Internet Engineering Task Force Frank da Cruz Internet Draft Jeffrey E. Altman draft-columbia-kermit-url-00.txt Columbia University April 2002 Expires: October 2002 THE KERMIT URL SCHEME STATUS OF THIS MEMO This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026. 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 To view the list Internet-Draft Shadow Directories, see http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. ABSTRACT This document defines the Kermit URL according to the rules of RFC 2717. 1. URL SCHEME NAME The scheme name is "kermit". 2. URL SCHEME SYNTAX The Kermit URL scheme is used to fetch files from Internet hosts using the Kermit protocol [1]. Kermit URLs follow the common Internet scheme syntax described in Section 3.1 of RFC 1738 [2]. If ":<port>" is omitted, the port defaults to 1649 (as registered by IANA). A username and password may be included. If none is included, anonymous access as is used, exactly as in FTP. Examples: Anonymous retrieval of a file: kermit://kermit.columbia.edu/READ.ME Authenticated retrieval of a file: kermit://olga:secret@xyzcorp.com/somepath/oofa.txt Authenticated retrieval of multiple files: kermit://olga:secret@xyzcorp.com/somepath/*.[ch] Secure authenticated retrieval of a file: kermit://olga@xyzcorp.com/somepath/oofa.txt In the latter case, authentication is performed by whatever security scheme the server and client negotiate [1]. 3. CHARACTER ENCODING CONSIDERATIONS File and pathnames may be US ASCII (ISO 646 International Reference Version) or UTF-8. UTF-8 names are converted into the native character set of the server. For text-mode transfers, file record format and character set are converted according to normal Kermit rules and procedures. 4. INTENDED USAGE The specified file or files are retrieved from the host using Kermit protocol. Text files are sent in text mode, binary files in binary mode, as determined automatically by the server. 5. INTEROPERABILITY Any Telnet client that supports Kermit protocol and the Telnet KERMIT Option [3] may use the Internet Kermit Service. Any such Telnet client that can accept URLs on the command line (such as C-Kermit and Kermit 95) can serve as users of or helper applications for kermit URLs. 6. SECURITY Refer to [1]. No new security issues are raised by the use of this URL. 7. AUTHORS' ADDRESS Frank da Cruz fdc@columbia.edu Jeffrey E. Altman jaltman@columbia.edu The Kermit Project Columbia University 612 West 115th Street New York NY 10025-7799 USA http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/ 8. BIBLIOGRAPHY [1] da Cruz, F, and J. Altman, "Internet Kermit Service", Request for Comments 2839, Internet Engineering Task Force, May 2000. [2] T. Berners-Lee, L. Masinter, and M. McCahill, "Uniform resource locators (URL)," Request for Comments 1738, Internet Engineering Task Force, Dec. 1994. [3] Altman, J., and F. da Cruz, "Telnet Kermit Option", Request for Comments 2840, Internet Engineering Task Force, May 2000. Full Copyright Statement Copyright (c) The Internet Society (2002). All Rights Reserved. This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than English. The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns. This document and the information contained herein is provided on an "AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.