NFSv4                                                          D. Noveck
Internet-Draft                                                    NetApp
Updates: 5661, 7530 (if approved)                      September 6, 2020
Intended status: Standards Track
Expires: March 10, 2021


              Internationalization for the NFSv4 Protocols
              draft-dnoveck-nfsv4-internationalization-02

Abstract

   This document describes the handling of internationalization for all
   NFSv4 protocols, including NFSv4.0, NFSv4.1, NFSv4.2 and extensions
   thereof, and future minor versions.

   It updates RFC7530 and RFC5661.

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
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   This Internet-Draft will expire on March 10, 2021.

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   Copyright (c) 2020 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

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   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   2.  Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     2.1.  Requirements Language Definition  . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     2.2.  Requirements Language Derivation  . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   3.  History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   4.  Changes Relative to RFC7530 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
   5.  Limitations on Internationalization-Related Processing in the
       NFSv4 Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
   6.  Summary of Server Behavior Types  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
   7.  The Attribute Fs_charset_cap  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
     7.1.  The Attribute Fs_charset_cap in Published NFSv4.1
           Specifications  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
     7.2.  The Attribute Fs_charset_cap in Future NFSv4.1
           Specifications  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
   8.  String Encoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
   9.  Normalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  19
   10. Case-Insensitive Processing of File Names . . . . . . . . . .  19
     10.1.  Implementing Case-Insensitive Comparison of File Names .  23
     10.2.  Important Examples of Case-insensitive Handling of File
            Names  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  25
   11. Internationalization-related Processing of File Names by
       Clients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  28
     11.1.  Server Restrictions to Deal with Lack of Client
            Knowledge  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  29
     11.2.  Client Processing of File Names for Current NFSv4
            Protocols  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  30
     11.3.  Client Processing of File Names for Future NFSv4
            Protocols  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  34
   12. String Types with Processing Defined by Other Internet Areas   35
     12.1.  Effect of IDNA Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  37
     12.2.  Potential Compatibility Issues Related to IDNA Changes .  38
   13. Errors Related to UTF-8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  40
   14. Servers That Accept File Component Names That Are Not Valid
       UTF-8 Strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  41
   15. Future Minor Versions and Extensions  . . . . . . . . . . . .  42
   16. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  43
   17. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  43
   18. References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  44
     18.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  44
     18.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  45
   Appendix A.  Form-insensitive String Comparisons  . . . . . . . .  46
     A.1.  Name Hashes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  48
     A.2.  Character Tables  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  50



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     A.3.  Outline of comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  52
     A.4.  Comparing Base Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  53
     A.5.  Comparing Combining Characters  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  54
   Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  56
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  57

1.  Introduction

   Internationalization is a complex topic with its own set of
   terminology (see [22]).  The topic is made more complex for the NFSv4
   protocols by the tangled history described in Section 3.  In large
   part, this document is based on the actual behavior of NFSv4 client
   and server implementations (for all existing minor versions) and is
   intended to serve as a basis for further implementations to be
   developed that can interact with existing implementations as well as
   those to be developed in the future.

   Note that the behaviors on which this document are based are each
   demonstrated by a combination of an NFSv4 server implementation
   proper and a server-side physical file system.  It is common for
   servers and physical file systems to be configurable as to the
   behavior shown.  In the discussion below, each configuration that
   shows different behavior is considered separately.

   As a consequence of this choice, normative terms defined in RFC2119
   [1] are often derived from implementation behavior, rather than the
   other way around, as is more commonly the case.  The specifics are
   discussed in Section 2.

   With regard to the question of interoperability with existing
   specifications for NFSv4 minor versions, different minor versions
   pose different issues.

   o  With regard to NFSv4.0 as defined in RFC7530 [3], no significant
      interoperability issues are expected to arise because the
      internationalization in that specification, which is the basis for
      this one, was also based on the behavior of existing
      implementations.  Although, in a formal sense, the treatment of
      internationalization here supersedes that in RFC7530 [3], the
      treatments are intended to be essentially the same, in order to
      eliminate interoperability issues.

      Because of a change in the handling of Internationalized domain
      names, there are some differences from the handling in RFC7530
      [3], as discussed in Section 3.  For a discussion of those
      differences and potential compatibility issues, see Sections 12.1
      and 12.2.




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   o  With regard to NFSv4.1 as defined RFC5661 [4], the situation is
      quite different.  The approach to internationalization specified
      in that document, based in large part on that in RFC3530 was never
      implemented, and implementers were either unaware of the
      troublesome implications of that approach or chose to ignore the
      existing specification as essentially unimplementable.  An
      internationalization approach compatible with that specified in
      RFC7530 [3] tended to be followed, despite the fact that, in other
      respects, NFSv4.1 was considered to be a separate protocol.

      If there were NFSv4 servers who obeyed the internationalization
      dictates within RFC5661 [4], or clients that expected servers to
      do so, they would fail to interoperate with typical clients and
      servers when dealing with non-UTF8 file names, which are quite
      common.  As no such implementations have come to our attention, it
      has to be assumed that they do not exist and interoperability with
      existing implementations as described here is an appropriate basis
      for this document.

2.  Requirements Language

2.1.  Requirements Language Definition

   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 BCP 14 [1] [2] when, and only when,
   they appear in all capitals, as shown here.

2.2.  Requirements Language Derivation

   Although the key words "MUST", "SHOULD", and "MAY" retain their
   normal meanings, as described above, we need to explain how the
   statements involving these terms were arrived at:

   o  In the case of statements within Sections 12 and 15, these derive
      from the requirements of other internet specifications.

   o  In the case of statements within Sections 7, 10, and 11 derive
      from the author's view of the appropriate normative language to
      use and will, when this document is advanced, represent the
      working group's consensus on those same matters.

   o  However, in other cases, i.e. those in sections deriving from
      RFC7530 [3] (i.e.  Sections 5, 6, 8, 9, 13, 14, 16, 17) this
      specification's descriptions were derived from existing
      implementation patterns.  Although this pattern is atypical, it is
      needed to provide a description that satisfies the goal of RFC2119
      [1], providing a normative description to enable future



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      implementations to be compatible with existing ones.  This
      requires that we explain later in this section how the normative
      terms used derive from the behavior of existing implementations,
      in those situations in which existing implementation behavior
      patterns can be determined.

   Note that in introductory and explanatory sections of this document
   (i.e.  Sections 1 through 4 these terms do not appear except to
   explain how they are used in this document.  Also, they do not appear
   in Appendix A which provides non-normative implementation guidance.

   With regard to the parts of this document deriving from RFC7530, we
   explain below how the normative terms used derive from the behavior
   of existing implementations, in those situations in which existing
   implementation behavior patterns can be determined.

   o  Behavior implemented by all existing clients or servers is
      described using "MUST", since new implementations need to follow
      existing ones to be assured of interoperability.  While it is
      possible that different behavior might be workable, we have found
      no case where this seems reasonable.

      The converse holds for "MUST NOT": if a type of behavior poses
      interoperability problems, it MUST NOT be implemented by any
      existing clients or servers.

   o  Behavior implemented by most existing clients or servers, where
      that behavior is more desirable than any alternative, is described
      using "SHOULD", since new implementations need to follow that
      existing practice unless there are strong reasons to do otherwise.

      The converse holds for "SHOULD NOT".

   o  Behavior implemented by some, but not all, existing clients or
      servers is described using "MAY", indicating that new
      implementations have a choice as to whether they will behave in
      that way.  Thus, new implementations will have the same
      flexibility that existing ones do.

   o  Behavior implemented by all existing clients or servers, so far as
      is known -- but where there remains some uncertainty as to details
      -- is described using "should".  Such cases primarily concern
      details of error returns.  New implementations should follow
      existing practice even though such situations generally do not
      affect interoperability.

   There are also cases in which certain server behaviors, while not
   known to exist, cannot be reliably determined not to exist.  In part,



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   this is a consequence of the long period of time that has elapsed
   since the publication of the defining specifications, resulting in a
   situation in which those involved in t implementation work may no
   longer be involved in or aware of working group activities.

   In the case of possible server behavior that is neither known to
   exist nor known not to exist, we use "SHOULD NOT" and "MUST NOT" as
   follows, and similarly for "SHOULD" and "MUST".

   o  In some cases, the potential behavior is not known to exist but is
      of such a nature that, if it were in fact implemented,
      interoperability difficulties would be expected and reported,
      giving us cause to conclude that the potential behavior is not
      implemented.  For such behavior, we use "MUST NOT".  Similarly, we
      use "MUST" to apply to the contrary behavior.

   o  In other cases, potential behavior is not known to exist but the
      behavior, while undesirable, is not of such a nature that we are
      able to draw any conclusions about its potential existence.  In
      such cases, we use "SHOULD NOT".  Similarly, we use "SHOULD" to
      apply to the contrary behavior.

   In the case of a "MAY", "SHOULD", or "SHOULD NOT" that applies to
   servers, clients need to be aware that there are servers that may or
   may not take the specified action, and they need to be prepared for
   either eventuality.

3.  History

   The history of internationalization within NFSv4 is discussed in this
   section.  Despite the fact that NFSv4.0 and subsequent minor versions
   have differed in many ways, the actual implementations of
   internationalization have remained the same and internationalized
   names have been handled without regard to the minor version being
   used.  As a result, this document is able to treat
   internationalization for all NFSv4 minor versions together.

   During the period from the publication of RFC3010 [17] until now, two
   different perspectives with regard to internationalization have been
   held and represented, to varying degrees, in specifications for NFSv4
   minor versions.

   o  The perspective held by NFSv4 implementers treated most aspects of
      internationalization as basically outside the scope of what NFSv4
      client and server implementers could deal with.  This was because
      the POSIX interface treated file names as uninterpreted strings of
      bytes, because the file systems used by NFSv4 servers treated file
      names similarly, and because those file systems contained files



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      with internationalized names using a number of different encoding
      methods, chosen by the users of the POSIX interface.  From this
      perspective, wider support for internationalized names and general
      use of universal encodings was a matter for users and applications
      and not for protocol implementers or designers.

   o  Within the IETF in general and in the IESG, there was a feeling
      that new protocols, such as NFSv4, could not avoid dealing with
      internationalization issues, making it difficult to treat these
      matters, as the implementers' perspective would have it, as
      essentially out of scope.

   As specifications were developed, approved, and at times rewritten,
   this fundamental difference of approach was never fully resolved,
   although, with the publication of RFC7530 [3], a satisfactory modus
   vivendi may have been arrived at.

   Although many specifications were published dealing with NFSv4
   internationalization, all minor versions used the same implementation
   approach, even when the current specification for that minor version
   specified an entirely different approach.  As a result, we need to
   treat the history of NFSv4 internationalization below as an
   integrated whole, rather than treating individual minor versions
   separately.

   o  The approach to internationalization specified in RFC3010 [17]
      sidestepped the conflict of approaches cited above by discussing
      the reasons that UTF-8 encoding was desirable while leaving file
      names as uninterpreted strings of bytes.  The issue of string
      normalization was avoided by saying "The NFS version 4 protocol
      does not mandate the use of a particular normalization form at
      this time."

      Despite this approach's inconsistency with general IETF
      expectations regarding internationalization, RFC3010 was published
      as a Proposed Standard.  NFSv4.0 implementation related to
      internationalization of file names followed the same paradigm used
      by NFSv3, assuring interoperability with files created using that
      protocol, as well as with those created using local means of file
      creation.

   o  When it became necessary, because of issues with byte-range
      locking, to create an rfc3010bis, no change to the previously
      approved approach seemed indicated and the drafts submitted up
      until [24] closely followed RFC3010 as regards
      internationalization.  The IESG then decided that a different
      approach to internationalization was required, to be based on
      stringprep [18] and rfc3010bis was accordingly revised, replacing



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      all of the Internationalization section, before being published as
      RFC3530 [21].

      These changes required the rejection of file names that were not
      valid UTF-8, file names that included code points not, at the time
      of publication, assigned a Unicode character (e.g. capital eszett)
      or that were not allowed by stringprep (e.g.  Zero-width joiner
      and non-joiner characters).  Because these restrictions would have
      caused the set of valid file names to be different on NFS-mounted
      and local file systems there was no chance of them ever being
      implemented.

      Because these specification changes were made without working
      group involvement, most implementers were unaware of them while
      those who were aware of the changes ignored them and continued to
      develop implementations based on the internationalization approach
      specified in RFC3010.

   o  When NFsv4.1 was being developed, it seemed that no changes in
      internationalization would be required.  Many people were unaware
      of the stringprep-based requirements which made the NFSv4.0
      internationalization specified in RFC3530 unimplementable.  As a
      result, the internationalization specified in RFC5661 [4] was
      based on that in RFC3530 [21], although the addition of the
      attribute fs_charset_cap, discussed below, provided additional
      flexibility.

      The attribute fs_charset_cap, discussed below in Section 7
      provides flags allowing the server to indicate that it accepts and
      processes non-UTF-8 file names.  Rejecting them was a "MUST" in
      RFC3530 and became a "SHOULD" in RFC5661, although there is no
      evidence that any of these designations ever affected server
      behavior.

