updated" (OPTIONAL) contains the date and time (as specified
   in section 3.4 "Date/Time Format") when the RA information was last
   modified.

 

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   Additional fields can be defined by the WHOIS service, but they MUST
   begin with "ra-".  The field names SHALL only consist of the lower-
   case letters "a..z", hyphens ("-") and numbers, and SHOULD be written
   in the English language.  The field name MUST NOT begin or end with a
   hyphen and a hyphen MUST NOT be followed by another hyphen.

3.2.4  Sections for Previous Registration Authorities

   To optionally display information about RAs which were previously in
   charge of managing the OID, a new section per RA can be added with
   the following field name prefixes:

   "ra-" is the prefix of the current Registration Authority.

   "ra1-" is the prefix of the first RA.  It is the very first person or
   company to whom the OID was allocated by the RA of the superior OID.
   "ra2-" is the prefix of the second RA, after the responsibility has
   been transferred. etc.

   The definition of these sections is identical to the definition of
   the RA-Section (described in section 3.2.3 "RA-Section"), just with a
   different prefix.

   The history does not need to be complete, e.g. it is no problem to
   only serve information about the first and the current RA, or only
   serve information about the current RA.

3.3  Digital Signature

   If integrity/authenticity is required, the whole response can be
   signed, e.g. by using S/MIME, RSA, or PGP.  This document does not
   describe a mechanism for detecting which signature method was used. 
   The creation and verification of the signature are therefore
   implementation-specific and no interoperability regarding signature
   creation and validation is given at this time.

   Depending on the signature method being used, various things need to
   be appended and/or prepended to the response.  These additional lines
   MUST be prepended by a percent sign ("%") to avoid that an
   application confuses these additional lines (e.g. lines belonging to
   a PGP header, as defined in RFC 4880 [RFC4880]) with parts of the
   actual WHOIS response.

3.4  Date/Time Format

   Date/Time references SHALL be formatted as described in
   section 3.4.1.

 

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   If parts of the date/time reference are uncertain, then they SHOULD
   be omitted until the date/time reference has the highest correctness.

   Examples of valid date/time references can be found in section 3.4.2.

3.4.1  Date/Time Format ABNF Notation

   To define the format of a Date/Time reference, the following
   Augmented BNF definitions will be used.  They are based on the ABNF
   styles of RFC 5234 [RFC5234].

   date-time = year [ "-" month [ "-" day [ " " time ] ] ]

   year      = 4*4DIGIT

   month     = ( "0" %x31-39 ) /
               ( "1" %x30-32 )      ; 01-12

   day       = ( "0" %x31-39 ) /
               ( "1" %x30-39 ) /
               ( "2" %x30-39 ) /
               ( "3" %x30-31 ) /    ; 01-31

   time      = hour ":" minute [ ":" second ] [ " " timezone ]

   hour      = ( "0" %x30-39 ) /
               ( "1" %x30-39 ) /
               ( "2" %x30-33 )      ; 00-23

   minute    = %x30-35 DIGIT        ; 00-59

   second    = %x30-35 DIGIT        ; 00-59

   timezone  = ( "+" / "-" ) hour minute

3.4.2  Date/Time Format Examples

   Examples of valid date/time references are:

       2020-06-29 18:32:00 +0200
       2020-06-29 18:32:00
       2020-06-29 18:32 +0200
       2020-06-29 18:32
       2020-06-29
       2020-06
       2020

 

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4  Referral

   By using the field "whois-service", the WHOIS service can instruct
   the client to query another WHOIS service that might have more
   information about the requested OID.

   If Registration Authorities maintain up-to-date WHOIS service
   references of their OID delegations, it is possible to automatically
   retrieve information about any OID.

   Example: OID 2.999 is owned by Registration Authority "A", operating
   a WHOIS service at "a.example.com".

   Registration Authority "A" allocated OID 2.999.1000 to Registration
   Authority "B" who is operating a WHOIS service at "b.example.com".

