Internet-Draft Mark Baker
Expires: December, 2002 Idokorro Mobile, Inc.
Mark Nottingham
BEA Systems
June 26, 2002
The "application/soap+xml" media type
draft-baker-soap-media-reg-01.txt
Status of this Memo
This document is an Internet-Draft and is subject to all provisions
of Section 10 of RFC2026.
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Abstract
This document defines the "application/soap+xml" media type which can
be used to describe SOAP 1.2 messages serialized as XML.
1. Introduction
SOAP version 1.2 (SOAP) is a lightweight protocol intended for
exchange of structured information between peers in a decentralized,
distributed environment. It defines an extensible messaging framework
that contains a message construct based on XML technologies that can
be exchanged over a variety of underlying protocols.
This specification defines the media type "application/soap+xml"
which can be used to identify SOAP messages serialized with XML 1.0,
carried in MIME or MIME like protocols that support the concept of
media types for which a SOAP binding has been defined.
2. Registration
MIME media type name: application
MIME subtype name: soap+xml
Required parameters: none
Optional parameters:
charset
This parameter has identical semantics to the charset parameter
of the "application/xml" media type as specified in [XMLMIME].
action
See Section 5 of this document.
Encoding considerations:
Identical to those of "application/xml" as described in [XMLMIME],
Section 3.2, as applied to the SOAP envelope infoset.
Security considerations:
See Section 3 of this document.
Interoperability considerations:
See Section 4 of this document.
Published specification:
See [SOAP12P1] and [SOAP12P2].
Applications which use this media type:
No known applications currently use this media type.
Additional information:
File extension:
SOAP messages are not required or expected to be stored as
files.
Fragment identifiers:
Identical to that of "application/xml" as described in [XMLMIME],
Section 5.
Base URI:
As specified in RFC 3023, Section 6. Also see [SOAP12P1],
Section 6.
Macintosh File Type code: TEXT
Person & email address to contact for further information:
Mark Baker <mbaker@idokorro.com>
Intended usage: COMMON
Author/Change controller:
The SOAP 1.2 specification set is a work product of the World Wide
Web Consortium's XML Protocol Working Group. The W3C has change
control over these specifications.
3. Security considerations
Because SOAP can carry application defined data whose semantics is
independent from that of any MIME wrapper (or context within which the
MIME wrapper is used), one should not expect to be able to understand
the semantics of the SOAP message based on the semantics of the MIME
wrapper alone. Therefore, whenever using the application/soap+xml
media type, it is STRONGLY RECOMMENDED that the security implications
of the context within which the SOAP message is used is fully
understood. The security implications are likely to involve both the
specific SOAP binding to an underlying protocol as well as the
application-defined semantics of the data carried in the SOAP message
(though one must be careful when doing this, as discussed in
[SOAP12P1], Section 7.3.1).
Also, see the full SOAP 1.2 Part 1 [SOAP12P1], Section 7.
In addition, as this media type uses the "+xml" convention, it shares
the same security considerations as described in [XMLMIME], Section
10.
4. Interoperability considerations
There are no known interoperability issues.
5. The "action" parameter
This optional parameter can be used to specify the URI that identifies
the intent of the message. In SOAP 1.2, it serves a similar purpose
as the SOAPAction HTTP header did in SOAP 1.1. Namely, its value
identifies the intent of the message.
The value of the action parameter is an absolute URI-reference as
defined by RFC 2396 [URI]. SOAP places no restrictions on the
specificity of the URI or that it is resolvable.
Although the purpose of the action parameter is to indicate the intent
of the SOAP message there is no mechanism for automatically computing
the value based on the SOAP envelope. In other words, the value has to
be determined out of band.
It is recommended that the same value be used to identify sets of
message types that are logically connected in some manner, for example
part of the same "service". It is STRONGLY RECOMMENDED that the URI be
globally unique and stable over time.
The presence and content of the action parameter MAY be used by
servers such as firewalls to appropriately filter SOAP messages and it
may be used by servers to facilitate dispatching of SOAP messages to
internal message handlers etc. It SHOULD NOT be used as an insecure
form of access authorization.
Use of the action parameter is OPTIONAL. SOAP Receivers MAY use it as
a hint to optimize processing, but SHOULD NOT require its presence in
order to operate.
6. Authors' Addresses
Mark A. Baker
Idokorro Mobile, Inc.
44 Byward Market, Suite 240
Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA. K1N 7A2
tel:+1-613-789-1818
mailto:mbaker@idokorro.com
Mark Nottingham
BEA Systems
Level 15, 235 Montgomery Street
San Francisco, CA, US. 94104
mailto:mnot@pobox.com
7. References
[XML] "Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0", W3C Recommendation,
February 1998. Available at <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml>
(or <http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-xml-20001006>).
[INFOSET] "XML Information Set", W3C Recommendation, 24 October 2001,
Available at <http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-infoset> (or
<http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/REC-xml-infoset-20011024>).
[XMLMIME] "XML Media Types", RFC 3023, January 2001. Murata, M.,
St.Laurent, S., Kohn, D.
[SOAP12P1] "SOAP Version 1.2 Part 1: Messaging Framework", W3C Working
Draft (work in progress), December 2001. Gudgin, M.,
Hadley, M., Moreau, JJ., Nielsen, H.
<http://www.w3.org/TR/soap12-part1/>.
[SOAP12P2] "SOAP Version 1.2 Part 2: Adjuncts", W3C Working Draft (work
in progress), December 2001. Gudgin, M., Hadley, M.,
Moreau, JJ., Nielsen, H. <http://www.w3.org/TR/soap12-part2/>.
[URI] Fielding, R., Masinter, L. and T. Berners-Lee, "Uniform
Resource Identifiers: Generic Syntax", RFC 2396, August 1998.