      As a result of this treatment of internationalization, even though
      NFSv4.1 was a separate protocol and could have had a different
      approach to internationalization, for a considerable time, the
      internationalization specification for both protocols was based on
      stringprep (in RFC3530 and RFC5661) while the actual
      implementations of the two minor versions both followed the
      approach specified in RFC3010, despite its obsoleted status.

   o  When work started on rfc3530bis it was clear that issues related
      to internationalization had to be addressed.  When the
      implications of the stringprep references in RFC3530 were
      discussed with implementers it became clear that mandating that
      NFSv4.0 file names conform to stringprep was not appropriate.
      While some working group members articulated the view that,



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      because of the need to maintain compatibility with the POSIX
      interface and existing file systems, internationalization for
      NFSv4 could not be successfully addressed by the IETF, the
      rfc3530bis draft submitted to the IESG did not explicitly embrace
      the implementers' perspective set forth above.

      The draft submitted to the IESG and RFC7530 [3] as published
      provided an explanation (see Section 5) as to why restrictions on
      character encodings were not viable.  It allowed non-UTF-8
      encodings to be used for internationalized file names while
      defining UTF-8 as the preferred encoding and allowing servers to
      reject non-UTF-8 string as invalid.  Other stringprep-based string
      restrictions were eliminated.  With regard to normalization, it
      continued to defer the matter, leaving open the possibility that
      one might be chosen later.

      This approach is compatible, in implementation terms, with that
      specified in RFC3010 [17], allowing it to be used compatibly with
      existing implementations for all existing minor versions.  This is
      despite the fact that RFC5661 [4] specifies an entirely different
      approach.

      As a result of discussions leading up to the publishing of
      RFC7530, it was discovered that some local file systems used with
      NFSv4 were configured to be both normalization-aware and
      normalization-preserving, mapping all canonically equivalent file
      names to the same file while preserving the form actually used to
      create the file, of whatever form, normalized or not.  This
      behavior, which is legal according to RFC3010, which says little
      about name mapping is probably illegal according to stringprep.
      Nevertheless, it was expressly pointed out in RFC7530 as a valid
      choice to deal with normalization issues, since it allows
      normalization-aware processing without the difficulties that arise
      in imposing a particular normalization form, as described in
      Section 9.

      In its discussion of internationalized domain names, RFC7530 [3]
      adopted an approach compatible with IDNA2003, rather than
      attempting to derive the specification from the behavior of
      existing implementations.

   o  When IDNA2003 was replaced by IDNA2008, the internationalization
      specified by [3] was not changed.  Also, it appears unlikely that
      implementations were changed to reflect that shift.

   o  NFSv4.2 made no changes to internationalization.  As a result,
      RFC7862 [5] which made no mention of internationalization,




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      implicitly aligned internationalization in NFSv4.2 with that in
      NFSv4.1, as specified by RFC5661 [4].

      As a result of this implicit alignment, there is no need for this
      document to specifically address NFSv4.2 or be marked as updating
      RFC7862.  It is sufficient that it updates RFC5661, which
      specifies the internationalization for NFSv4.1, inherited by
      NFSv4.2.

   o  Later, as work on the predecessors of this document was underway,
      [25] was submitted, making it necessary that some gaps the
      discussion of internationalization in [3] be filled in.  These
      gaps primarily concerned the need of NFSv4 clients to match the
      handling of the corresponding server when using cached file name
      data locally, or to avoid making invalid assumptions about that
      handling, when information on the details of such handling was not
      available.

   The above history, can, for the purposes of the rest of this document
   be summarized in the following statements:

   o  The actual treatment of internationalization within NFSv4 has not
      been affected by the particular minor version used, despite the
      fact that the specifications for the minor versions have often
      differed in their treatment of internationalization.

   o  With regard to file names, implementations have followed the
      internationalization approach specified in RFC3010, which is
      compatible with the treatment in RFC7530.

   o  With regard to internationalized domain names, RFC7530 [3]
      specified an approach compatible with IDNA at the time of
      publication.  However, no detailed analysis was done to determine
      whether NFSv4 implementations actually followed that approach

   o  Because [3] did not specifically address the special issues that
      clients would face, relying on the assumption that each file is
      accessible only by its name.  As this assumption is no longer true
      when internationalized name handling is in effect, the appropriate
      handling is discusssed below.  Section 11.2 explains the options
      for handling in the case in which the client has very limited
      information about the details about the server's
      internationalization-related handling of file names while
      Section 11.3 discusses how a client might use more complete
      information provided by new attributes.

   In order to deal with all NFSv4 minor versions, this document follows
   the internationalization approach defined in RFC7530, with some



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   changes discussed in Section 4 and applies that approach to all NFSv4
   minor versions.

4.  Changes Relative to RFC7530

   This document follows the internationalization approach defined in
   RFC7530, with a number of significant necessary changes.

   o  The handling of internationalization specified in [3] is applied
      to all NFSv4 minor versions.  No compatibility issues are expected
      to arise because all existing implementations follow the same
      approach to internationalization despite the large difference
      between [3] and what was specified in [4].  Issues relating to
      potential future minor versions and protocol extensions are
      addressed in Section 15.

   o  Some changes motivated by the shift from IDNA2003 to IDNA2008 have
      been made.  The intention is to maintain compatibility with all
      existing NFSv4 minor versions.  Potential compatibility issues
      with regard to the IDNA shift are discussed in Section 12.2.

   o  There is more detailed discussion of case-insensitive handling of
      file names, with particular attention to the complexities that can
      arise when multiple language convention in these matters need to
      be accommodated.  The discussion in Section 10 applies to both
      client or server, although issues relating to the client's
      knowledge are dealt with in Section 11.

   o  There is additional material, dealing with the implications of
      server-side internationalization-related file name processing for
      clients that cache the results of READDIR's.  This includes a
      discussion of options to deal with the current lack of detailed
      information about the server (in Section 11.2), and options for
      handling when more detailed information is available (in
      Section 11.3)."

5.  Limitations on Internationalization-Related Processing in the NFSv4
    Context

   There are a number of noteworthy circumstances that limit the degree
   to which internationalization-related encoding and normalization-
   related restrictions can be made universal with regard to NFSv4
   clients and servers:

   o  The NFSv4 client is part of an extensive set of client-side
      software components whose design and internal interfaces are not
      within the IETF's purview, limiting the degree to which a
      particular character encoding might be made standard.



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   o  Server-side handling of file component names is typically
      implemented within a server-side physical file system, whose
      handling of character encoding and normalization is not
      specifiable by the IETF.

   o  Typical implementation patterns in UNIX systems result in the
      NFSv4 client having no knowledge of the character encoding being
      used, which might even vary between processes on the same client
      system.

   o  Users may need access to files stored previously with non-UTF-8
      encodings, or with UTF-8 encodings that are not in accord with any
      particular normalization form.

6.  Summary of Server Behavior Types

   Servers MAY reject component name strings that are not valid UTF-8.
   This leads to a number of types of valid server behavior, as outlined
   below.  When these are combined with the valid normalization-related
   behaviors as described in Section 8, this leads to the combined
   behaviors outlined below.

   o  Servers that limit file component names within a given file system
      to UTF-8 strings exist with normalization-related handling as
      described in Section 8.  These are best described as behaving as
      "UTF-8-only servers".

   o  Servers that do not limit file component names on particular file
      systems to UTF-8 strings are very common and are necessary to deal
      with clients/applications not oriented to the use of UTF-8.  Such
      servers ignore normalization-related issues, and there is no way
      for them to implement either normalization or representation-
      independent lookups.  These are best described as behaving as
      "UTF-8-unaware servers" for such file systems, since they treat
      file component names as uninterpreted strings of bytes and have no
      knowledge of the characters represented.  See Section 13 for
      details.

   o  It is possible for a server to allow component names that are not
      valid UTF-8, while still being aware of the structure of UTF-8
      strings.  Such servers could, in theory, implement either
      normalization or representation-independent lookups but apply
      those techniques only to valid UTF-8 strings.  Such servers are
      not common, but it is possible to configure at least one known
      server to have this behavior.  This behavior SHOULD NOT be used
      due to the possibility that a file name using one encoding may, by
      coincidence, have the appearance of a UTF-8 file name; the results
      of UTF-8 normalization or representation-independent lookups are



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      unlikely to be correct in all cases, when considered from the
      viewpoint of the other encoding.  Such difficulties can be
      compounded when case-insensitive name handling is in effect.

7.  The Attribute Fs_charset_cap

   This attribute, nominally "RECOMMENDED", appears to have been added
   to NFSv4.1 to allow servers, while staying within the constraints of
   the stringprep-based specification of internationalization, to allow
   uses of UTF-8-unaware naming by clients.  As a result, those NFSv4
   servers implementing internationalization as NFSv3 had done, could be
   considered spec-compliant, as long as a later "SHOULD" was ignored.
   However, because use of UTF-8 was tied to existing stringprep
   restrictions, implementations of internationalization, that were
   aware of Unicode canonical equivalence issues were not provided for.
   Although this attribute may have been implemented despite the
   problems noted in Section 7.1, the overall scheme was never
   implemented and NFSv4.1 implementations dealt with
   internationalization as NFSv4.0 implementations had.

   It is generally accepted that attributes designated "RECOMMENDED" are
   essentially OPTIONAL with the client having the responsibility to
   deal with server non-support of them.  While RFC7530 has gone so far
   as to explicitly exclude this use from the general statement that
   these terms are to be used as defined by RFC2119, no NFSv4.1
   specification has done so, at least through RFC8881 [10].  In this
   particular case, there are a number of circumstances that makes this
   OPTIONAL status noteworthy:

   o  The statement "It is expected that servers will support all
      attributes they comfortably can and only fail to support
      attributes that are difficult to support in their operating
      environments", appearing in Section 5.2 of [10] is troublesome
      since it is hard to understand how a server could find this read-
      only attribute "difficult to support" regardless of the operating
      environment

   o  This was added in minor version one which added a number of
      REQUIRED operations and could well have added a REQUIRED
      attribute.

   o  The fact that the client is to be prepared for non-support of the
      attribute would require specification of a default value, yet none
      is provided.

   The attribute contains two flag bits.  As discussed below, in
   Section 7.1, it is hard two see why two bits are required while the




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   implications of this issue for future NFSv4.1 specifications will be
   discussed in Section 7.2

7.1.  The Attribute Fs_charset_cap in Published NFSv4.1 Specifications

   We reproduce Section 14.4 of [10] below, with comments interspersed
   trying to make sense of what is there, in order to arrive at an
   appropriate replacement, to be presented in Section 7.2.  In that
   connection, we need to understand better a few issues:

   o  The use of two bits while one is clearly adequate, given the
      subject matter actually mentioned

   o  The mention of possible "capabilities" which could not possibly be
      realized.

   o  The use of the RFC2119 keyword "SHOULD" in contexts in which this
      term is clearly inappropriate.

   Issues related to the confusion caused by mention of "UTF-8
   characters" and the lack of mention of Unicode will be addressed in
   the revision in Section 7.2 but will not be further discussed here.


      const FSCHARSET_CAP4_CONTAINS_NON_UTF8  = 0x1;
      const FSCHARSET_CAP4_ALLOWS_ONLY_UTF8   = 0x2;

      typedef uint32_t        fs_charset_cap4;

   While it is made clear that two separate bits are to be provided,
   their names seem to indicate that they should be complements of one
   another.  As a way of understanding why two bits were specified, it
   is helpful to consider a possible boolean attribute as a potential
   replacement.  That attribute would clearly govern whether names that
   do not conform to the rules of UTF-8 are to be rejected, which was a
   "MUST" in RFC3530 [21].  Although conveying this information is
   clearly part of the motivation, stating so clearly might have been
   judged by the authors as too provocative, given the role of IESG in
   arriving at the internationalization approach specified in RFC3530.

      Because some operating environments and file systems do not
      enforce character set encodings,

   It is clear that the ability of operating environments to enforce use
   of UTF-8 encoding is not an issue, since RFC3530 made this the
   responsibility of the server implementation.  That mandate was never
   followed because implementers chose not to follow it, and not because
   they were unable to do so.  The apparently confused statement above



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   is best understood if one notes that its essential job is to state
   that the "MUST" in RFC3530 referred to above is not reasonable.
   However, the authors might well feel unable to say so clearly, in
   light of the potential IESG reaction.

      NFSv4.1 supports the fs_charset_cap attribute (Section 5.8.2.11)
      that indicates to the client a file system's UTF-8 capabilities.

   The problem with the mention of (plural) capabilities is that the
   only capability mentioned which servers could implement is to accept
   strings which are not valid UTF-8.  There are other potential
   capabilities having to do with the implementation of canonical
   equivalence, but since they were not mentioned, they will not be
   discussed further here.

      The attribute is an integer containing a pair of flags.  The first
      flag is FSCHARSET_CAP4_CONTAINS_NON_UTF8, which, if set to one,
      tells the client that the file system contains non-UTF-8
      characters,

   As stated, this would mean that a server would have to keep track of
   a count of non-UTF-8-encoded names within the file system and change
   the attribute value as that count varied between zero and non-zero.
   Since it is most unlikely that any server would keep track of that or
   that any client would find it useful, we will assume that the
   capability to store such names is what is most likely intended.

      and the server will not convert non-UTF characters to UTF-8 if the
      client reads a symbolic link or directory,

   There is no way for the server to convert non-UTF names to UTF-8 or
   anything else, since it has no knowledge of the name encoding to
   begin with.  The alternative to treating names as UTF-8-encoded
   Unicode strings is to treat them as POSIX does, as uninterpreted
   strings of bytes.  That makes it impossible to interpret strings that
   do not follow the rules of UTF-8 at all, making it impossible to
   convert the string to UTF-8.

      neither will operations with component names or pathnames in the
      arguments convert the strings to UTF-8.

