Network Working Group P. Hoffman
Internet-Draft VPN Consortium
Expires: February 15, 2005 August 17, 2004
The file: Scheme
draft-hoffman-file-uri-00.txt
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Abstract
This document specifies the file: Uniform Resource Identifier (URI)
scheme that was originally specified in RFC 1738. The purpose of
this document is to allow RFC 1738 to be moved to historic while
keeping the information about the scheme on standards track.
1. Introduction
URIs are were previously defined in RFC 2396 [RFC2396], which was
updated by draft-fielding-uri-rfc2396bis [2396bis]. Those documents
also specify how to define schemes for URIs.
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The first definition for many URI schemes appeared in RFC 1738
[RFC1738]. Because that document has been moved to Historic status,
this document copies the file: scheme from it to allow that material
to remain on standards track.
2. Scheme Definition
The file URL scheme is used to designate files accessible on a
particular host computer. This scheme, unlike most other URL
schemes, does not designate a resource that is universally accessible
over the Internet.
The file URL scheme has historically had little or no
interoperability between platforms. Further, implementers on a
single platform have often disagreed on the syntaxt to use for a
particular filesystem. This docoument does not try to resolve those
problems, only to show what has been commonly seen in use on the
Internet.
A file URL takes the form:
file://<host>/<path>
where <host> is the fully qualified domain name of the system on
which the <path> is accessible, and <path> is a hierarchical
directory path of the form <directory>/<directory>/.../<name>.
As a special case, <host> can be the string "localhost" or the empty
string; this is interpreted as "the machine from which the URL is
being interpreted". However, this part of the syntax has been
ignored on many systems. That is, for some systems, the following
are considered equal, while on others they are not:
file://localhost/path/to/file.txt
file:///path/to/file.txt
Some systems allow URLs to point to directories. In this case, there
is usually (but not always) a terminating "/" character, such as in:
file://usr/local/bin/
On systems running some versions of Microsoft Windows, the local
drive specification is sometimes preceded by a "/" character. Thus,
for a file called "example.ini" in the "windows" directory on the
"c:" drive, the URL might be:
file:///c:/windows/example.ini
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For Windows shares, there is an additional "/" prepended to the name.
Thus, the file "example.doc" on the shared directory "department"
would have the URL:
file:////department/example.doc
The file URL scheme is unusual in that it does not specify an
Internet protocol or access method for such files; as such, its
utility in network protocols between hosts is limited.
3. Security Considerations
There are many security considerations for URI schemes discussed in
draft-fielding-uri-rfc2396bis [2396bis].
4 Informative References
[RFC1738] Berners-Lee, T., Masinter, L. and M. McCahill, "Uniform
Resource Locators (URL)", RFC 1738, December 1994.
[RFC2396] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R. and L. Masinter, "Uniform
Resource Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax", RFC 2396,
August 1998.
[2396bis] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R. and L. Masinter, "Uniform
Resource Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax", work in
progress, draft-fielding-uri-rfc2396bis-nn.txt.
Author's Address
Paul Hoffman
VPN Consortium
127 Segre Place
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
US
EMail: paul.hoffman@vpnc.org
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