Network Working Group A. Newton
Internet-Draft ARIN
Intended status: Standards Track S. Hollenbeck
Expires: June 21, 2013 Verisign Labs
December 18, 2012
Registration Data Access Protocol Query Format
draft-ietf-weirds-rdap-query-02
Abstract
This document describes uniform patterns to construct HTTP URLs that
may be used to retrieve registration information from registries
(including both Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) and Domain Name
Registries (DNRs)) using "RESTful" web access patterns.
Status of this Memo
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This Internet-Draft will expire on June 21, 2013.
Copyright Notice
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document authors. All rights reserved.
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Table of Contents
1. Conventions Used in This Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1. Acronyms and Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Path Segment Specification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.1. IP Network Path Segment Specification . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.2. Autonomous System Path Segment Specification . . . . . . . 5
3.3. Domain Path Segment Specification . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.4. Name Server Path Segment Specification . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.5. Entity Path Segment Specification . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4. Extensibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5. Internationalization Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
7. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
8. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
9. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
9.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
9.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Appendix A. Path Segment Specification for Search Queries . . . . 9
Appendix B. Change Log . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
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1. Conventions Used in This Document
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 RFC 2119 [RFC2119].
1.1. Acronyms and Abbreviations
DNR: Domain Name Registry
RDAP: Registration Data Access Protocol
RIR: Regional Internet Registry
2. Introduction
This document describes a specification for querying registration
data using a RESTful web service and uniform query patterns. The
service is implemented using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
[RFC2616].
The protocol described in this specification is intended to address
deficiencies with the WHOIS protocol [RFC3912] that have been
identified over time, including:
o Lack of standardized command structures,
o lack of standardized output and error structures,
o lack of support for internationalization and localization, and
o lack of support for user identification, authentication, and
access control.
The patterns described in this document purposefully do not encompass
all of the methods employed in the WHOIS and RESTful web services of
all of the RIRs and DNRs. The intent of the patterns described here
are to enable lookups of networks by IP address, autonomous system
numbers by number, reverse DNS meta-data by domain, domains by name,
name servers by name, registrars by name, and entities (such as
contacts) by identifier. It is envisioned that each registry will
continue to maintain NICNAME/WHOIS and/or RESTful web services
specific to their needs and those of their constituencies, and the
information retrieved through the patterns described here may
reference such services.
Likewise, future IETF standards may add additional patterns for
additional query types (for example, "/domains" for a domain search
query). And Section 4 defines a simple pattern namespacing scheme to
accomodate custom extensions that will not interfere with the
patterns defined in this document or patterns defined in future IETF
standards.
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WHOIS services, in general, are read-only services. Therefore URL
[RFC3986] patterns presented here are only applicable to the HTTP
[RFC2616] GET and HEAD methods.
This document does not describe the results or entities returned from
issuing the described URLs with an HTTP GET. It is envisioned that
other documents will describe these entities in various serialization
formats, such as JavaScript Object Notation (JSON, [RFC4627]).
Additionally, resource management, provisioning and update functions
are out of scope for this document. Registries have various and
divergent methods covering these functions, and it is unlikely a
uniform approach for these functions will ever be possible.
HTTP contains mechanisms for servers to authenticate clients and for
clients to authenticate servers (from which authorization schemes may
be built) so such mechanisms are not described in this document.
Policy, provisioning, and processing of authentication and
authorization are out-of-scope for this document as deployments will
have to make choices based on local criteria. So long as the
solution chosen makes use of the HTTP mechanisms, implementations
ought to be interoperable.
3. Path Segment Specification
The uniform patterns start with a base URL [RFC3986] specified by
each registry or any other service provider offering this service.
The base URL is followed by a resource-type-specific path segment.
The base URL may contain its own path segments (e.g.
http://example.com/... or http://example.com/restful-WHOIS/... ).
The resource type path segments are:
o 'ip': IP networks and associated data referenced using either an
IPv4 or IPv6 address.
o 'autnum': Autonomous system registrations and associated data
referenced using an AS Plain autonomous system number.
o 'domain': Reverse DNS (RIR) or domain name (DNR) information and
associated data referenced using a fully-qualified domain name.
o 'nameserver': Used to identify a name server information query.
o 'entity': Used to identify an entity information query.
3.1. IP Network Path Segment Specification
Syntax: ip/<IP address> or ip/<CIDR prefix>/<CIDR length>
Queries for information about IP networks are of the form /ip/XXX/...
or /ip/XXX/YY/... where the path segment following 'ip' is either an
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IPv4 [RFC1166] or IPv6 [RFC5952] address (i.e. XXX) or an IPv4 or
IPv6 CIDR [RFC4632] notation address block (i.e. XXX/YY).
Semantically, the simpler form using the address can be thought of as
a CIDR block with a bitmask length of 32 for IPv4 and a bitmask
length of 128 for IPv6. A given specific address or CIDR may fall
within multiple IP networks in a hierarchy of networks, therefore
this query targets the "most-specific" or smallest IP network which
completely encompasses it in a hierarchy of IP networks.
