Internet-Draft Ryan Moats
draft-ietf-urn-ietf-01.txt AT&T
Expires in six months June 1997
A URN Namespace for IETF Documents
Filename: draft-ietf-urn-ietf-01.txt
Status of This Memo
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Abstract
A system for Uniform Resource Names (URNs) must be capable of
supporting new naming systems. As an example of the sort of
information that needs to be supplied when proposing new namepsaces,
this document presents a naming system based on the RFC family of
documents (RFCs, STDs, and FYIs) developed by the IETF and published
by the RFC editor and the minutes of working groups (WG) and birds of
a feather (BOF) meetings that occur during IETF conferences. This
namespace can be supported within the URN framework and the currently
proposed syntax for URNs.
1. Namespace Syntax
Consistent with the URN syntax specification [1], each namespace must
specify syntax related information that is specific to that
namespace. This section covers these specifications.
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1.1. Namespace Identifier (NID)
The namespace identifier for this namespace is "ietf".
1.2. Namespace Specific String (NSS)
The Namespace Specific String has the following ABNF [2]
specification:
NSS = (family ":" number) / ("mtg-" number "-" wgbofname)
family = "rfc" / "std" / "fyi"
number = 1*DIGIT
wgbofname = 1*LETDIGIT
LETDIGIT = DIGIT / %x41..%x5a / %x61..%x7a
DIGIT = %x30..%x39
The ABNF specification for "family" is based on the current documents
in the RFC family. As new document series are added to the IETF
family by the IESG (or its successor), this ABNF specification will
need to be updated. Any system intended to resolve names for this
namespace should be written with the awareness that a new document
series may be introduced at any time.
The ABNF specification for "wgbofname" is based on the current and
past abbreviations for working groups and BOFs in the IETF. If a
working group or BOF is created that used characters outside the
range of this ABNF specification, this specification will need to be
update. Any system intended to resolve names for this namespace
should be written with the awareness that this could occur at any
time.
1.3. Additional Reserved Characters
No characters in addition to those specified in [1] are reserved by
this namespace.
1.4. Additional Lexical Equivalence Relations
Note that the entire URN is case-insensitive, because of the
definition of the NSS.
1.5. Functional Equivalence Relations
Rules for equivalence in this namespace are embedded in the document
mappings maintained by the RFC Editor (the index files "rfc-
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index.txt", "fyi-index.txt", "std-index.txt"). A resource is
equivalent to the set of resources implied by the "(Also...)"
construct in these mappings. As an example, the URN
"urn:ietf:rfc:1661" is equivalent to th URN "urn:ietf:std:51" because
the "rfc-index.txt" map shows that RFC 1661 is also STD 51. However,
the URN "urn:ietf:std:51" is equivalent to the SET of URNs
"urn:ietf:rfc:1661" and "urn:ietf:rfc:1662" since the "std-index.txt"
shows that STD 51 is also RFC 1661 and RFC 1662. Therefore, a
resolver receiving a N2R request for "urn:ietf:std:51" MUST return
either STD 51 or BOTH RFC 1661 and RFC 1662.
2. Security Considerations
Because this namespace defines no additional reserved characters, it
does not add any security considerations beyond those inherent from
the existence of the reserved characters from [1]. Further, the
definition of the NSS above does not use any of the reserved
characters from [1], which means that resolvers for this namespace
may be considered "secure" in the sense that any escaping of
characters in the NSS MUST result in the resolver indicating that the
URN has incorrect syntax.
3. Acknowledgments
Thanks to various members of the URN working group for comments on
earlier drafts of this document. The work described in this document
is partially supported by the National Science Foundation,
Cooperative Agreement NCR-9218179.
4. References
Request For Comments (RFC) and Internet Draft documents are available
from <URL:ftp://ftp.internic.net> and numerous mirror sites.
[1] R. Moats, "URN Syntax," RFC 2141, May 5, 1997.
[2] D. Crocker, P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax
Specifications: ABNF," Internet Draft (work in pro-
gress), January 1997.
5. Author's Address
Ryan Moats
AT&T
15621 Drexel Circle
Omaha, NE 68135-2358
USA
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Phone: +1 402 894-9456
EMail: jayhawk@att.com
This Internet Draft expires December 31, 1997.
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