Internet-Draft Ted Stockwell draft-stockwell-hnews-url-00.txt early morning software June 17, 1998 Expires six months after above date The hnews URL scheme Status of This Memo This document is an Internet-Draft. 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." To view the entire list of current Internet-Drafts, please check the "1id-abstracts.txt" listing contained in the Internet-Drafts Shadow Directories on ftp.is.co.za (Africa), ftp.nordu.net (Northern Europe), ftp.nis.garr.it (Southern Europe), munnari.oz.au (Pacific Rim), ftp.ietf.org (US East Coast), or ftp.isi.edu (US West Coast). Abstract HNEWS [1] is an HTTP-tunneling variant of the NNTP news protocol. This document defines the format of Uniform Resource Locators(URLs) identifying news messages and groups provided by HNEWS servers. The syntax of 'hnews' URLs is designed to be compatible with the current common usage of the 'news' URL scheme. Specifically, the 'hnews' URL scheme is designed according to recommendations made in [NEWS_URL_SCHEME]. [NEWS_URL_SCHEME] is based on the general specification of all URL schemes in "Uniform Resource Locators (URL): Generic Syntax and Semantics" [RFC URI SYNTAX]. 1. The 'hnews' URL scheme The hnews URL scheme is used to designate a message or a set of messages available from an HNEWS server. The hnews URL scheme is meant to designate the same kinds of objects as the 'news' URL scheme except that 'hnews' objects are retrieved using the HNEWS protocol instead of the USENET news protocol used to retrieve 'news' objects. Therefore, the syntax of the 'hnews' URL scheme is hereby declared to be EXACTLY the same as the 'news' URL scheme except that 'hnews' URLs begin with the scheme designator "hnews" instead of the scheme designator "news". The semanatics of the 'hnews' URL scheme is hereby declared to be EXACTLY the same as the 'news' URL scheme except that objects referenced by 'hnews' URLs are retrieved with the HNEWS protocol defined in [1] instead of the USENET news protocol used to retrieve objects referenced by 'news' URLs. The default port (in server) of 'hnews' URLs is 80. See [NEWS_URL_SCHEME] for a description of the 'news' URL scheme. If the syntax or semantics of the 'news' URL scheme should be changed by future documents published by the IETF then those future documents also change the syntax or semantics of the 'hnews' URL scheme. 2. Examples An URL to read a newsgroup from anywhere (usually locally): <hnews:alt.adoptive.parenting> An URL to read a specific message from anywhere (usually locally): <hnews:EFGJG4.7A@deshaw.com> An URL to read a specific message from a designated site, using port 8080 instead of the default port of 80: <hnews://java.sun.com:8080/servlet/NewsServlet/5rb1or$67v@news.jumpnet.com> An URL to read a newsgroup from a designated site: <hnews://www.microsoft.com/cgi-bin/news/misc.transport.air-industry.cargo> An URL to read all the newsgroups from a designated site: Notice that the server name has multiple slashes in it. We know that no message number or message id is specified because the URL ends with a slash. URLs that include a message number or ID will never end with a slash. <hnews://www.adenine.c.dna.affrc.go.jp/cgi-bin/news/> 3. References [1] Ted Stockwell, "HNEWS: An HTTP-Tunneling News Protocol", Internet-Draft, <draft-stockwell-hnews-protocol-00.txt>, early morning software, July 1998 [NEWS_URL_SCHEME] Alfred S. Gilman, "The 'news' URL scheme", Internet-Draft, <draft-gilman-news-url-01.txt>, Arlington VA, March, 1998 [RFC-URI-SYNTAX] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., Masinter L., "Uniform Resource Locators (URL): Generic Syntax and Semantics", Work in Progress <draft-fielding-uri-syntax-02>, MIT/LCS, U.C. Irvine, Xerox Corporation, Mar 1998. 4. Author contact information: Ted Stockwell early morning software 2222 Preston Lakes Court Plainfield, IL 60544 emorning@ix.netcom.com