   As stated above, there is no way a server could ever do that.

      The second flag is FSCHARSET_CAP4_ALLOWS_ONLY_UTF8, which, if set
      to one, indicates that the server will accept (and generate) only
      UTF-8 characters on the file system.





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   That is clear and so it poses no problem for a revised treatment,
   unlike the other flag.

      If FSCHARSET_CAP4_ALLOWS_ONLY_UTF8 is set to one,
      FSCHARSET_CAP4_CONTAINS_NON_UTF8 MUST be set to zero.

   There is no problem with this statement.  However, it does, by
   implication, raise the issue of what values of
   FSCHARSET_CAP4_CONTAINS_NON_UTF8 may be set in the case in which
   FSCHARSET_CAP4_ALLOWS_ONLY_UTF8 is set to zero.

      FSCHARSET_CAP4_ALLOWS_ONLY_UTF8 SHOULD always be set to one.

   According to RFC2119 [1], "SHOULD" means that "there may exist valid
   reasons in particular circumstances to ignore a particular item, but
   the full implications must be understood and carefully weighing a
   different course".  In this context, it is unclear what these "full
   implications" might be given the introduction above.  The clause,
   "because some operating e environments and file systems do not
   enforce character set encodings", gives one no basis for treating
   this as other than an unproblematic behavior variant, calling into
   question the use of "SHOULD".

   Also, the statement in RFC2119 that these terms (i.e. those like
   "SHOULD") "only be used where it is actually required for
   interoperation or to limit behavior which has the potential for
   causing harm"

   o  The whole purpose of this feature is to enable interoperation and
      there is no basis for the implication that one particular flag
      value is superior to another in allowing interoperation.

   o  There is no basis for assuming that accepting file names that are
      not UTF-8-encoded Unicode has any potential for causing harm.

   Despite the statement in RFC2119, that "they [i.e. terms such as
   'SHOULD'] must not be used to impose a particular method on
   implementors", it is hard to avoid the conclusion that this is in
   fact the motivation for the "SHOULD", although the authors might not
   have had any such intention but felt that the IESG might well have
   such an intention.

7.2.  The Attribute Fs_charset_cap in Future NFSv4.1 Specifications

   We provide a revised version of Section 14.4 of [10] below, taking
   into account the issues noted in Section 7.1.  Given there was a
   working group consensus to adopt the confusing language discussed
   there, we must now adopt, by consensus, a clearer replacement that



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   reclects the working group's intentions.  Given the passage of time
   and the changed context, it might not be possible to determine those
   intentions.  In any case, we will have to be aware of how this
   attribute was implemented and used, particularly with regard to the
   first flag, whose meaning remains obscure.

   The following treatment is proposed as a basis for discussion, with
   the understanding that it needs to be changed, if it raises
   interoperability issues.


      const FSCHARSET_CAP4_CONTAINS_NON_UTF8  = 0x1;
      const FSCHARSET_CAP4_ALLOWS_ONLY_UTF8   = 0x2;

      typedef uint32_t        fs_charset_cap4;

      This attribute provides a simple way of determining whether a
      particular file system behaves as a UTF-8-only server and rejects
      file names which are not valid UTF-8 strings.  When this attribute
      is supported and the value returned has the
      FSCHARSET_CAP4_ALLOWS_ONLY_UTF8 flag set, the error NFS4ERR_INVAL
      MUST be returned if any file name argument contains a string which
      is not a valid UTF-8 string.

      When this attribute is supported and the value returned has the
      FSCHARSET_CAP4_ALLOWS_ONLY_UTF8 flag clear, the error
      NFS4ERR_INVAL will not be returned based on adherence to the rules
      of UTF-8.  While such file systems are generally UTF-8-unaware,
      this cannot be assumed, since server are allowed (in some
      circumstances; it is a "SHOULD NOT") to accept non-UTF-8 names
      while being aware of the structure of UTF-8-conforming names, for
      the purposes of determining canonical equivalence, for example.
      See Section 6.

      With regard to the flag FSCHARSET_CAP4_CONTAINS_NON_UTF8, it has
      proved impossible to determine, from existing treatments of this
      attribute, any value that might be helpful here.  As a result, we
      are forced to assume that this flag is always a complement of
      FSCHARSET_CAP4_ALLOWS_ONLY_UTF8 and that any result in which it is
      not is to be ignored, with the appropriate handling being the same
      as would apply if the attribute were not supported.

      When this attribute is not supported, the client can perform a
      LOOKUP using a name not conforming to the rules of UTF-8 and use
      the error returned to determine whether non-UTF-8 names are
      accepted.





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8.  String Encoding

   Strings that potentially contain characters outside the ASCII range
   [11] are generally represented in NFSv4 using the UTF-8 encoding [8]
   of Unicode [12].  See [8] for precise encoding and decoding rules.

   Some details of the protocol treatment depend on the type of string:

   o  For strings that are component names, the preferred encoding for
      any non-ASCII characters is the UTF-8 representation of Unicode.

      In many cases, clients have no knowledge of the encoding being
      used, with the encoding done at the user level under the control
      of a per-process locale specification.  As a result, it may be
      impossible for the NFSv4 client to enforce the use of UTF-8.  The
      use of non-UTF-8 encodings can be problematic, since it may
      interfere with access to files stored using other forms of name
      encoding.  Also, normalization-related processing (see Section 9)
      of a string not encoded in UTF-8 could result in inappropriate
      name modification or aliasing.  In cases in which one has a non-
      UTF-8 encoded name that accidentally conforms to UTF-8 rules,
      substitution of canonically equivalent strings can change the non-
      UTF-8 encoded name drastically.

      For similar reasons, where non-UTF-8 encoded names are accepted,
      case-related mappings cannot be relied upon.  For this reason, the
      attribute case_insensitive MUST NOT be returned as TRUE for file
      systems which accept non-UTF-8 encoded file names.

      The kinds of modification and aliasing mentioned here can lead to
      both false negatives and false positives, depending on the strings
      in question, which can result in security issues such as elevation
      of privilege and denial of service (see [23] for further
      discussion).

   o  For strings based on domain names, non-ASCII characters MUST be
      represented using the UTF-8 encoding of Unicode, and additional
      string format restrictions may apply.  See Section 12 for details.

   o  The contents of symbolic links (of type linktext4 in the XDR) MUST
      be treated as opaque data by NFSv4 servers.  Although UTF-8
      encoding is often used, it need not be.  In this respect, the
      contents of symbolic links are like the contents of regular files
      in that their encoding is not within the scope of this
      specification.

   o  For other sorts of strings, any non-ASCII characters SHOULD be
      represented using the UTF-8 encoding of Unicode.



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9.  Normalization

   The client and server operating environments can potentially differ
   in their policies and operational methods with respect to character
   normalization (see [12] for a discussion of normalization forms).
   This difference may also exist between applications on the same
   client.  This adds to the difficulty of providing a single
   normalization policy for the protocol that allows for maximal
   interoperability.  This issue is similar to the issues of character
   case where the server may or may not support case-insensitive file
   name matching and may or may not preserve the character case when
   storing file names.  The protocol does not mandate a particular
   behavior but allows for a range of useful behaviors.

   The NFSv4 protocol does not mandate the use of a particular
   normalization form.  A subsequent minor version of the NFSv4 protocol
   might specify a particular normalization form, although there would
   be difficulties in doing so (see Section 15 for details).  In any
   case, the server and client can expect that they might receive
   unnormalized characters within protocol requests and responses.  If
   the operating environment requires normalization, then the
   implementation will need to normalize the various UTF-8 encoded
   strings within the protocol before presenting the information to an
   application (at the client) or local file system (at the server).

   Server implementations MAY normalize file names to conform to a
   particular normalization form before using the resulting string when
   looking up or creating a file.  Servers MAY also perform
   normalization-insensitive string comparisons without modifying the
   names to match a particular normalization form.  Except in cases in
   which component names are excluded from normalization-related
   handling because they are not valid UTF-8 strings, a server MUST make
   the same choice (as to whether to normalize or not, the target form
   of normalization, and whether to do normalization-insensitive string
   comparisons) in the same way for all accesses to a particular file
   system.  Servers SHOULD NOT reject a file name because it does not
   conform to a particular normalization form, as this would deny access
   to clients that use a different normalization form or clients acting
   on behalf of application that use a different normalization form.

10.  Case-Insensitive Processing of File Names

   When the server is to process file names in a case-insensitive way in
   a given file system, it may choose to do so in a number of ways.

   o  It can force all characters which have multiple forms to a common
      case, whether uppercase of lowercase.  Although this may cause the
      file name shown in the directory to be different from that



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      specified when the file is created, these two names will be judged
      as equivalent when a case-insensitive comparison is used.  Such
      file systems are case-insensitive but not case-preserving.

   o  It can preserve all names, presented as valid and not subject to
      case-based modification, while treating two names that are
      equivalent when a case-insensitive comparison is used as referring
      to the same file.  Such file systems are both case-insensitive and
      case-preserving.

   When a server implements case-insensitive file name handling, it is
   necessary that clients do so as well.  For example, if a client
   possessing the cached contents of a directory, notes that the file
   "a" does not exist, it cannot immediately act on that presumed non-
   existence, without checking for the potential existence of "A" as
   well.  As a result, clients need to be able to provide case-
   insensitive name comparisons, irrespective of whether the server
   handling is case-preserving or not.

   Because case-insensitive name comparisons are not always as
   straightforward as the above example suggests, the client, if it is
   to emulate the server's name handling, would need information about
   how certain cases are to be dealt with.  In cases in which that
   information is unavailable, the client needs to avoid making
   assumptions about the server's handling, since it will be unaware of
   the Unicode version implemented by the server, or many of the details
   of specific issues that might need to be addressed differently by
   different server file systems in implementing case-insensitive name
   handling.

   Many of the problematic issues with regard to the case-insensitive
   handling of name are discussed in Section 5.18 of the Unicode
   Standard [13] which deals with case mapping.  While we need to
   address all of these issues as well, our approach will not be exactly
   the same.

   o  Since the client will be doing case-insensitive comparisons,
      issues that apply only to uppercasing or lowercasing do not have
      the same significance.

   o  Many clients will have to operate correctly even in the absence of
      detailed information about the specifics of server case-mapping or
      the version on Unicode implemented by the server.

   o  Clients will have to accommodate server behaviors not anticipated
      by the Unicode Specification since the neither the server nor the
      client might have any locale knowledge when file names are
      processed.



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   Another source of information about case-folding, and indirectly
   about case-insensitive comparisons, is the case-folding text file
   which is part of the Unicode Standard [14].  This file contains, for
   each Unicode character that can be uppercased or lowercased, a single
   character, or, in some cases a string of characters of the other
   case.  For characters in capital case, the lowercase counterpart is
   given.  Each of the mappings is characterized as of one of four
   types:

   o  Common case folding, denoted by a status field of "C".  These are
      used for mapping where a single character can be mapped to a
      single character of another case.  These are always valid with one
      potential exception being the mappings of LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I
      to LATIN SMALL LETTER I and vice versa, which might be superseded
      by the T-type mappings of associated with some Turkic languages.

   o  Full case folding, denoted by a status field of "F".  These are
      used for mappings in which single character is mapped to a multi-
      character string of a different case.

   o  Special case folding, denoted by a status field of "S".  These
      provide additional single-character-to-single-character which
      might be used when there is also an F-type mapping of the same
      character.  In the case of case folding, this is an alternative to
      the corresponding F-type, although, for the purposes of case-
      insensitive string comparison, it is possible for both to be in
      considered valid at the same time

   o  Special case foldings for Turkic languages, denoted by a status
      field of "T".  These consist of the invertible case mappings
      between LATIN SMALL LETTER I (U+0069) and LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I
      WITH DOT ABOVE (U+0130) and between LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I
      (U+0049) and LATIN SMALL LETTER DOTLESS I (U+0131).  The
      relationship between these mappings and the C-type mappings for
      LETTER I is discussed below in item EX8.

   While the case mapping section does discuss case-insensitive string
   comparisons, and describes a procedure for constructing equivalence
   classes of Unicode characters, the description does not deal clearly
   with the effect of F-type mappings.  There are a number of problems
   with dealing with F-type mappings for case folding and basing case-
   insensitive string comparisons on those mappings, particularly in
   situations, such as file systems, in which extensive processing of
   strings is unlikely to be possible.

   o  Mappings from single characters to multi-character strings, are,
      for case-folding purposes, not invertible.  However, case-
      insensitive name comparison, by its nature, requires invertible



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      mappings, in which a multi-character string is mapped to a single
      character of a different case which not compatible with any
      existing simple case-mapping models.

   o  Scanning of names for multi-character sequences might well be too
      complicated, especially since such sequences might overlap in
      complicated ways.

   o  Case foldings which map single characters to multi-character
      sequences (see item EX4 below for an important example), would
      give rise, because of the invertibility of case mappings when used
      to determine case-insensitive string equivalence for very large
      sets of strings.  For example, a string of eight copies of the
      letter S would give rise to an set of 256 equivalent strings plus
      over two thousand others when the German SHARP S characters
      discussed in item EX4 are included.