This is an example URL for the most specific network containing
192.0.2.0:
/ip/192.0.2.0
This is an example of a URL the most specific network containing
192.0.2.0/24:
/ip/192.0.2.0/24
3.2. Autonomous System Path Segment Specification
Syntax: autnum/<autonomous system number>
Queries for information regarding autonomous system number
registrations are of the form /autnum/XXX/... where XXX is an asplain
autonomous system number [RFC5396]. In some registries, registration
of autonomous system numbers is done on an individual number basis,
while other registries may register blocks of autonomous system
numbers. The semantics of this query are such that if a number falls
within a range of registered blocks, the target of the query is the
block registration, and that individual number registrations are
considered a block of numbers with a size of 1.
For example, to find information on autonomous system number 65551,
the following path would be used:
/autnum/65551
3.3. Domain Path Segment Specification
Syntax: domain/<domain name>
Queries for domain information are of the form /domain/XXXX/...,
where XXXX is a fully-qualified domain name [RFC4343] in either the
in-addr.arpa or ip6.arpa zones (for RIRs) or a fully-qualified domain
name in a zone administered by the server operator (for DNRs).
Internationalized domain names represented in A-label format
[RFC5890] are also valid domain names.
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The following path would be used to find information describing the
zone serving the network 192.0.2/24:
/domain/2.0.192.in-addr.arpa
The following path would be used to find information for the
example.com domain name:
/domain/example.com
3.4. Name Server Path Segment Specification
Syntax: nameserver/<name server name>
The <name server name> parameter represents a fully qualified name as
specified in RFC 952 [RFC0952] and RFC 1123 [RFC1123].
Internationalized names represented in A-label format [RFC5890] are
also valid name server names.
The following path would be used to find information for the
ns1.example.com name server:
/nameserver/ns1.example.com
3.5. Entity Path Segment Specification
Syntax: entity/<handle>
The <handle> parameter represents an entity (such as a contact,
registrant, or registrar) identifier. For example, for some DNRs
contact identifiers are specified in RFC 5730 [RFC5730] and RFC 5733
[RFC5733].
The following path would be used to find information for the entity
associated with handle CID-4005:
/entity/CID-4005
4. Extensibility
This document describes path segment specifications for a limited
number of objects commonly registered in both RIRs and DNRs. It does
not attempt to describe path segments for all of the objects
registered in all registries. Custom path segments can be created
for objects not specified here using the process described in Section
TBD of "Using HTTP for RESTful Whois Services by Internet Registries"
[I-D.ietf-weirds-using-http].
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Custom path segments can be created by prefixing the segment with a
unique identifier followed by an underscore character (0x5F). For
example, a custom entity path segment could be created by prefixing
"entity" with "custom_", producing "custom_entity". Servers MUST
return an appropriate failure status code for a request with an
unrecognized path segment.
5. Internationalization Considerations
There is value in supporting the ability to submit either a U-label
(Unicode form of an IDN label) or an A-label (ASCII form of an IDN
label) as a query argument to an RDAP service. Clients with
graphical user interfaces may prefer a U-label since this is more
visually recognizable and familiar than A-label strings, but clients
of programmatic interfaces may wish to submit and display A-labels or
may not be able to input U-labels with their keyboard configuration.
In the interest of protocol simplicity, A-labels (the "wire format"
of IDNs) are the only labels supported by this specification.
Internationalized domain and name server names can contain character
variants and variant labels as described in RFC 4290 [RFC4290].
Clients that support queries for internationalized domain and name
server names MUST accept service provider responses that describe
variants as specified in "JSON Responses for the Registration Data
Access Protocol" [I-D.ietf-weirds-json-response].
6. IANA Considerations
This document does not specify any IANA actions.
7. Security Considerations
Security services for the operations specified in this document are
described in "Security Services for the Registration Data Access
Protocol" [I-D.ietf-weirds-rdap-sec]. As we identify specific use
cases for which security services are needed they will be described
here.
8. Acknowledgements
This document is derived from original work on RIR query formats
developed by Byron J. Ellacott of APNIC, Arturo L. Servin of LACNIC,
Kaveh Ranjbar of the RIPE NCC, and Andrew L. Newton of ARIN.
Additionally, this document incorporates DNR query formats originally
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described by Francisco Arias and Steve Sheng of ICANN and Scott
Hollenbeck of Verisign.
The authors would like to acknowledge the following individuals for
their contributions to this document: Francisco Arias, Edward Lewis,
and John Levine.
9. References
9.1. Normative References
[I-D.ietf-weirds-json-response]
Newton, A. and S. Hollenbeck, "JSON Responses for the
Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP)",
draft-ietf-weirds-json-response-01 (work in progress),
December 2012.