   The client asks a.example.com for information about OID 2.999.1000.1
   and should receive the following reply:

       query:          oid:2.999.1000.1
       result:         Not found; superior object found
       distance:       1

       object:         oid:2.999.1000
       status:         Information available
       name:           Company "B"
       whois-service:  b.example.com

       ra:             "B"
       ra-status:      Information unavailable

   The client is now aware that "a.example.com" only knows OID
   2.999.1000, and that there is a reference to another WHOIS service
   located at "b.example.com".  So, the client should then accordingly
   query "b.example.com", asking for information about OID 2.999.1000.1:

       query:          oid:2.999.1000.1
       result:         Found

       object:         oid:2.999.1000.1
       status:         Information available
       name:           Example OID 1

       ra:             "B"
       ra-status:      Information unavailable

 

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5  Full Example

5.1  Request

   oid:2.999

5.2  Response

   query:          oid:2.999
   result:         Found

   object:         oid:2.999
   status:         Information available
   name:           Example
   description:    This OID can be used by anyone, for the purposes of
   description:    documenting examples of Object Identifiers.
   asn1-notation:  {joint-iso-itu-t(2) example(999)}
   iri-notation:   /Example
   identifier:     example
   unicode-label:  Beispiel
   unicode-label:  Ejemplo
   unicode-label:  Example
   unicode-label:  Exemple
   unicode-label:  (Korean characters are omitted in this example)
   unicode-label:  (Arabian characters are omitted in this example)
   unicode-label:  (Japanese characters are omitted in this example)
   unicode-label:  (Chinese characters are omitted in this example)
   unicode-label:  (Russian characters are omitted in this example)
   long-arc:       Beispiel
   long-arc:       Ejemplo
   long-arc:       Example
   long-arc:       Exemple
   long-arc:       (Korean characters are omitted in this example)
   long-arc:       (Arabian characters are omitted in this example)
   long-arc:       (Japanese characters are omitted in this example)
   long-arc:       (Chinese characters are omitted in this example)
   long-arc:       (Russian characters are omitted in this example)
   parent:         oid:2 (joint-iso-itu-t)
   created:        2011-06
   updated:        2011-09

   ra:             ITU-T SG 17 & ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 6
   ra-status:      Information unavailable
   % -----BEGIN RSA SIGNATURE-----
   % DwnqRtx/ONtPh4onXnrZPl9jF+G50RMLZkSwuClaoH2t/yK8CnYJrmzkzA5+gkfWkoQ
   % cq+J8J9cvnwXvBfpVHh+7lyNOVW1N016TYFcBt8MVxb6K2KhkKclqeA6wz0kSUuE4qR
   % ZohzrZBcCP7aLIpcaoVi6QACAt6J0vOvYBaf0=
   % -----END RSA SIGNATURE-----
 

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6  Alternative Namespaces

   This document describes the retrieval of information about OIDs using
   the WHOIS protocol.  In addition to the OID namespace, the methods
   described in this document can also be applied to other namespaces
   like "uuid", "isbn", "gtin" etc.

   Following things need to be considered if alternative namespaces are
   implemented:

   (1) The request MUST be UTF-8 encoded (as defined in RFC 3629
   [RFC3629]), without Byte-Order-Mark (BOM).

   (2) The namespace SHALL be a namespace identifier (NID) as defined in
   RFC 8141 [RFC8141].

   (3) The namespace identifier SHALL be written in lower-case (this is
   already defined in section 2 "Request").

   (4) If available, a formal URN namespace identifier (as defined in
   RFC 8141, section 5.1 [RFC8141]) SHOULD be used, e.g. "uuid" should
   be used instead of "guid".

   (5) If things like "Owner", "Creator", "Manager", "Administrator",
   etc., are relevant to the identifiers in the namespace, then the RA-
   section as described in section 3.2.3 SHALL be used, even though the
   word "Registration Authority" might not be appropriate in the
   terminology of the namespace.