   Despite these potential difficulties, case mappings involving multi-
   character sequences can be reversed when used as a basis for case-
   insensitive string comparisons and incorporated into a set of
   equivalence classes on name strings.

   o  Case-insensitive servers MAY do either case-mapping to a chosen
      case or case-insensitive string comparisons when providing a case-
      preserving implementation.  In either case, it MAY include F-type
      mappings, which map a single character to a multi-character
      string.  However, only the case in which it is doing case-
      insensitive string comparison will it use the inverse of F-type
      mappings, in which a multi-character string is mapped to a single
      character of a different case

      In these cases, the server can choose to use either a C-type
      mapping or an F-type mapping, or both, when both exist.  Similarly
      the server may choose to implement the C-type mappings of LATIN
      CAPITAL LETTER I to LATIN SMALL LETTER I and vice versa, the
      corresponding T-type mappings or both, although using only the
      second of these is NOT ALLOWED, unless there is a means of
      informing the client that it has been chosen.

   o  The client, when informed of the details of the client's handling
      of case, has the ability to efficiently implement an appropriate
      case-insensitive name comparison compatible with that of the
      server.  This includes the ability to handle mappings between
      single characters and multi-character strings.

   o  Implementation of case-insensitive name comparisons will typically
      require a case-insensitive name hash.




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10.1.  Implementing Case-Insensitive Comparison of File Names

   Implementing case-insensitive string comparisons based on equivalence
   classes including multi-character strings can be performed as
   described below.  This algorithm requires that if there is more than
   one multi-character string within a given equivalence class, they
   must all be equivalent, with any equivalences derivable from case-
   insensitive string equivalence using single-character equivalence
   classes.

   Although other sources are possible (see items EX2 and EX3 in
   Section 10.2), multi-character sequences often appear in case-
   insensitive equivalence classes as the result of the canonical
   decomposition of one or more precomposed characters as elements of a
   case-insensitive equivalence class.

   While the algorithm described in this section can deal with certain
   case-based equivalences deriving from canonical decomposition, it is
   not capable of providing general handling of the combination of
   canonical equivalence and case-based equivalence.  While this can be
   addressed by normalizing strings before doing case-insensitive
   comparison, it is more efficient to do a general form-insensitive and
   case-insensitive string comparison in a single step as described in
   Appendix A

   The following tables would be used by the comparison algorithm
   presented below.

   o  For each possible character value, the associated equivalence
      class for case-insensitive comparison will be identified

   o  For each such equivalence class, the hash value contribution will
      be provided.  In the case of equivalence class that do not include
      multi-character including equivalence classes that only include a
      single member, this will be the hash value contribution of one
      particular variant (usually lower case) of the character

   o  In the case of equivalence classes that do include multi-character
      strings, the hash value contribution needs to equivalent to the
      combined contribution of each character within the multi-character
      string.  In addition, for each such equivalence class, the length
      of the multicharacter string will be provided together with a
      pointer to an array describing the multi-character string, most
      probably presenting each character as an equivalence class id.

   Case-insensitive comparison proceeds as follows:





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   o  Implementation of case-insensitive name comparisons will typically
      require a case-insensitive name hash using the tables described
      above.  If such a hash vale is kept or all cached names
      comparisons of hashes can be used instead of the detailed
      comparison set forth below.  Using such hash comparisons, a large
      set of potentially equivalent names can be excluded based on the
      occurrence of hash mismatches, since case-equivalent names would
      have the same hash value.  value.

   o  For names with matching hash values, a detailed case-insensitive
      comparison will be necessary.  This can proceed character-by-
      character or byte-by-byte.  However, in the byte-by-byte case,
      processing in the event of a mismatch must start at the start of
      the current character, rather than the byte at which the
      difference was detected.

   o  In cases in which there is a mismatch, the associated equivalence
      classes will be compared.  When these are identical, indicating
      the case equivalence of the two characters, the comparison of the
      two strings continues at the next character of each string.

   o  When the two equivalence classes are not identical, further
      comparisons to determine if a single character within one string
      matches (except for case) a multi-character string within the
      other.  For each of two equivalence classes being compared that
      include a multi-character string, the check below must be made to
      determine whether the multi-character string at the corresponding
      position of the other string being compared, is within the current
      equivalence class.  If neither of the two equivalence classes
      include multi-character strings, the comparison terminates with a
      mismatch indication.

   o  For each equivalence class that does include a multi-character
      string (there might be one or two), a scan needs to be made to see
      of the characters at the current position if the other string
      matches (except for case) the multi-character string which is
      included in the current equivalence class.  If this check
      succeeds, for either equivalence class, the comparison of the two
      strings continues at the next character of each string.  In the
      event of failure, the same sort of comparison is done using the
      other current equivalence class, if it include multi-character
      strings.  Once this check fails for all equivalence classes that
      include multi-character strings, the comparison terminates with a
      mismatch indication.







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10.2.  Important Examples of Case-insensitive Handling of File Names

   In this section, we discuss many of the interesting and/or
   troublesome issues that the need for case-insensitive handling gives
   rise to in fully internationalized environment.  Many of these are
   also discussed in [13].  However, our treatment of these issues,
   while not inconsistent with that in [13], differs significantly for a
   number of reasons:

   o  Our primary focus is on case-insensitive string comparison rather
      than with case mapping per se.  While such comparison is natural
      for the client and allowed for servers, its greater flexibility
      makes it important to understand its capabilities in dealing with
      potentially troublesome issues in providing case-insensitive file
      name handling.

   o  Because a case mapping model forces the specification of a single
      case mapping result when there are multiple potentially valid
      results, there are inevitably cases in which the result chosen is
      is inappropriate for some users.  These are cases in which F-type
      and S-type mappings are present and in which C-type and T-type
      mappings conflict.  Normally, an appropriate choice is selected by
      use of the locale, but in a filesystem environment, valid locale
      information might not be present.  As a result, case-insensitive
      string comparison, which does not force such case mapping choices,
      will be more desirable.

   The examples below present common situations that go beyond the
   simple invertible case mappings of Latin characters and the
   straightforward adaptation of that model to Greek and Cyrillic.  In
   EX4 and EX5 we have case-based equivalence classes including multi-
   character strings not derived from canonical equivalences while for
   EX7 and EX8 all multi-character strings are derived from canonical
   equivalences.  In addition, EX1, EX2, EX3 and EX6 discuss other
   situations in which an equivalence class has more than two elements.

   EX1:  Certain digraph characters such LATIN SMALL LETTER DZ (U+01F3)
         have additional case variants to consider such as the titlecase
         character LATIN CAPTAL LETTER D WITH SMALL LETTER Z (U+01F2) in
         addition to the uppercase LATIN CAPITAL LETTER DZ (U+01F1).
         While the titlecased variant would not appear in names in case-
         insensitive non-case-preserving file systems, case-insensitive
         string comparison has no problem in treating these three
         characters as within the same equivalence class.

         This equivalence class can be derived from only C-type
         mappings.  The possibility of mapping these characters to two-
         character sequences they represent is not a troublesome issue



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         since that would be derived from a compatibility equivalence,
         rather than a canonical equivalence, and there is no F-type
         mapping making it an option.

   EX2:  To deal with the case of the OHM SIGN (U+2126) which is
         essentially identical to the GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA
         (U+03A9), one can construct an equivalence class consisting of
         OHM SIGN (U+2126), GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA (U+03A9), and
         GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA (U+03C9).

         This equivalence class can be derived only from C-type
         mappings.  Both OHM SIGN (U+2126), and GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
         OMEGA (U+03A9) lowercase to GREEK LETTER OMEGA (U+03C9), while
         that character only uppercases to GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA
         (U+03A9).

   EX3:  To deal with the case of the ANGSTROM SIGN (U+212B) which is
         essentially identical to LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH RING ABOVE
         (U+00C5), one can construct an equivalence class consisting of
         ANGSTROM SIGN (U+212B), LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH RING ABOVE
         (U+00C5), LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH RING ABOVE (U+00E5),
         together with the two-character sequences involving LATIN
         CAPITAL LETTER A (U+0041) or LATIN SMALL LETTER A (U+0061)
         followed by COMBINING RING ABOVE (U+030A).

         This equivalence class can be derived from C-type mappings
         together with the ability to map characters to canonically
         equivalent strings.  Both ANGSTROM SIGN (U+212B), and LATIN
         CAPITAL LETTER A WITH RING ABOVE (U+00C5) lowercase to LATIN
         SMALL LETTER A WITH RING ABOVE (U+00E5), while that character
         only uppercases to CAPITAL LETTER A WITH RING ABOVE (U+00C5).

   EX4:  In some cases, case mapping of a single character will result
         in a multi-character string.  For example, the German character
         LATIN SMALL LETTER SHARP S (U+00DF) would be uppercased to
         "SS", i.e. two copies of LATIN CAPITAL LETTER S (U+0053).  On
         the other hand, in some situations, it would be uppercased to
         the character LATIN CAPITAL LETTER SHARP S (U+1E9E), using an
         S-type mapping. referred to as an instance of "Tailored
         Casing".  Unfortunately, in the context of a file system, there
         is unlikely to be available information that provides guidance
         about which of these case mappings should be chosen.  However,
         the use of case-insensitive mappings with larger equivalence
         classes often provides handling that is acceptable to a wider
         variety of users.  In this case, German-speakers get the
         mapping they expect while those unfamiliar with these
         characters only see them when they access a file whose name
         contains them.



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         It appears that if the construction of case-based equivalence
         classes were generalized to include multi-character sequences,
         then all of LATIN SMALL LETTER SHARP S (U+00DF), LATIN CAPITAL
         LETTER SHARP S (U+1E9E), "ss", "sS", "Ss", and "SS" would
         belong to the same equivalence class and could be handled by
         the general algorithm described in Section 10.1, as well by
         code specifically written to deal with this particular issue.

   EX5:  Other ligatures, such as LATIN SMALL LIGATURE FFL (U+FB04),
         could be handled similarly by this algorithm, if there were
         felt a need to do so.  However, because the decomposition of
         this character into the string consisting of the three letters
         LATIN SMALL LETTER F (U+0066), LATIN SMALL LETTER F (U+0066),
         LATIN SMALL LETTER L (U+006C), is a compatibility equivalence,
         and the F-type mapping of this ligature to the three
         constituent is to be treated as optional, implementations can
         choose either to treat this character as having no uppercase
         equivalent or treat it as part of larger equivalence class
         including "ffl", "ffL", "fFl", etc.).

   EX6:  The character COMBINING GREEK YPOGEGRAMMENI (U+0345), also
         known as "iota-subscript" requires special handling when
         uppercasing and lowercasing.  While the description of the
         appropriate handling for this character, in the case mapping
         section, is focused on multi- character sequences representing
         diphthongs, case-insensitive comparisons can be performed
         without consideration of multi-character sequences.  This can
         be done by assigning COMBINING GREEK YPOGEGRAMMENI (U+0345),
         GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA (U+03B9), and GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA
         (U+0399) to the same equivalence class, even though the first
         of these is a combining character and the others are not.

   EX7:  In some cases context-dependent case mapping is required.  For
         example, GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA (U+03A3) lowercases to
         GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA (U+03C3) if it is followed by another
         letter and to GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA (U+03C2) if it is
         not.

         Despite this, case-insensitive comparisons can be implemented,
         by considering all of these characters as part of the same
         equivalence class, without any context-dependence, and this
         equivalence class can be derived using only C-type mappings.

   EX8:  In most languages written using Latin characters, the uppercase
         and lowercase varieties of the letter "I" differ in that only
         the lowercase character.  In a number of Turkic languages,
         there are two distinct characters derived from "I" which differ
         only with regard to the presence or absence of a dot so that



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         there are both capital and small i's with each having dotted
         and dotless variants.  Within such languages, the dotted and
         dotless I's represent different vowel sounds and are treated as
         separate characters with respect to case mapping.  The
         uppercase of LATIN SMALL LETTER I (U+0069) is LATIN CAPITAL
         LETTER I WITH DOT ABOVE (U+0130), rather than LATIN CAPITAL
         LETTER I (U+0049).  Similarly the lowercase of LATIN CAPITAL
         LETTER I (U+0049) is LATIN SMALL LETTER DOTLESS I (U+0131)
         rather than LATIN SMALL LETTER I (U+0069).

         When doing case mapping, the server must choose to uppercase
         LATIN SMALL LETTER I (U+0069) to either LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I
         (U+0049), based on a C-type mapping to LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I
         WITH DOT ABOVE (U+0130), based on a T-type mapping.  The former
         is acceptable to most people but confusing to speakers of the
         Turkic languages in question since the case mapping changes the
         character to represent a different vowel sound.  On the other
         hand, the latter mapping seemingly inexplicably results in a
         character many users have never seen before.  Normally such
         choices are dealt with based on a locale but, in a file system
         environment, no locale information may be available.

         In the context of case-insensitive string comparison, it is
         possible to create a larger equivalence class, including all of
         the letters LATIN SMALL LETTER I (U+0069), LATIN CAPITAL LETTER
         I (U+0049), LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I WITH DOT ABOVE (U+0130),
         LATIN SMALL LETTER DOTLESS I (U+0131) together with the two-
         character string consisting of LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I (U+0049)
         followed by COMBINING DOT ABOVE (U+0307).