[I-D.ietf-weirds-rdap-sec]
Hollenbeck, S. and N. Kong, "Security Services for the
Registration Data Access Protocol",
draft-ietf-weirds-rdap-sec-01 (work in progress),
November 2012.
[I-D.ietf-weirds-using-http]
Newton, A., Ellacott, B., and N. Kong, "Using the
Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP) with HTTP",
draft-ietf-weirds-using-http-01 (work in progress),
December 2012.
[RFC0952] Harrenstien, K., Stahl, M., and E. Feinler, "DoD Internet
host table specification", RFC 952, October 1985.
[RFC1123] Braden, R., "Requirements for Internet Hosts - Application
and Support", STD 3, RFC 1123, October 1989.
[RFC1166] Kirkpatrick, S., Stahl, M., and M. Recker, "Internet
numbers", RFC 1166, July 1990.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC2616] Fielding, R., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Frystyk, H.,
Masinter, L., Leach, P., and T. Berners-Lee, "Hypertext
Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1", RFC 2616, June 1999.
[RFC3986] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform
Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66,
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RFC 3986, January 2005.
[RFC4290] Klensin, J., "Suggested Practices for Registration of
Internationalized Domain Names (IDN)", RFC 4290,
December 2005.
[RFC4343] Eastlake, D., "Domain Name System (DNS) Case Insensitivity
Clarification", RFC 4343, January 2006.
[RFC4632] Fuller, V. and T. Li, "Classless Inter-domain Routing
(CIDR): The Internet Address Assignment and Aggregation
Plan", BCP 122, RFC 4632, August 2006.
[RFC5396] Huston, G. and G. Michaelson, "Textual Representation of
Autonomous System (AS) Numbers", RFC 5396, December 2008.
[RFC5730] Hollenbeck, S., "Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP)",
STD 69, RFC 5730, August 2009.
[RFC5733] Hollenbeck, S., "Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP)
Contact Mapping", STD 69, RFC 5733, August 2009.
[RFC5890] Klensin, J., "Internationalized Domain Names for
Applications (IDNA): Definitions and Document Framework",
RFC 5890, August 2010.
[RFC5952] Kawamura, S. and M. Kawashima, "A Recommendation for IPv6
Address Text Representation", RFC 5952, August 2010.
9.2. Informative References
[RFC3912] Daigle, L., "WHOIS Protocol Specification", RFC 3912,
September 2004.
[RFC4627] Crockford, D., "The application/json Media Type for
JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)", RFC 4627, July 2006.
URIs
[1] <https://www.arin.net/resources/whoisrws/whois_api.html>
[2] <http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/MatrixURIs.html>
[3] <http://whois.arin.net/ui>
[4] <http://dnrd.verisignlabs.com/dnrd-ap/>
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Appendix A. Path Segment Specification for Search Queries
All of the path segments described in this document identify patterns
for exact-match lookups of data elements. We have explicitly omitted
specifications for search queries in the interest of first focusing
on more basic protocol operations. Once we understand how exact-
match queries will work we will attempt to define specifications for
search queries.
It is important to note that there are already multiple
implementations of RESTful RDAP-like prototypes that provide search
capabilities. For example:
ARIN: The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) has
published an API [1] (see Section 4.4.2) that describes using
plural forms of path segment identifiers (e.g. "domains") and
Matrix URIs [2] to indicate that a client is requesting a list of
values when searching for RIR registration data. A prototype
service [3] that implements this API is up and running.
Verisign: Verisign has deployed a prototype service [4] that
implements searches for DNR registration data using HTML query
strings (e.g. "?_PRE") to identify search parameters. For
example,
"http://dnrd.verisignlabs.com/dnrd-ap/domain/verisign?_PRE"
performs a search for domain names with a "verisign" prefix.
Appendix B. Change Log
Initial -00: Adopted as working group document.
-01: Added "Conventions Used in This Document" section. Added
normative reference to draft-ietf-weirds-rdap-sec and some
wrapping text in the Security Considerations section.
-02: Removed "unified" from the title. Rewrote the last paragraph
of section 2. Edited the first paragraph of section 3 to more
clearly note that only one path segement is provided. Added
"bitmask" to "length" in section 3.1. Changed "lowest IP network"
to "smallest IP network" in section 3.1. Added "asplain" to the
description of autonomous system numbers in section 3.2. Minor
change from "semantics is" to "semantics are" in section 3.2.
Changed the last sentence in section 4 to more clearly specify
error response behavior. Added acknowledgements. Added a
paragraph in the introduction regarding future IETF standards and
extensibility.
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Authors' Addresses
Andrew Lee Newton
American Registry for Internet Numbers
3635 Concorde Parkway
Chantilly, VA 20151
US
Email: andy@arin.net
URI: http://www.arin.net
Scott Hollenbeck
Verisign Labs
12061 Bluemont Way
Reston, VA 20190
US
Email: shollenbeck@verisign.com
URI: http://www.verisignlabs.com/
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