   (6) The namespace specific identifier MUST NOT contain dollar signs
   ("$"), because section 2.1 "Authentication Tokens" defines them as a
   separator for authentication tokens.

   (7) The namespace specific identifier MUST be treated case-sensitive
   if the namespace distinguishes between lower-case and upper-case.

   (8) Fields which can only be used in the OID namespace (e.g.
   "unicode-label") MUST NOT be used for other namespaces.

 

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6.1  Example: UUID Namespace

   The following example shows the retrieval of information about
   Universally Unique Identifiers (e.g. UUIDs used by the Microsoft
   Common Object Model, also known as GUIDs).  The UUID namespace has no
   hierarchical structure, which means that the WHOIS service can only
   respond with the result "Found", "Not found" or "Service error" and
   the fields "parent" and "subordinate" cannot be used.

   Request:

       uuid:b4bfcc3a-db2c-424c-b029-7fe99a87c641

   Response:

       query:        uuid:b4bfcc3a-db2c-424c-b029-7fe99a87c641
       result:       Found

       object:       uuid:b4bfcc3a-db2c-424c-b029-7fe99a87c641
       status:       Information available
       name:         Desktop
       information:  GUID can be used in file dialogs as "Custom Place".

       ra:           Microsoft Corp.
       ra-status:    Information unavailable

   More information about UUIDs can be found in Recommendation ITU-T
   X.667 (2012) | ISO/IEC 9834-8:2014 [X667].

   More information about the Microsoft Common Object Model (COM) can be
   found at Microsoft Docs <https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
   us/windows/win32/com/component-object-model--com--portal>.

7  Internationalization Considerations

   The original WHOIS protocol as defined in RFC 3912 [RFC3912] does not
   define any character set and there is no mechanism for indicating
   which character set is in use.

   To enhance interoperability, this document specifies that the request
   and response MUST be UTF-8 encoded (as defined in RFC 3629
   [RFC3629]), without Byte-Order-Mark (BOM).

   The WHOIS service can define additional field names, but they SHOULD
   be written in the English language so that there is consistency with
   the field names defined in this document.

 

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8  Security Considerations

   (1) The knowledge of existence or information about some OIDs could
   be considered confidential.  In this case, the WHOIS service can
   either deny the existence of the requested OID (by setting the result
   to "Not found") or redact information in the Object-Section, as
   defined in section 3.2.2 "Object-Section".

   (2) Registration Authorities might demand that their data is kept
   confidential, or at least be partially redacted to increase privacy
   or as measurement against spam.  In this case, the WHOIS service can
   redact information in the RA-Section, as defined in section 3.2.3
   "RA-Section".

   (3) The WHOIS service can decide if confidential material is omitted
   or shown, based on authentication mechanisms like white-listing
   client IP addresses or by using authentication tokens supplied by the
   client, as defined in section 2.1 "Authentication Tokens".

   (4) The usage of authentication tokens is not recommended if the
   traffic between client and server is transmitted through an untrusted
   network, because the WHOIS protocol is not encrypted.

   (5) Authentication tokens must have a sufficient length and
   complexity to avoid successful brute force attacks, or the WHOIS
   service must limit the number of requests per time.

   (6) The WHOIS protocol itself has no mechanism for verifying the
   integrity of data received.  Due to this fact, the information should
   not be trusted if it is transmitted through an untrusted network.  If
   integrity/authenticity is required, the WHOIS response can be signed,
   as described in section 3.3 "Digital Signature".  However, this
   document does not describe a mechanism for detecting which signature
   method was used.  Therefore, no interoperability of signature
   creation/validation is given at this time.

9  IANA Considerations

   (1) IANA is operating a WHOIS service at whois.iana.org.  This WHOIS
   service could be extended by allowing requests starting with "oid:",
   to serve information about OIDs owned or delegated by IANA, for
   example, it could output information about Private Enterprise Numbers
   (PEN) located at OID 1.3.6.1.4.1.