11.  Internationalization-related Processing of File Names by Clients

   Given the way that internationalization is addressed within the NFSv4
   protocols, clients, and applications accessing NFS files can
   generally remain unaware of the specific type of
   internationalization-related processing implemented by the server.
   For example, although a server MAY store all file names according to
   the rules appropriate to a particular normalization form, it MUST NOT
   reject names solely because they are not encoded using this
   normalization form, allowing the clients and applications to avoid
   knowledge of normalization choices.

   However, as has been pointed out in [25], there are situations in
   which clients implementing local optimizations use the saved contents
   of directories fetched from the server, making it necessary that the
   client's and the server's handling of internationalization-related
   name mapping issues be in concord.  There are two basic ways this
   issue can be addressed:



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   o  Where the protocol has not defined a means whereby the client can
      obtain information about the details of internationalized name
      handling implemented within the server, the client can avoid
      conflict with the server by limiting its use of local
      optimizations.  While positive name caching can be used without
      adverse effects, negative name caching has to limited to avoid
      situations in which a given name is not present but an equivalent
      one may exist, as far as the server is concerned.  This situation,
      which applies to all current NFSv4 protocols is discussed in
      Section 11.2.

   o  The client can be provided complete information about the server's
      internationalization-related name handling (typically implemented
      within the server-based file system.  This situation, which could
      be implemented in later NFSv4 minor versions, or in an extension
      to an existing extensible minor version is discussed in
      Section 11.3.

   o  Note that when case-insensitive handling of file names is
      implemented by a server-side filesystem, further complications can
      arise.  For the most part, these are addressed in Sections 11.2
      and 11.3 by treating the particulars of case-handling as a another
      element of the name handling implemented by the server.  However,
      some of the specific complexities are addressed separately in
      Section 10.

11.1.  Server Restrictions to Deal with Lack of Client Knowledge

   There are a number of restrictions, not previously specified in
   RFC7530 [3], on server implementation of internationalized file name
   handling.  These restrictions apply to both case-sensitive and case-
   insensitive file systems and are designed to limit the options that
   servers have in choosing server-side internationalized file name
   handling so as to enable the clients to either duplicate that
   handling or limit it to avoid relying on cases in which the proper
   handling cannot be determined or duplicated by the client.

   o  The canonical equivalence relation implemented by the server, for
      each internationalization-aware filesystem MUST match that defined
      by some particular UNICODE version equal to or later than version
      4.0.

   o  The case-equivalence relationship implemented by the server, for
      each case-insensitive filesystem MUST include all C-type case
      mappings included by the particular UNICODE version whose
      canonical equivalence relation is implemented by the server, with
      the possible exception of those conflicting with T-type case




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      mappings.  by some particular Unicode version equal to or later
      than version 4.0.

   o  In cases in which the server provides no way of determining the
      details of the case-equivalence relationship implemented by the
      server for a particular file system, that mapping must include all
      C-type case mappings included by the particular UNICODE version
      whose canonical equivalence relation is implemented by the server,
      i.e. it MUST map between LATIN SMALL LETTER I (U+0069)and LATIN
      CAPITAL LETTER I (U+0049).



11.2.  Client Processing of File Names for Current NFSv4 Protocols

   The existing minor versions, NFSv4.0 [3], NFSv4.1 [4], and NFSv4.2
   [5], have very limited facilities allowing a client to get
   information about the server's internationalization-related file name
   handling.  Because these protocols were all defined when it was
   assumed that the server's internationalized file name handling could
   be specified in great detail, there was no provision for attributes
   defining the server's choices.  As a result, the information
   available to the client is quite limited:

   o  The client can determine that the server is not performing
      internationalized file name processing.  It can do this by looking
      up a file name using a string which is not valid UTF-8, concluding
      that if the LOOKUP is not rejected on that basis, then the file
      system is not internationalization-aware, allowing the client to
      ignore the potential difficulties which server-based
      internationalized file name processing might give rise to.

   o  The client can use the optional per-fs attributes case_insensitive
      and case_preserving to how the server deals with character case
      for particular file system.  When one of these attributes is not
      supported by a particular file system, the client treats the
      attribute as if it were false.

   When a file system is internationalization-unaware, the client can
   use both positive and negative name caching, without any issues
   arising from the potential for conflict between distinct file names
   that would be considered equivalent by the server.  In other cases,
   the handling is more restricted in the use of negative name caching.
   The issue with regard to case-sensitive and case-insensitive file
   systems are discussed separately below.  In each case, the client has
   a range of choices trading off forgone optimization opportunities
   against the difficulty of implementation while avoiding negative




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   consequences arising from the fact that certain details of the
   server's name handling are not known to it.

   In the case of case-sensitive file systems, the uncertainty to be
   dealt with concerns the version of Unicode implemented by the server,
   given that different versions may have different canonical
   equivalence relationships.  However, whether the server implements a
   particular normalization form or implements form-insensitive file
   name matching has no effect on client behavior.  In light of the
   uncertainty created by the lack of knowledge of the precise Unicode
   version used by the server to implement its canonical equivalence
   relation, the follow possibilities, arranged in order of increasing
   value (and difficulty of implementation) should be considered.

   A1:  The client can simply decline to implement optimizations based
        on negative name caching on internationalization-aware file
        systems.

        While this might have a negative effect on performance, it might
        be the best option for clients not heavily used to access
        internationalization-aware filesystems, or where, due to a lack
        of directory delegation support, the client has no assurance
        that will be notified of the invalidation of a previous
        assumption that a particular file does not exist.

   A2:  Relatively simple name filtering can exclude the names for which
        negative name caching might cause difficulties.  For example,
        the client could scan file names for characters whose presence
        might pose difficulties and allow negative name caching only for
        strings known not to contain such characters.  Because the
        Unicode version used by the server file system is not known,
        this treatment would be limited to string only containing
        characters defined in the earliest version of Unicode which
        could be supported, that is, Unicode 4.0.

        One simple way for a client to provide such filtering would be
        to establish an upper limit (e.g.  U+00ff) and disallow negative
        name caching for strings containing characters above that value
        or characters below that value that might cause there to be
        canonically equivalent strings on the server.  A simple mask
        could be used to allow each character to be examined allowing
        composed and combining characters to be identified together with
        code points unassigned in Unicode 4.0.

        This approach would allow negative name caching to be disallowed
        for strings containing those characters while allowing it for
        other strings that do not.  A larger limit (and a corresponding




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        mask) would make sense for clients used to access many file
        names containing characters from non-Latin alphabets.

   A3:  A client might implement its own internationalized file name
        handling paralleling that of the server.  Because the Unicode
        version used by the server filesystem is unknown, strings for
        which it is possible that the canonically equivalent string
        might be different depending on the version of Unicode
        implemented by the server will have to be identified and
        excluded from using negative name caching.  This would require
        that strings containing code points unassigned in Unicode
        version 4.0, and those denoting combining characters that could
        be parts of precomposed character added to later versions of
        Unicode be excluded from negative name caching.  The necessary
        filtering could apply to all potential code points although
        clients might choose to simplify implementation by excluding
        strings containing code points beyond a certain point, e.g.
        (U+0FFFF).

        When a client implements internationalized name handling, it
        needs to be able to detect when the apparent absence of a file
        within a directory is contradicted by the occurrence of a file
        with a distinct, but canonically equivalent, name.  In order to
        efficiently find such names, when they exist, a client typically
        needs to implement a form of name hashing which always produces
        the same result for two canonically equivalent names.  This can
        be done by making the contribution of any character to the name
        hash, equal to the contribution of the corresponding canonical
        decomposition string.

   In the case of case-insensitive file systems, the uncertainty to be
   dealt with includes the version of Unicode implemented by the server
   as well as the details of the possible case-handling implemented by
   the server.  In addition to the fact that different Unicode versions
   may have different canonical equivalence relationships, the server
   may implement different approaches to the handling of issues related
   to the handling of dotted and dotless i, in Turkish and Azeri.
   However, the question of whether the server's handling is case-
   preserving has no effect on client behavior, as is the question of
   whether the server implements a particular normalization form or
   implements form-insensitive file name matching.  In light of the
   uncertainty created by the lack of knowledge of the details of the
   case-related equivalence relation together with the precise Unicode
   version used by the server to implement its canonical equivalence
   relation, the following possibilities, arranged in order of
   increasing value (and difficulty of implementation) should be
   considered.




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   B1:  The client can simply decline to implement optimizations based
        on negative name caching on case-insensitive file systems.

        While this might have a negative effect on performance where
        significant benefits from negative name caching might be
        expected, it might be the best option for clients not heavily
        used to access case-insensitive filesystems.

   B2:  Filtering similar to that discussed in item A2 could be
        implemented, although a higher limit is likely to be chosen
        (e.g.  U+07ff) if significant use of non-Latin scripts is
        expected.  Because of the uncertainty regarding the handling of
        case relationship among characters used for the variant of I
        used by Turkic languages, this filtering would have to exclude
        names containing LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I WITH DOT ABOVE and LATIN
        SMALL LETTER DOTLESS I together with precomposed characters
        derived from them.

        In cases in which such filtering did not exclude the item from
        consideration, it would need to search for files with possibly
        equivalent names, including those equivalent by canonical
        equivalence, case-insensitive equivalence, or a combination of
        the two.  This will typically require a form of name hashing
        which always produces the same hash for equivalent names,
        similar to that discussed in item A3 but including case-
        insensitive equivalence as well.

   B3:  A client might implement its own internationalized, case-
        insensitive file name handling paralleling that of the server.
        Because the case mappings are uncertain and the Unicode version
        used by the server filesystem is unknown, strings for which it
        is possible that the equivalent string might be different
        depending on the version of Unicode implemented by the server or
        the choice of case mappings would have to be identified and
        excluded from using negative name caching.  This would require
        that strings containing code points unassigned in Unicode
        version 4.0, and those denoting combining characters that could
        be parts of precomposed characters added to later versions of
        Unicode be excluded from negative name caching.  The necessary
        filtering could apply to all potential code points although
        clients might choose to simplify implementation by excluding
        strings containing code points beyond a certain point (e.g.
        U+00FFFF).

        When a client implements internationalized name handling, it
        needs to be able to detect when the apparent absence of a file
        within a directory is contradicted by the occurrence of a file
        with a distinct, but canonically equivalent name.  In order to



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        efficiently find such names, when they exist, a client typically
        needs to implements a form of name hashing which always produces
        the same result for two canonically equivalent names.  This can
        be done by making the contribution of any character to the name
        hash, equal to contribution of the correspond canonical
        decomposition string.

11.3.  Client Processing of File Names for Future NFSv4 Protocols

   Because of NFSv4 has an extension framework allowing the addition of
   new attributes in later minor version or in extensions to extensible
   minor versions.  Such new attributes are likely to be optional.  They
   could include a number of useful per-fs attributes to deal with the
   information gaps discussed in Section 11.2:

   o  The Unicode version used to define the canonical equivalence
      relation implemented by the server could be provided as an fs-
      scope attribute.

   o  For case-insensitive filesystems, details regarding the actual
      case mapping used could be provided as an fs-scope attribute.
      These details would include the case mapping associated with LATIN
      LETTER I (i.e. whether the C-type or T-type case mappings or both
      are to be used).  Similarly for characters having F-type case
      mappings, information needs to be provided about whether the
      F-type, mapping, the S-type mapping, or both, are to be used.

   There is little prospect of such additional attributes being
   REQUIRED.  Although the term "RECOMMENDED" has been used to describe
   NFSv4 attributes that are not REQUIRED, any such attributes are best
   considered OPTIONAL for the server to support with the client
   required to deal with the case in which the attribute is not
   supported.

   When such attributes are defined and implemented, it would be
   possible for the client and server to implement compatible
   internationalization-related file name handling.  However, as a
   practical matter, such compatibility would be considerably eased if
   there existed unencumbered open-source implementations of the
   algorithm and tables described in Appendix A.  This would allow
   clients, servers, and server-based file systems, to easily adopt
   compatible approaches to these issues, each calling a common set of
   primitives, even though each might have a different execution
   environment and might be processing file names for different
   purposes.

   In the case of case-sensitive file system, the case-mapping attribute
   is not relevant.  In dealing with the non-support of the Unicode



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   version attribute, the client is in the same position as that of
   clients described in Section 11.2.  In the case in which the Unicode
   version is supported, the client would be able to implement the same
   version of the canonical equivalence relation implemented by the
   server, thus avoiding the need for the sort of overbroad filtering
   mentioned in items A2 and A3 within Section 11.2

   The case of case-insensitive file systems is more complicated, since
   there are two OPTIONAL attributes to deal with:

   C1:  When neither of these OPTIONAL attributes is supported, the
        client is in the same position as that of clients described in
        Section 11.2 in dealing with a case-insensitive file system.

   C2:  When the Unicode version is available but the details of case
        mapping are not, the client handling will be similar to that
        specified the options B1 through B3 defined in Section 11.2.
        However, in cases B2 and B3, it will be possible to reduce the
        scope of the character filtering applied, by enabling names
        containing characters defined after Unicode version 4.0 to be
        processed, as long as none of the case mapping options for those
        characters is at all problematic.

   C3:  When the details of case mapping are available but Unicode
        version is not, the client handling will be similar to that
        specified the options B1 through B3 defined in Section 11.2.
        However, in cases B2 and B3 However, in cases B2 and B3, it will
        be possible to reduce the scope of the character filtering by
        enabling names containing characters of uncertain case mapping
        to be processed as long as those character were defined in
        Unicode version 4.0.

