Format for Literal IPv6 Addresses in URL's
RFC 2732
Document | Type |
RFC - Proposed Standard
(December 1999; Errata)
Obsoleted by RFC 3986
Updates RFC 2396
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---|---|---|---|
Authors | Brian Carpenter , Bob Hinden , Larry Masinter | ||
Last updated | 2020-01-21 | ||
Stream | IETF | ||
Formats | plain text html pdf htmlized with errata bibtex | ||
Stream | WG state | (None) | |
Document shepherd | No shepherd assigned | ||
IESG | IESG state | RFC 2732 (Proposed Standard) | |
Consensus Boilerplate | Unknown | ||
Telechat date | |||
Responsible AD | (None) | ||
Send notices to | (None) |
Network Working Group R. Hinden Request for Comments: 2732 Nokia Category: Standards Track B. Carpenter IBM L. Masinter AT&T December 1999 Format for Literal IPv6 Addresses in URL's Status of this Memo This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. Copyright Notice Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999). All Rights Reserved. Abstract This document defines the format for literal IPv6 Addresses in URL's for implementation in World Wide Web browsers. This format has been implemented in the IPv6 versions of several widely deployed browsers including Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla, and Lynx. It is also intended to be used in the IPv6 version of the service location protocol. This document incudes an update to the generic syntax for Uniform Resource Identifiers defined in RFC 2396 [URL]. It defines a syntax for IPv6 addresses and allows the use of "[" and "]" within a URI explicitly for this reserved purpose. 1. Introduction The textual representation defined for literal IPv6 addresses in [ARCH] is not directly compatible with URL's. Both use ":" and "." characters as delimiters. This document defines the format for literal IPv6 Addresses in URL's for implementation in World Wide Web browsers. The goal is to have a format that allows easy "cut" and "paste" operations with a minimum of editing of the literal address. Hinden, et al. Standards Track [Page 1] RFC 2732 IPv6 Literal Addresses in URL's December 1999 The format defined in this document has been implemented in the IPv6 versions of several widely deployed browsers including Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla, and Lynx. It is also intended to be used in the IPv6 version of the service location protocol. 1.1 Requirements The keywords MUST, MUST NOT, REQUIRED, SHALL, SHALL NOT, SHOULD, SHOULD NOT, RECOMMENDED, MAY, and OPTIONAL, if and where they appear in this document, are to be interpreted as described in [KEYWORDS]. World Wide Web browsers SHOULD implement the format of IPv6 literals in URL's defined in this document. Other types of applications and protocols that use URL's MAY use this format. 2. Literal IPv6 Address Format in URL's Syntax To use a literal IPv6 address in a URL, the literal address should be enclosed in "[" and "]" characters. For example the following literal IPv6 addresses: FEDC:BA98:7654:3210:FEDC:BA98:7654:3210 1080:0:0:0:8:800:200C:4171 3ffe:2a00:100:7031::1 1080::8:800:200C:417A ::192.9.5.5 ::FFFF:129.144.52.38 2010:836B:4179::836B:4179 would be represented as in the following example URLs: http://[FEDC:BA98:7654:3210:FEDC:BA98:7654:3210]:80/index.html http://[1080:0:0:0:8:800:200C:417A]/index.html http://[3ffe:2a00:100:7031::1] http://[1080::8:800:200C:417A]/foo http://[::192.9.5.5]/ipng http://[::FFFF:129.144.52.38]:80/index.html http://[2010:836B:4179::836B:4179] 3. Changes to RFC 2396 This document updates the generic syntax for Uniform Resource Identifiers defined in RFC 2396 [URL]. It defines a syntax for IPv6 addresses and allows the use of "[" and "]" within a URI explicitly for this reserved purpose. Hinden, et al. Standards Track [Page 2] RFC 2732 IPv6 Literal Addresses in URL's December 1999 The following changes to the syntax in RFC 2396 are made: (1) change the 'host' non-terminal to add an IPv6 option: host = hostname | IPv4address | IPv6reference ipv6reference = "[" IPv6address "]" where IPv6address is defined as in RFC2373 [ARCH]. (2) Replace the definition of 'IPv4address' with that of RFC 2373, as it correctly defines an IPv4address as consisting of at most three decimal digits per segment. (3) Add "[" and "]" to the set of 'reserved' characters: reserved = ";" | "/" | "?" | ":" | "@" | "&" | "=" | "+" | "$" | "," | "[" | "]" and remove them from the 'unwise' set: unwise = "{" | "}" | "|" | "\" | "^" | "`" 4. Security Considerations The use of this approach to represent literal IPv6 addresses in URL'sShow full document text