Network Working Group                                      M.M. Mealling
Internet-Draft                                   Network Solutions, Inc.
Expires: May 18, 2001                                  November 17, 2000


         A URN Namespace for IANA Registered Protocol Elements
                     draft-mealling-iana-urn-00.txt

Status of this Memo

   This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with
   all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026.

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   This Internet-Draft will expire on May 18, 2001.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2000). All Rights Reserved.

Abstract

   This document describes a URN namespace for protocol items
   registered with the Internet Assigned Number Authority (IANA).

. Introduction

   The Internet Assigned Number Authority (IANA) acts as the central
   repository for the various pieces of protocols that need to be
   available for reference. The IANA several lists of items such as all
   assigned port numbers, MIME media types, enterprise numbers, etc.
   Over time there has developed a need to be able to reference these
   elements in various schema. In the past this was done in a very
   adhoc way that easily led to interoperability problems.  This
   document specifies the "IANA" URN namespace[1] which acts as a
   standardized mechanism for naming the elements in the IANA
   repository.



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   The namespace specification is for a formal namespace.

. Specification Template

   Namespace ID:

      "iana" requested.

   Registration Information:

       Registration Version Number: 1
       Registration Date: 2000-08-3

   Declared registrant of the namespace:


       The Internet Assigned Number Authority

   Declaration of structure:

      The namespace is primarily opaque. The IANA may take suggestions
      for names to assign but they reserve the right to assign whatever
      name they desire. The colon character (":") is used to denote a
      limited concept of hierarchy. If a colon is present then the
      items on both sides of it are valid names. In general, if a name
      has a colon then the item on the left hand side represents a
      class of those items that would contain other items of that
      class. For example, a name can be assigned to the entire list of
      DNS resource record type codes as well as for each individual
      code. The URN for the list might look like this:

       urn:iana:rr-type-codes

      while the URN for the SOA records type code might look like this:

       urn:iana:rr-type-codes:soa


   Relevant ancillary documentation:

      None.

   Identifier uniqueness considerations:

      The IANA has sole discretion for assigning names and thus can
      gaurantee uniqueness by comparing the name to be assigned with
      the list of previously assigned names.

   Identifier persistence considerations:

      The IANA has sole discretion for assigning names and thus can
      gaurantee uniqueness by comparing the name to be assigned with
      the list of previously assigned names.

   Process of identifier assignment:

      Identifiers are assigned only after a particular protocol element
      or number has been registered with the IANA using standard
      policies and procedures. Once that element is assigned and in the
      repository, the IANA will take requests for that element to have
      a name assigned. The assignment request can suggest a name to use
      but the IANA may ignore that request. See Section 6 for the
      assignment request template.

   Process of identifier resolution:



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      At this time no resolution mechanism is defined though one is
      expected.

   Rules for Lexical Equivalence:

      Lexical equivalence is achieved by exact string match.

   Conformance with URN Syntax:

      There are no additional characters reserved.

   Validation mechanism:

      None.

   Scope:

      Global


. Examples

   These are examples only. As of the publication of this document no
   names have been created for this namespace, thus these examples will
   most likely be wrong and should never be used.

   urn:iana:rr-type-code:naptr
      This URN would name the type code for the NAPTR DNS resource
      record which is 35.

   urn:iana:mime-media-types
      This URN would name the entire class of MIME media types.

   urn:iana:mime-media-types:application-xml
      This URN would name specific media type known as
      "application/xml". Note how the actual URN does not contain the
      "/" character since it is disallowed by RFC 2141.

. Security Considerations

   None not already inherent to using URNs.

. Acknowledgements

   The author would like to thank Joyce Reynolds and Graham Klyne for
   their input to this document.

. Assignment Request Template

References

   []  Moats, R., "URN Syntax", RFC 2141, May 1997.








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Author's Address

   Michael Mealling
   Network Solutions, Inc.
   505 Huntmar Park Drive
   Herndon, VA  22070
   US

   Phone: +1 770 921 2251
   EMail: michaelm@netsol.com
   URI:   http://www.netsol.com








































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Full Copyright Statement

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2000). All Rights Reserved.

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Acknowledgement

   Funding for the RFC editor function is currently provided by the
   Internet Society.



















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