   C4:  When both of these OPTIONAL attributes are supported, the client
        has the ability, at least theoretically, to reproduce the
        internationalization-related file name handling implemented by a
        server for a case-insensitive file system.  However, when the
        client is unable to provide such an implementation, it is free
        to ignore the attribute and implement one of the options B1
        through B3 defined in Section 11.2.

12.  String Types with Processing Defined by Other Internet Areas

   There are two types of strings that NFSv4 deals with that are based
   on domain names.  Processing of such strings is defined by other
   Internet standards, and hence the processing behavior for such
   strings should be consistent across all server operating systems and
   server file systems.




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   This section differs from other sections of this document in two
   respects:

   o  The normative statements within this section are not derived from
      the behavior from existing NFSv4 implementations, but derive
      instead from existing RFCs.

   o  Because of the switch from IDNA2003 [19] [20] to IDNA2008 [6],
      this section is necessarily different from the corresponding
      section (i.e.  Section 12.6) of [3].  The differences are
      discussed in Section 12.1.

   Because of this shift, there could be compatibility issues to be
   expected between implementations obeying Section 12.6 of [3] and
   those following this document.  Whether such compatibility issues
   actually exist depends on the behavior of NFSv4 implementations and
   how domain names are actually used in existing implementations.
   These matters will be discussed in Section 12.2.

   The types of strings referred to above are as follows:

   o  Server names as they appear in the fs_locations and
      fs_locations_info attribute.  Notes that for most purposes, such
      server names will only be sent by the server to the client.  The
      exception is the use of these attributes in a VERIFY or NVERIFY
      operation.

   o  Principal suffixes that are used to denote sets of users and
      groups, and are in the form of domain names.

   The general rules for handling all of these domain-related strings
   are similar and independent of the role of the sender or receiver as
   client or server, although the consequences of failure to obey these
   rules may be different for client or server.  The server can report
   errors when it is sent invalid strings, whereas the client will
   simply ignore an invalid string or use a default value in its place.

   The string sent SHOULD be in the form of one or more unvalidated
   U-labels as defined by [6].  In cases where this cannot be done, the
   string will instead be in the form of one or more LDH labels [6].
   The receiver needs to be able to accept domain and server names in
   any of the formats allowed.  The server MUST reject, using the error
   NFS4ERR_INVAL, any of the following:

   o  a string that is not valid UTF-8.






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   o  a string that contains an XN-label (begins with "xn--") for which
      the characters after "xn--" are not valid output of the Punycode
      algorithm [7].

   o  a string that contains a reserved LDH label which is not an
      XN-label.

   When a domain string is part of id@domain or group@domain, there are
   two possible approaches:

   1.  The server generally treats the domain string as a series of
       unvalidated U-labels.  In cases where the domain string is a
       series of unvalidated A-labels or Non-Reserved LDH (NR-LDH)
       labels, it converts them to U-labels using the Punycode algorithm
       [7].  As a result, the domain string returned within a user id on
       a GETATTR may not match that sent when the user id is set using
       SETATTR, although when this happens, the domain will be in the
       form of an unvalidated U-label.

   2.  The server treats the domain string as a series of unvalidated
       U-labels.  Specifically, it does not map a domain string that is
       not a U-label into a U-label using the methods described above.
       As a result, the domain string returned on a GETATTR of the user
       id MUST be the same as that used when setting the user id by the
       SETATTR.

   A server SHOULD use the first method.

   For VERIFY and NVERIFY, additional string processing requirements
   apply to verification of the owner and owner_group attributes; see
   the section entitled "Interpreting owner and owner_group" for the
   document specifying the minor version in question (RFC750 [3],
   RFC5661 [4])

12.1.  Effect of IDNA Changes

   Overall, the effect of the shift to IDNA2008 is to limit the degree
   of understanding of the IDNA-based restrictions on domain names that
   were expected of NFSv4 in RFC7530 [3].  Despite this specification,
   the degree to which implementations actually implemented such
   restrictions is open to question and will be discussed in detail in
   Section 12.2

   In analyzing how various cases are to be dealt with according to
   RFC7530, there a number of troubling uncertainties that arise in
   trying to interpret the existing specification:





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   o  There are a number of cases in which "SHOULD" is used that are
      confusing.  According to RFC2119 [1], "SHOULD" means that "there
      may exist valid reasons in particular circumstances to ignore a
      particular item, but the full implications must be understood and
      carefully weighed before choosing a different course".  To fully
      understand a particular "SHOULD", there needs to be enough context
      to determine whether particular reasons for ignoring the item are
      in fact valid, and sufficient guidance to understand the
      implication of ignoring the item.  In the absence of such
      information, the relevant fact is that the peer needs to deal with
      the item being ignored, making the implications of a "SHOULD" hard
      to distinguish from those of "MAY".

   o  While the document states. "the general rules for handling all of
      these domain-related strings are similar and independent of the
      role of the sender or receiver as client or server", all of the
      following text is explicitly about the server's options, choices
      and responsibilities, leaving the client case unclear.

   o  In a number of places within the paragraph describing server
      approach #1, the word "can" is used as in the text "the server can
      use the ToUnicode function", leaving it unclear whether the server
      can choose to do anything else and if so what.

   The following cases are those where RFC7530 requires use of IDNA
   handling and this requirement could, if implementations follow them,
   create potential compatibility issues, which need to be understood.

   o  The degree to which RFC3490 [19] requires that characters other
      than U+002E (full stop) be treated as label separators, including
      U+3002 (ideographic full stop), U+FF0E (fullwidth full stop),
      U+FF61 (halfwidth ideographic full stop).

   o  The degree to which RFC3490 [19] that server or client needs to
      validate a putative A-label or U-label or to rectify it if it is
      not valid.

12.2.  Potential Compatibility Issues Related to IDNA Changes

   There are a number of factors relating to the handling of domain
   names within NFSv4 implementations that are important in
   understanding why any compatibility issues might be less troubling
   than a comparison of the two IDNA approaches might suggest:

   o  Much of the potentially conflicting IDNA-related behavior required
      or recommended for the server by RFC7530 [3] might not actually be
      implemented, limiting the potential harmful effects of ceasing to
      mandate it.



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   o  Even if such behavior were implemented by servers, no
      compatibility issue would arise unless clients actually relied on
      the server to implement it.  Given that none of this behavior is
      made required, the chances of that occurring is quite small.

   o  The range of potential values for user and group attributes sent
      by clients are often quite small with implementations commonly
      restricting all such values to a single domain string.  This is
      even though RFCs 7530 [3] and 5661 [4] are written without mention
      of such restrictions.

      Specification of users and groups in the "id@domain" format within
      NFSv4 was adopted to enable expansion of the spaces of users and
      groups beyond the 32-bit id spaces mandated in NFSv3 [16] and
      NFsv2 [15].  While one obstacle to expansion was eliminated, most
      implementations were unable to actually effect that expansion,
      principally because the physical file systems used assume that
      user and group identifiers fit in 32 bits each and the vnode
      interfaces used by server implementations make similar
      assumptions.

      Given these restrictions, the typical implementation pattern is
      for servers to accept only a single domain, specified as part of
      the server configuration, together with information necessary to
      effect the appropriate name-to-id mappings.

   o  The other uses of domain names in NFSv4, to represent hostnames in
      location attributes, the values are generated by the server and
      will normally include only include hostnames within DNS-registered
      domains.

   Keeping the above in mind, we can see that interoperability issues,
   while they might exist are unlikely to raise major challenges as
   looking to the following specific cases shows

   o  When an internationalized domain name is used as part of a user or
      group, it would need to be configured as such, with the domain
      string known to both client and server.

      While it is theoretically possible that a client might work with
      an invalid domain string and rely on the server to correct it to
      an IDNA-acceptable one, such a scenario has to be considered
      extremely unlikely, since it would depend on multiple servers
      implementing the same correction, especially since there is no
      evidence of such corrections ever having been implemented by NFSv4
      servers.





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   o  When an internationalized domain in a location string is meant to
      specify a registered domain, similar considerations apply.

      While it is theoretically possible that a client might work with
      an invalid domain string and rely on the server to correct it to
      the appropriate registered one, such a scenario has to be
      considered extremely unlikely, since it would depend on multiple
      servers implementing the same correction, especially since there
      is no evidence of such corrections ever having been implemented by
      NFSv4 servers.

   o  When an internationalized domain in a location string is meant to
      specify a non-registered domain, any such server-applied
      corrections would be useless.

      In this situation, any potential interoperability issue would
      arise from rejecting the name, which has to be considered as what
      should have been done in the first place.

13.  Errors Related to UTF-8

   Where the client sends an invalid UTF-8 string, the server MAY return
   an NFS4ERR_INVAL error.  This includes cases in which inappropriate
   prefixes are detected and where the count includes trailing bytes
   that do not constitute a full Multiple-Octet Coded Universal
   Character Set (UCS) character.

   Requirements for server handling of component names that are not
   valid UTF-8, when a server does not return NFS4ERR_INVAL in response
   to receiving them, are described in Section 14.

   Where the string supplied by the client is not rejected with
   NFS4ERR_INVAL but contains characters that are not supported by the
   server as a value for that string (e.g., names containing slashes, or
   characters that do not fit into 16 bits when converted from UTF-8 to
   a Unicode codepoint), the server should return an NFS4ERR_BADCHAR
   error.

   Where a UTF-8 string is used as a file name, and the file system,
   while supporting all of the characters within the name, does not
   allow that particular name to be used, the server should return the
   error NFS4ERR_BADNAME.  This includes such situations as file system
   prohibitions of "." and ".." as file names for certain operations,
   and similar constraints.







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14.  Servers That Accept File Component Names That Are Not Valid UTF-8
     Strings

   As stated previously, servers MAY accept, on all or on some subset of
   the physical file systems exported, component names that are not
   valid UTF-8 strings.  A typical pattern is for a server to use
   UTF-8-unaware physical file systems that treat component names as
   uninterpreted strings of bytes, rather than having any awareness of
   the character set being used.

   Such servers SHOULD NOT change the stored representation of component
   names from those received on the wire and SHOULD use an octet-by-
   octet comparison of component name strings to determine equivalence
   (as opposed to any broader notion of string comparison).  This is
   because the server has no knowledge of the character encoding being
   used.

   Nonetheless, when such a server uses a broader notion of string
   equivalence than what is recommended in the preceding paragraph, the
   following considerations apply:

   o  Outside of 7-bit ASCII, string processing that changes string
      contents is usually specific to a character set and hence is
      generally unsafe when the character set is unknown.  This
      processing could change the file name in an unexpected fashion,
      rendering the file inaccessible to the application or client that
      created or renamed the file and to others expecting the original
      file name.  Hence, such processing should not be performed,
      because doing so is likely to result in incorrect string
      modification or aliasing.

   o  Unicode normalization is particularly dangerous, as such
      processing assumes that the string is UTF-8.  When that assumption
      is false because a different character set was used to create the
      file name, normalization may corrupt the file name with respect to
      that character set, rendering the file inaccessible to the
      application that created it and others expecting the original file
      name.  Hence, Unicode normalization SHOULD NOT be performed,
      because it may cause incorrect string modification or aliasing.

   When the above recommendations are not followed, the resulting string
   modification and aliasing can lead to both false negatives and false
   positives, depending on the strings in question, which can result in
   security issues such as elevation of privilege and denial of service
   (see [23] for further discussion).






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15.  Future Minor Versions and Extensions

   As stated above, all current NFSv4 minor versions allow use of non-
   UTF-8 encodings, allow servers a choice of whether to be aware of
   normalization issues or not, and allows servers a number of choices
   about how to address normalization issues.  This range of choices
   reflects the need to accommodate existing file systems and user
   expectations about character handling which in turn reflect the
   assumptions of the POSIX model of handling file names.

   While it is theoretically possible for a subsequent minor version to
   change these aspects of the protocol (see [9]), this section will
   explain why any such change is highly unlikely, making it expected
   that these aspects of NFSv4 internationalization handling will be
   retained indefinitely.  As a result, any new minor version
   specification document that made such a change would have to be
   marked as updating or obsoleting this document

   No such change could be done as an extension to an existing minor
   version or in a new minor version consisting only of OPTIONAL
   features.  Such a change could only be done in a new minor version,
   which like minor version one, was prepared to be incompatible to some
   degree with the previous minor versions.  While it appears unlikely
   that such minor versions will be adopted, the possibility cannot be
   excluded, so we need to explore the difficulties of changing the
   aspects of internationalization handling mentioned above.

   o  Establishing UTF-8 as the sole means of encoding for
      internationalized characters, would make inaccessible existing
      files stored with other encodings.  Further, unless there were a
      corresponding change in the UNIX file interface model, it would
      cause the set of valid names for local and remote files to
      diverge.

   o  Imposing a particular normalization form, in the sense of refusing
      to create to allow access to files whose UTF-8-encoded names are
      not of the selected normalization form would give rise to similar
      difficulties.

   o  Defining a preferred normalization form to be returned as the
      names of all internationalized files, would result in applications
      having to deal with sudden unexplained changes of file names for
      existing files.

   None of the above appears likely since there does not seem to be any
   corresponding benefits to justify the difficulties that they would
   create.




