INTERNET-DRAFT                                      IOTP HTTP Supplement
                                                             August 1999
                                                   Expires February 2000
draft-ietf-trade-iotp-http-03.txt




         Internet Open Trading Protocol (IOTP) HTTP Supplement
         -------- ---- ------- -------- ------ ---- ----------

                         Donald E. Eastlake 3rd
                             Chris J. Smith



                        Status of This Document

   This draft, file name draft-ietf-trade-iotp-http-03.txt, is intended
   to become a Proposed Standard RFC.  Distribution of this document is
   unlimited. Comments should be sent to the TRADE WG mailing list
   <ietf-trade@eListX.com> or to the authors.

   This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with
   all provisions of Section 10 of [RFC 2026].  Internet-Drafts are
   working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its
   areas, and its working groups.  Note that other groups may also
   distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet- Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress".

   The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at
   http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt

   The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at
   http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html.


















D. Eastlake, C. Smith                                           [Page 1]


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Abstract

   Internet Open Trading Protocol (IOTP) messages will be carried as XML
   documents. As such, the goal of mapping to the transport layer is to
   ensure that the underlying XML documents are carried successfully
   between the various parties.

   This documents describes that mapping for the Hyper Text Transport
   Protocol (HTTP), Versions 1.0 and 1.1.



Table of Contents

      Status of This Document....................................1

      Abstract...................................................2
      Table of Contents..........................................2

      1. Introduction............................................3
      2. HTTP Servers and Clients................................3
      3. HTTP Net Locations......................................3
      4. Consumer Clients........................................3
      4.1 Starting the IOTP Client and the Merchant IOTP Server..4
      4.2 Ongoing IOTP Messages..................................4
      4.3 Stopping an IOTP Transaction...........................5
      5. Starting the Payment handler and Deliverer IOTP Servers.6
      6. Security Considerations.................................6
      7. IANA Considerations.....................................6

      References.................................................7
      Authors Addresses..........................................7
      Expiration and File Name...................................8



















D. Eastlake, C. Smith                                           [Page 2]


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1. Introduction

   Internet Open Trading Protocol (IOTP) messages will be carried as XML
   documents. As such, the goal of mapping to the transport layer is to
   ensure that the underlying XML documents are carried successfully
   between the various parties.

   This documents describes that mapping for the Hyper Text Transport
   Protocol (HTTP), Versions 1.0 and 1.1 [RFCs 1945, 2616].

   There may be future documents describing IOTP over email (SMTP), TCP,
   cable TV, or other transports.

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



2. HTTP Servers and Clients

   The structure of IOTP maps on to the structure of HTTP in the
   following way:

   The merchant, payment handler, delivery handler, and customer care
      roles are all represented by HTTP servers. Each may be represented
      by a separate server, or they may be combined in any combination.

   The consumer role is represented by an HTTP client.

   Note: A Merchant, may act in the role of a consumer, for example to
   deposit electronic cash. In this case the Merchant, as an
   organization rather than as a role, would need to be supported by an
   HTTP client.



3. HTTP Net Locations

   The Net Locations contained within the IOTP specification are all
   URIs [RFC 2396]. If a secure connection is required or desired any
   secure channel that both the HTTP Server and Client support may be
   used, for example SSL version 3 or TLS [RFC 2246].



4. Consumer Clients

   In most environments, the consumer agent will initially be an HTML
   browser. However, this does not provide the needed capability to act


D. Eastlake, C. Smith                                           [Page 3]


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   as an agent for the consumer for an IOTP transaction. This leads to
   two requirements:

   a method of starting and passing control to the IOTP client, and

   a method of closing down the IOTP client cleanly and passing control
      back to the HTML browser once the IOTP Transaction has finished.



4.1 Starting the IOTP Client and the Merchant IOTP Server

   At some point, the HTTP client at the consumer will send a HTTP
   request that is interpreted as an "IOTP Startup Request" by the
   Merchant HTTP server. This might, for example, be the result of
   clicking on a "pay" button.  This message is a stand-in for a request
   message of some form and the Merchant Server will respond with the
   first IOTP Message in the form of an XML document.

   The MIME type for all IOTP messages is: "application/iotp"; however
   "application/x-iotp" has been in use for experimentation and
   development and SHOULD also be recognized.  Because HTTP is binary
   clean, no content-transfer-encoding is required.  (See [RFC 2376] re
   the application/xml type which has some similar considerations.)

   This HTTP response will be interpreted by the HTML browser as a
   request to start the application associated with MIME type
   "application/iotp", and to pass the content of this message to that
   application.

   At this point, the IOTP client will be started and have the first
   message.

   IOTP messages are short-lived. Therefore, the HTTP server should
   avoid having its responses cached.  In HTTP V1.0, the "nocache"
   pragma can be used.  This can be neglected on SSL/TLS secured
   connections which are not cached and on HTTP POST requests in HTTP
   v1.1 as in v1.1 POST responses are not cached.



4.2 Ongoing IOTP Messages

   Data from earlier IOTP Messages in a transaction must be retained by
   the IOTP Client so that it may (1) be copied to make up part of later
   IOTP Messages, (2) used in calculations to verify signatures in later
   IOTP message, (3) be resent in some cases where it is a request that
   times out, (4) used as input to the Customer Care role in later
   versions of IOTP, etc. The way in which the data is copied depends on
   the IOTP Transaction.