   (2) Owners of Private Enterprise Numbers could store the addresses of
   their WHOIS servers in the IANA PEN database so that these addresses
   can be included in the WHOIS output of IANA.  This would enable the
   referral functionality described in section 4 "Referral".
 

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10  References

10.1  Normative References

   [E164]     "The international public telecommunication numbering
              plan", Recommendation ITU-T E.164 (2010), November 2010.
              <http://handle.itu.int/11.1002/1000/10688>.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997.
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

   [RFC3061]  Mealling, M., "A URN Namespace of Object Identifiers",
              RFC 3061, DOI 10.17487/RFC3061, February 2001.
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3061>.

   [RFC3629]  Yergeau, F., "UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO
              10646", STD 63, RFC 3629, DOI 10.17487/RFC3629,
              November 2003.
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3629>.

   [RFC3912]  Daigle, L., "WHOIS Protocol Specification", RFC 3912,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC3912, September 2004.
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3912>.

   [RFC3986]  Berners-Lee, T., "Uniform Resource Identifier (URI):
              Generic Syntax", STD 66, RFC 3986, DOI 10.17487/RFC3986,
              January 2005.
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3986>.

   [RFC5234]  Crocker, D. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax
              Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC5234, January 2008.
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5234>.

   [RFC8141]  Saint-Andre, P., "Uniform Resource Names (URNs)",
              RFC 8141, DOI 10.17487/RFC8141, April 2017.
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8141>.

   [X660]     "Information technology - Procedures for the operation of
              object identifier registration authorities: General
              procedures and top arcs of the international object
              identifier tree", Recommendation ITU-T X.660 (2011) |
              ISO/IEC 9834-1:2012, July 2011.
              <http://handle.itu.int/11.1002/1000/11336>.

 

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   [X680]     "Information technology - Abstract Syntax Notation One
              (ASN.1): Specification of basic notation", Recommendation
              ITU-T X.680 (2015) | ISO/IEC 8824-1:2015, August 2015.
              <http://handle.itu.int/11.1002/1000/12479>.

10.2  Informative References

   [RFC1157]  Case, J., Fedor, M., Schoffstall, M., Davin, J., "A Simple
              Network Management Protocol (SNMP)", RFC 1157,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC1157, May 1990.
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1157>.

   [RFC4511]  Sermersheim, J., "Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
              (LDAP): The Protocol", RFC 4511, DOI 10.17487/RFC4511,
              June 2006.
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4511>.

   [RFC4880]  Callas, J., Donnerhacke, L., Finney, H., Shaw, D., Thayer,
              R., "OpenPGP Message Format", RFC 4880,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC4880, November 2007.
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4880>.

   [X509]     "Information technology - Open Systems Interconnection -
              The Directory: Public-key and attribute certificate
              frameworks", Recommendation ITU-T X.509 (2016) |
              ISO/IEC 9594-8:2017, October 2016.
              <http://handle.itu.int/11.1002/1000/13031>.

   [X667]     "Information technology - Procedures for the operation of
              object identifier registration authorities: Generation of
              universally unique identifiers and their use in object
              identifiers", Recommendation ITU-T X.667 (2012) |
              ISO/IEC 9834-8:2014, October 2012.
              <http://handle.itu.int/11.1002/1000/11746>.

   [X672]     "Information technology - Open systems interconnection -
              Object identifier resolution system",
              Recommendation ITU-T X.672 (2010) | ISO/IEC 29168-1:2011,
              August 2010.
              <http://handle.itu.int/11.1002/1000/10831>.

 

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Acknowledgements

   Olivier Dubuisson

Authors' Addresses

   Daniel Marschall
   Postfach 11 53
   69243 Bammental
   Germany

   EMail: daniel-marschall@viathinksoft.de

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