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   There would also be difficulties in otherwise reducing the set of
   three acceptable normalization handling options, without reducing it
   to a single option by imposing a specific normalization form.

   o  Eliminating the possibility of a single possible normalization
      form, would pose similar difficulties to imposing the other one,
      even if representation-independent comparisons were also allowed.

      In either case, a specific normalization form would be disfavored,
      with no corresponding benefit.

   o  Allowing only representation-independent lookups would not impose
      difficulties for clients, but there are reasons to doubt it could
      be universally implemented, since such name comparisons would have
      to be done within the file system itself.

      Such a change could only be made once support file system support
      for representation-independent file lookups would become commonly
      available.  As long as the POSIX file naming model continues its
      sway, that would be unlikely to happen.

   One possible internationalization-related extension that the working
   could adopt would be definition of an OPTIONAL per-fs attribute
   defining the internationalization-related handling for that file
   system.  That would allow clients to be aware of server choices in
   this area and could be adopted without disrupting existing clients
   and servers.

16.  IANA Considerations

   The current document does not require any actions by IANA.

17.  Security Considerations

   Unicode in the form of UTF-8 is generally is used for file component
   names (i.e., both directory and file components).  However, other
   character sets may also be allowed for these names.  For the owner
   and owner_group attributes and other sorts strings whose form is
   affected by standard outside NFSv4 (see Section 12.) are always
   encoded as UTF-8.  String processing (e.g., Unicode normalization)
   raises security concerns for string comparison.  See Sections 12 and
   9 as well as the respective Sections 5.9 of RFC7530 [3] and RFC5661
   [4] for further discussion.  See [23] for related identifier
   comparison security considerations.  File component names are
   identifiers with respect to the identifier comparison discussion in
   [23] because they are used to identify the objects to which ACLs are
   applied (See the respective Sections 6 of RFC7530 [3] and RFC5661
   [4]).



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18.  References

18.1.  Normative References

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

   [2]        Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
              2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
              May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.

   [3]        Haynes, T., Ed. and D. Noveck, Ed., "Network File System
              (NFS) Version 4 Protocol", RFC 7530, DOI 10.17487/RFC7530,
              March 2015, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7530>.

   [4]        Shepler, S., Ed., Eisler, M., Ed., and D. Noveck, Ed.,
              "Network File System (NFS) Version 4 Minor Version 1
              Protocol", RFC 5661, DOI 10.17487/RFC5661, January 2010,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5661>.

   [5]        Haynes, T., "Network File System (NFS) Version 4 Minor
              Version 2 Protocol", RFC 7862, DOI 10.17487/RFC7862,
              November 2016, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7862>.

   [6]        Klensin, J., "Internationalized Domain Names for
              Applications (IDNA): Definitions and Document Framework",
              RFC 5890, DOI 10.17487/RFC5890, August 2010,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5890>.

   [7]        Costello, A., "Punycode: A Bootstring encoding of Unicode
              for Internationalized Domain Names in Applications
              (IDNA)", RFC 3492, DOI 10.17487/RFC3492, March 2003,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3492>.

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

   [9]        Noveck, D., "Rules for NFSv4 Extensions and Minor
              Versions", RFC 8178, DOI 10.17487/RFC8178, July 2017,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8178>.

   [10]       Noveck, D., Ed. and C. Lever, "Network File System (NFS)
              Version 4 Minor Version 1 Protocol", RFC 8881,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC8881, August 2020,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8881>.



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   [11]       Cerf, V., "ASCII format for network interchange", STD 80,
              RFC 20, October 1969,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc20>.

   [12]       The Unicode Consortium, "The Unicode Standard, Version
              7.0.0", (Mountain View, CA: The Unicode Consortium,
              2014 ISBN 978-1-936213-09-2), June 2014,
              <http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode7.0.0/>.

   [13]       The Unicode Consortium, "The Unicode Standard, Version
              13.0.0, Section 5.18 Case Mappings", (Mountain View, CA:
              The Unicode Consortium, 2014 ISBN 978-1-936213-26-9),
              March 2020,
              <http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode13.0.0/
              ch05.pdf#G21180>.

   [14]       The Unicode Consortium, "CaseFolding-13.0.0.txt",
              (Mountain View, CA: The Unicode Consortium, 2014 ISBN
              978-1-936213-26-9), March 2020,
              <https://www.unicode.org/Public/13.0.0/ucd/
              CaseFolding.txt>.

18.2.  Informative References

   [15]       Nowicki, B., "NFS: Network File System Protocol
              specification", RFC 1094, DOI 10.17487/RFC1094, March
              1989, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1094>.

   [16]       Callaghan, B., Pawlowski, B., and P. Staubach, "NFS
              Version 3 Protocol Specification", RFC 1813,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC1813, June 1995,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1813>.

   [17]       Shepler, S., Callaghan, B., Robinson, D., Thurlow, R.,
              Beame, C., Eisler, M., and D. Noveck, "NFS version 4
              Protocol", RFC 3010, DOI 10.17487/RFC3010, December 2000,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3010>.

   [18]       Hoffman, P. and M. Blanchet, "Preparation of
              Internationalized Strings ("stringprep")", RFC 3454,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC3454, December 2002,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3454>.

   [19]       Faltstrom, P., Hoffman, P., and A. Costello,
              "Internationalizing Domain Names in Applications (IDNA)",
              RFC 3490, DOI 10.17487/RFC3490, March 2003,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3490>.




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   [20]       Hoffman, P. and M. Blanchet, "Nameprep: A Stringprep
              Profile for Internationalized Domain Names (IDN)",
              RFC 3491, DOI 10.17487/RFC3491, March 2003,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3491>.

   [21]       Shepler, S., Callaghan, B., Robinson, D., Thurlow, R.,
              Beame, C., Eisler, M., and D. Noveck, "Network File System
              (NFS) version 4 Protocol", RFC 3530, DOI 10.17487/RFC3530,
              April 2003, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3530>.

   [22]       Hoffman, P. and J. Klensin, "Terminology Used in
              Internationalization in the IETF", BCP 166, RFC 6365,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC6365, September 2011,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6365>.

   [23]       Thaler, D., Ed., "Issues in Identifier Comparison for
              Security Purposes", RFC 6943, DOI 10.17487/RFC6943, May
              2013, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6943>.

   [24]       Shepler, S., "NFS version 4 Protocol", draft-ietf-
              nfsv4-rfc3010bis-04 (work in progress), October 2002.

   [25]       Williams, N., "Internationalization Considerations for
              Filesystems and Filesystem Protocols", draft-williams-
              filesystem-18n-00 (work in progress), July 2020.

Appendix A.  Form-insensitive String Comparisons

   This section deal with two varieties of form-insensitive string
   comparison:

   o  Providing a comparison function which is form-insensitive only.
      For any string, whether normalized or not, this function will
      determine it to be equivalent to all canonically equivalent
      strings, including but not limited, to the normalized forms NFC
      and NFD

   o  Providing a comparison function which is both form-insensitive and
      case-insensitive.  This function will determine strings that only
      differ in case to be equal but will also be form-insensitive, as
      described above.

   The non-normative guidance provided in this Appendix is intended to
   be helpful to two distinct implementation areas:

   o  Implementation of server-side file systems intended to be accessed
      using NFSv4 protocols.  While it is often the case that such
      filesystems are developed by separate organizations from those



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      concerned with NFSv4 server development, the internationalization-
      related requirements specified in this document must be adhered to
      for successful inter-operation, making this implementation
      guidance apropos despite any potential organizational barriers.

   o  Implementation of NFSv4 clients that need to provide matching
      internationalization-related handling for reason discussed in
      Section 11.

   There are three basic reasons that two strings being compared might
   be canonically equivalent even though not identical.  For each such
   reason, the implementation will be similar in the cases in which
   form-insensitive comparison (only) is being done and in which the
   comparison is both case-insensitive and form- insensitive.

   o  Two strings may differ only because each has a different one of
      two code points that are essentially the same.  Three code points
      assigned to represent units, are essentially equivalent to the
      character denoting those units.  For example, the OHM SIGN
      (U+2126) is essentially identical to the GREEK CAPITAL LETTER
      OMEGA (U+03A9) as MICRO SIGN (U+00B5) is to GREEK SMALL LETTER MU
      (U+03BC) and ANGSTROM SIGN (U+212B) is to LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A
      WITH RING ABOVE (U+00C5).

      As discussed in items EX2 and EX3 in Section 10.2, it is possible
      to adjust for this situation using tables designed to resolve
      case-insensitive equivalence, essentially treating the unit
      symbols as an additional case variant, essentially ignoring the
      fact that the graphic representation is the same.  As a result,
      those doing string comparisons that are both form-insensitive and
      case-insensitive do not need to address this issue as part of
      form-insensitivity, since it would be dealt with by existing case-
      insensitive comparison logic.

      Where there is no case-insensitive comparison logic, this function
      needs to be performed using similar tables whose primary function
      is to provide the decomposition of precomposed characters, as
      described in Appendix A.2.

   o  Two strings may differ in that one has the decomposed form
      consisting of a base character and an associated combining
      character while the other has a precomposed character equivalent.

      Although, as discussed in items EX3 in Section 10.2, it is
      possible to use tables designed to resolve case-insensitive
      equivalence by providing as possible case-insensitively equivalent
      string, multi-character string providing the decomposition of
      precomposed characters, special logic to do so is only necessary



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      when the decomposition is not a canonical one, i.e. it is a
      compatibility equivalence.

      In general, the table used to do comparisons, whether case-
      sensitive or not, need to provide information about the canonical
      decomposition of precomposed characters.  See Appendix A.2 for
      details.

   o  Two strings may differ in that the strings consist of combining
      characters that have the same effect differ as to the order in
      which the characters appear.

      There is no way this function could be performed within code
      primarily devoted to case-insensitive equivalence.  However, this
      function could be added to implementations, providing both sorts
      of equivalence once it is determined that the base characters are
      case-equivalent while there is a difference of combining
      characters in to be resolved.  (See Appendix A.5 for a discussion
      of how sets of combining characters can be compared).

A.1.  Name Hashes

   We discussed in Section 10.1 the construction of a case-insensitive
   file name hash.  While such a hash could also be form-insensitive if
   the hash contribution of every pre-composed character matched the
   combined contribution of the characters that it decomposes into.

   However, there is no obvious way that sort of hash could respect the
   canonical equivalence of multiple combining characters modifying the
   same base character, when those combining characters appear in
   different orders.  Addressing that issue would require a
   significantly different sort of hash, in which combining characters
   are treated differently from others, so that the re-ordering of a
   string of combining characters applying to the same base character
   will not affect the hash.

   In the hash discussed in Section 10.1, there is no guarantee that the
   hash for multiple combining characters presented in different orders
   will be the same.  This is because typically such hashes implement
   some transformation on the existing hash, together with adding the
   new character to the hash being accumulated.  Such methods of hash
   construction will arrive at different values if the ordering of
   combining characters changes.

   In order to create a hash with the necessary characteristics, one can
   construct a separate sub-hash for composite character, consisting of
   one non-combining character (may be pre-composed) together with the
   set (possibly null) of combining characters immediately following it.



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   Each such composed character, whether precomposed or not, will have
   its own sub-hash, which will be the same regardless of the order of
   the combining characters.

   If the hash is to include case-insensitivity, special handling is
   needed to deal with issues arising from the handling of COMBINING
   GREEK YPOGEGRAMMENI (U+0345).  That combining character, as discussed
   in item EX6 of Section 10.2 is uppercased to the non-combining
   character GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA (U+0399) which is in turn
   lowercased to the non-combining character GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA
   (U+03B9).  As a result, when computing a case-insensitive hash, when
   a base character is IOTA (of either case) and the previous base
   character is ALPHA, ETA, or OMEGA (of the same case as the IOTA),
   that IOTA is treated, for the purpose of defining the composite
   characters for which to generate sub-hashes as if it were a combining
   character.  As a result, in this case a string of containing two
   composite characters will be treated as were a single composite
   character since the iota will be treated as if it were a combining
   character.  This string will have its own sub-hash, which will be the
   same regardless of the order of combining characters.

   The same outline will be followed for generating hashes which are to
   be form-insensitive (only) and for those which are to be both form-
   insensitive and case-insensitive.  The initial value, representing
   the base character, will differ based on the type of hash.

   o  In the case-sensitive case, the initial value of the sub-hash will
      reflect the value of the base character with the only possible
      need to map to a different value deriving from the existence of
      OHM SIGN (U+2126), ANGSTROM SIGN (U+212B), and MICRO SIGN (U+00B5)
      as characters distinct from the letters that represent these code
      points.  This could be done with a mapping table but most
      implementations would probably choose to implement special-purpose
      code to do this.

   o  In the case-insensitive case, the initial value of the sub-hash
      will reflect the case-based equivalence class to which the
      character (the lower-case equivalent is generally suitable).  In
      this context a table-based mapping is required and this mapping
      can shift OHM SIGN, ANGSTROM SIGN, and MICRO SIGN to the case-
      based equivalence class for the corresponding character.

   Regardless of the type of hash to be produced, values based on the
   following combining characters need to reflected in the sub-hash.  In
   order to make the sub-hash invariant to changes in the order of
   combining characters, values based on the particular combining
   character are combined with the hash being computed using a
   commutative associative operation, such as addition.