D. Eastlake, C. Smith                                           [Page 4]


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   The IOTP Messages contain Net Locations (e.g. the PayReqNetLocn)
   which for HTTP will contain the URIs to which the IOTP client must
   ship IOTP Messages.

   Subsequent IOTP Messages (XML documents) will be sent using the POST
   function of HTTP. The HTTP client has to perform full HTTP POST
   requests.

   The XML documents will be sent in a manner compatible with the
   external encodings allowed by the XML specification.



4.3 Stopping an IOTP Transaction

   The following should be read in conjunction with [draft-ietf-trade-
   iotp-v1.0-protocol-*.txt] An IOTP Transaction is complete

   -- the IOTP client decides to fail the IOTP Transaction for some
      reason either by canceling the transaction or as a result of
      discovering an error in an IOTP message received, or

   -- a "time out" occurs or a connection fails, e.g. a response to an
      IOTP Message, has not been received after some user-defined period
      of Time (including retransmissions).

   An IOTP Client which processes an IOTP Transaction which:

   -- completes successfully (i.e. it has not received an Error Block
      with a HardError or a Cancel Block) must direct the browser to the
      Net Location specified in SuccessNetLocn in the Protocol Options
      Component, i.e., cause it to do an HTTP GET with that URL.

   -- does not complete successfully, because it has received some Error
      Trading Block, must display the information in the Error Message,
      stop the transaction, then pass control to the browser so that it
      will do a GET on the Error Net Location specified for the role
      from which the error was received.

   -- is cancelled since a Cancel Block has been received, stops the
      IOTP Transaction, and hands control to the browser so that it will
      do a GET on the on the Cancel Net Location specified for the role
      from which the Cancel Block was received.

   -- is in error because an IOTP Message does not conform to this
      specification, sends an IOTP Message containing a Error Trading
      Block to role from which the erroneous message was received and
      the ErrorLogNetLoc specified for that role, stops the IOTP
      Transaction, and hands control to the browser so that it will do a
      GET from the Error Net Location specified for the role from which


D. Eastlake, C. Smith                                           [Page 5]


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      the bad message was received.

   -- has a "time out", must display a message describing the time out.
      May give the user the option of cancelling or retrying and/or may
      automatically retry.  On failure due to time out, treat as an
      error above.

   Each implementation of an IOTP client may decide whether or not to
   terminate the IOTP Client application immediately upon completing an
   IOTP Transaction or whether to wait until it is closed down as a
   result of, for example, user shut down or browser shut down.



5. Starting the Payment handler and Deliverer IOTP Servers

   Payment Handler and Deliverer IOTP Servers are started by receiving
   an IOTP Message which contains:

   -- for a Payment handler, a Payment Request Block, and

   -- for a Delivery Handler, a Delivery Request Block



6. Security Considerations

   Security of Internet Open Trade Protocol messages is primarily
   dependent on signatures within IOTP as described in [draft-ietf-
   trade-iotp-v1.0-protocol-*.txt] and [draft-ietf-trade-iotp-v1.0-
   dsig-*.txt].

   Note that the security of payment protocols transported by IOTP is
   the responsibility of those payment protocols, NOT of IOTP.



7. IANA Considerations

   This specification defines the application/iotp mime type which is
   thereby reserved.











D. Eastlake, C. Smith                                           [Page 6]


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References

   [RFC 1945] - "Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.0", T. Berners-
   Lee, R.  Fielding & H. Frystyk. May 1996.

   [RFC 2119] - S. Bradner, "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
   Requirement Levels", March 1997.

   [RFC 2246] - "The TLS Protocol Version 1.0", T. Dierks, C. Allen.
   January 1999.

   [RFC 2376] - "XML Media Types", E. Whitehead, M. Murata. July 1998.

   [RFC 2396] - T. Berners-Lee, R. Fielding, L. Masinter, "Uniform
   Resource Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax", August 1998.

   [RFC 2616] - "Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1", R. Fielding,
   J. Gettys, J. Mogul, H. Frystyk, L. Masinter, P. Leach, T. Berners-
   Lee, June 1999.

   draft-ietf-trade-iotp-v1.0-protocol-*.txt - David Burdett

   draft-ietf-trade-iotp-v1.0-dsig-*.txt - Kent Davidson, Yoshiaki
   Kawatsura



Authors Addresses

   Donald E. Eastlake 3rd
   IBM
   65 Shindegan Hill Road
   Carmel, NY 10512 USA

   Telephone:   +1 914-276-2668(h)
                +1 914-784-7913(w)
   FAX:         +1 914-784-3833(w)
   email:       dee3@us.ibm.com


   Chris J. Smith
   Royal Bank of Canada
   277 Front Street West
   Toronto, Ontario M5V 3A4 CANADA

   Telephone: +1 416-348-6090
   FAX:       +1 416-348-2210
   email:     chris.smith@royalbank.com




D. Eastlake, C. Smith                                           [Page 7]


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Expiration and File Name

   This draft expires February 2000.

   Its file name is draft-ietf-trade-iotp-http-03.txt.















































D. Eastlake, C. Smith                                           [Page 8]