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   To reduce false-positives it is desirable to make the hash relatively
   wide (i.e. 32-64 bits) with the value based on base character in the
   upper portion of the word with the values for the combining
   characters appearing in a wide range of bit positions in the rest of
   the word to limit the degree that multiple distinct sets of combining
   characters have value that are the same.  Although the details will
   be affected by processor cache structure and the distribution of
   names processed, a table of values will be used but typical
   implementations will be different in the two cases we are dealing as
   described in Appendix A.2.

   As each sub-hash is computed, it is combined into a name-wide hash.
   There is no need for this computation to be order-independent and it
   will probably include a circular shift of the hash computed so far to
   be added to the contribution of the sub-hash for the new base or
   composed character.

   As described in Appendix A.3 the appropriate full name hash will have
   the major role in excluding potential matches efficiently.  However,
   in some small number of cases, there will be a hash match in which
   the names to be compared are not equivalent, requiring more involved
   processing.  It is assumed below that a given name will be searching
   for potential cached matches within the directory so that for that
   name, on will be able retain information used to construct the full
   name hash (e.g. individual sub-hashes plus the bounds of each
   composite character.  These will be compared against cached entries
   where only the full (e.g. 64-bit) name hash and the name itself will
   be available for comparison.

A.2.  Character Tables

   The per-character tables used in these algorithms have a number of
   type of entries for different types of characters.  In some cases,
   information for a given character type will be essentially the same
   whether the comparison is to be form-insensitive or case-
   insensitive.  In others, there will be differences.  Also, there may
   be entry types that only exist for particular types of comparisons.
   In any case, some bits within the table entry will be devoted to
   representing the type of character and entry:

   o  For combining characters, the entry will provide information about
      the character's contribution to the composite character sub-hash
      in which it appears.

   o  For case-insensitive comparisons, there need to be special entries
      for characters, which, while not themselves combining characters,
      are the case-insensitive equivalents of combining characters.  An




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      example of this situation is provided in item EX6 within
      Section 10.2

   o  For pre-composed characters, the entry needs to provide the
      initial hash value which is to be the basis for the sub-hash for
      the name substring including contributions for the base character
      together with contribution of included combining characters.  In
      addition, such entries will provide, separately, information about
      the character's canonical decomposition.

   o  For case-insensitive comparisons, there needs to be, for base
      characters, entries assigning each base character to the case-
      based equivalence class to which it belongs, although such entries
      can be avoided if the equivalence class matches the character
      (usually caseless and lowercase characters.

   o  Also, for case-insensitive comparisons, there will need to be
      special entries for characters which multi-character string as
      case-insensitive equivalent of the base character.  Examples of
      this situation are provided in items EX4 and EX5 within
      Section 10.2.  Such entries will need to have a hash-contribution
      that reflects the hash that would be computed for the multi-
      character string.

   o  For form-insensitive comparisons, there will be special entries to
      provide special handling for those cases in which there are two
      canonically equivalent single characters.  Such entries do not
      exist for case-insensitive comparison since this situation can be
      handled by a non-standard use of case mapping for base characters
      by placing these two characters in the same case-based equivalence

   In the common case in which a two-stage mapping will be used, there
   will be common groups of characters in which no table entry will be
   required, allowing a default entry type to be used for some character
   groups with entry contents easily calculable from the code point.

   o  In the case form-insensitive comparison, this consists of all base
      characters, with the hash contribution of the character derivable
      by a pre-specified transformation of the code point value.

   o  In the case case-insensitive comparison, this consists of all base
      character which are either caseless or equivalence class is the
      same as the code point, typically lowercase characters.  As in the
      form-insensitive case, the hash contribution of the character is
      derivable by a pre-specified transformation of the code point
      value, which matches, in this case, the id assigned to the case-
      based equivalence class.




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A.3.  Outline of comparison

   We are assuming that comparisons will be based on the hash values
   computed as described in Appendix A.1, whether the comparison is to
   be form-insensitive or both case-insensitive and form-insensitive.

   To facilitate this comparison, the name hash will be stored with the
   names to be compared.  As a result, when there is a need to
   investigate a new name and whether there are existing matches, it
   will be possible to search for matches with existing names cached for
   that directory, using a hash for the new name which is computed and
   compared to all the existing names, with the result that the detailed
   comparisons described in Appendices A.4 and A.5 have to be done
   relatively rarely, since non-matching names together with matching
   hashes are likely to be atypical.

   Given the above, it is a reasonable assumption, which we will take
   note of in the sections below, that for one of the names to be
   compared, we will have access to data generated in the process of
   computing the name hash while for the other names, such data would
   have to be generated anew, when necessary.  When that data includes,
   as we expect it will, the offset and length of the string regions
   covered by each sub-hash, direct byte-by-byte comparisons between
   corresponding regions of the two strings can exclude the possibility
   of difference without invoking any detailed logic to deal with the
   possibility of canonical equivalence or case-based equivalence in the
   absence of identical name segment.

   In the case in which the byte-by-byte comparisons fail, further
   analysis is necessary:

   o  First, the associated base characters are compared, as is
      discussed in Appendix A.4.  When doing form-insensitive comparison
      this is straightforward.  However, when case-insensitive
      comparison is to be done, there is the possibility that the sub-
      hash boundaries of the two comparands are different, requiring
      that a common point in both comparands be found to resume
      comparison after a successful match.  For either form of
      comparison, if a mismatch is found at this point then the
      comparison fails, while, if there is match, there must be a
      comparison of any following combining characters, as described
      below, before moving on to the region covered by the appropriate
      sub-string covered by the appropriate next sub-hash for each
      comparand.

   o  If there is no mismatch as to the base characters, the set of
      associated combining characters (might be null) must be compared,
      as is discussed in Appendix A.5.  If a mismatch is found at this



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      point then the comparison fails.  This may be because the sets of
      combining characters are different, because there are multiple
      copies of the same combining character in one of the string, or
      because the difference in combining character is not one that
      maintains canonical equivalence (due to combining classes).

   o  When both comparisons show a match, the comparison resumes at the
      next substring, using a byte-by-byte comparison initially.  If the
      comparison cannot be resumed because one of the strings is
      exhausted, the comparison terminate, succeeding only if both
      strings are exhausted while failing if only one of the strings is
      exhausted.

A.4.  Comparing Base Characters

   In general, the task of comparing based characters is simple, using a
   table lookup using the numeric value of the initial character in the
   substring.  When doing form-insensitive comparison this is the base
   character associated with the initial (possibly pre-composed)
   character, while for case-insensitive comparison it is the case-based
   equivalence class associated with that character.

   When doing case-insensitive comparison, issues may arise that result
   when there is a multi-character string that as the case- insensitive
   equivalent of a single base character, as discussed in items EX4 and
   EX5 within Section 10.2.  These are best dealt with using the
   approach outlined in Section 10.1.  When it is noted that the current
   base character (for either comparand) is a character whose associated
   equivalence class contains one or more multi-character strings, then
   these comparisons, normally requiring that each base character be
   mapped to the same case-based equivalence class by modified to allow
   equivalences allowed by these multi-character sequences.

   In such cases, there may need to be comparisons involving the multi-
   character string, in addition to the normal comparisons using the
   base characters' equivalence class.  As an illustration, we will
   consider possible comparison results that involve characters string
   within the equivalence class mentioned in item EX4 within
   Section 10.2

   o  When the base character for both comparands are either LATIN SMALL
      LETTER SHARP S (U+00DF) or LATIN CAPITAL LETTER SHARP S (U+1E9E),
      then a match is recognized.

   o  When the base character for one comparand is either LATIN SMALL
      LETTER SHARP S (U+00DF) or LATIN CAPITAL LETTER SHARP S (U+1E9E),
      while the other is not, each character in the that other comparand
      is case-insensitively compared to the corresponding character of



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      the string "ss" with a match being signaled when all such
      subsequent characters match, except for possibly being of a
      different case.  Because that comparison will involve multiple
      base characters, the overall comparison point for that comparand
      will have to be adjusted to reflect character already processed as
      part of the comparison.

   o  When the base character for neither comparands is either LATIN
      SMALL LETTER SHARP S (U+00DF) or LATIN CAPITAL LETTER SHARP S
      (U+1E9E), then matching proceeds normally.  As a result, the only
      cases in which character strings within the equivalence class
      being discussed will result is where both comparands have one of
      the strings "ss", "sS", "Ss", or "SS" at the current comparison
      point.

A.5.  Comparing Combining Characters

   In order to effect the necessary comparison, one needs to assemble,
   for each comparand, the set of combining characters within the
   current substring.  The means used might be different for different
   comparands since there might be useful information retained from the
   generation of the associated string hash for one of the comparands.
   In any case, there are two potential sources for these characters:

   o  Those deriving from the canonical decomposition of a pre-composed
      character, treated as a null set of if the base character is not a
      precomposed one.

   o  Those combining characters that immediate following the base
      character, which will be a null set if the immediately following
      character is not a combining character.  Note that it is possible,
      when doing case-insensitive comparison to treat certain character,
      not normally combining characters, as if they are.  Such
      situations can arise, when, as described in item EX6 within
      Section 10.2, such non-combining character are the uppercase or
      lowercase equivalents of combining characters.

   Although, the two sets of character can be checked to see if they are
   identical, this is a sufficient but not a necessary condition for
   equivalence since some permutations of a set of combining characters
   are considered canonically equivalent.  To summarize the appropriate
   equivalence rules:

   o  Combining characters of different combining classes may be freely
      reordered.

   o  If combining characters of the same combining class are reordered,
      then result is not canonically equivalent



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   The rules above do not directly apply to the case, discussed above,
   in which some non-combining characters are the case-based equivalents
   of combining characters such as COMBINING GREEK YPOGEGRAMMENI
   (U+0345).  Nevertheless, because of this equivalence, those
   implementing case-insensitive comparisons do have to deal with this
   potential equivalence when considering whether two strings containing
   combining characters or their case-based equivalents match.  As a
   result when comparing strings of combining characters, we need to
   implement the following modified rules.

   o  When one comparand has a true combining character and the other
      comparand has an identical one, they may differ in location as
      long as there is no permutation of combining characters of the
      same combining class.

   o  When one comparand has a true combining character and the other
      has a case-insensitive equivalent which is not a combining
      character, that character must appear last in its string while the
      combining may character appear in its string in any position
      except the last.  In this case, there are no restrictions based on
      combining classes.

   o  When both comparands contain a non-combining character case-
      insensitively equivalent to a combining character, these character
      must appear last in their respective strings.

   Although it is possible to divide combining characters based on their
   combining classes, sort each of the list and compare, that approach
   will not be discussed here.  Even though the use of sorts might allow
   use of an overall N log N algorithm, the number of combining
   characters is likely to be too low for this to be a practical
   benefit.  Instead, we present below an order N-squared algorithm
   based on searches.

   In this algorithm, one string, chosen arbitrarily id designated the
   "source string" and successive character from it, are searched for in
   the other, designated the "target string".  Associated with the
   target string is a mask to allow characters search for a found to be
   marked so that they will not be found a second time.  In the
   treatment below, when a character is "searched for" only characters
   not yet in the mask are examined and the character sought has its
   associated mask bit set when it is found.

   Each character in the source string is processed in turn with the
   actual processing depending on particular character being processed,
   with the following three possibilities to be dealt with.





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   1.  For the typical case (i.e. a combining character with no case-
       insensitive equivalents), the character is searched for in the
       target string with the compare failing if it is not found.

       If it is found, then the region of the target string between the
       point corresponding to the current position in the source string
       and the character found is examined to check for characters of
       the same combining class.  If any are found, the overall
       comparison fails.

   2.  For the case of a combining character with a case- insensitive
       equivalents, the character is searched for as described in the
       first paragraph of item 1.  However, the compare does not fail if
       it is not found.  Instead, a case-insensitive equivalent
       character is searched for at the final position of the string and
       the compare fails if that is not found.

   3.  For the case of a non-combining character that has a combining
       character as a case-insensitive equivalents, the overall
       comparison fail if the character is not in the final position
       within the source string or has already been successfully
       searched for.  Otherwise, the corresponding combining character
       is searched for in the target as described in in the first
       paragraph of item 1.  The overall compare fails if it is not
       found.

   Once all characters in the source string has been processed, the mask
   associated is examined to see if there are combining character that
   were not found in the matching process described above.  Normally, if
   there are such characters, the overall comparison fails.  However, if
   the last character of the target was not matched and if it is a non-
   combining character that is case-insensitively equivalent to a
   combining character, then comparison succeeds and the remaining
   character needs to be matched with the next substring in the source.

Acknowledgements

   This document is based, in large part, on Section 12 of [3] and all
   the people who contributed to that work, have helped make this
   document possible, including David Black, Peter Staubach, Nico
   Williams, Mike Eisler, Trond Myklebust, James Lentini, Mike Kupfer
   and Peter Saint-Andre.

   The author wishes to thank Tom Haynes for his timely suggestion to
   pursue the task of dealing with internationalization on an NFSv4-wide
   basis.





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   The author wishes to thank Nico WIlliams for his insights regarding
   the need for clients implementing file access protocols to be aware
   of the details of the server's internationalization-related name
   processing, particularly when case-insensitive file systems are being
   accessed.

Author's Address

   David Noveck
   NetApp
   1601 Trapelo Road
   Waltham, MA  02451
   United States of America

   Phone: +1 781 572 8038
   Email: davenoveck@gmail.com



































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