Handle System Protocol (ver 2.1) Specification
RFC 3652

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Network Working Group                                             S. Sun
Request for Comments: 3652                                     S. Reilly
Category: Informational                                        L. Lannom
                                                              J. Petrone
                                                                    CNRI
                                                           November 2003

            Handle System Protocol (ver 2.1) Specification

Status of this Memo

   This memo provides information for the Internet community.  It does
   not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution of this
   memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003).  All Rights Reserved.

IESG Note

   Several groups within the IETF and IRTF have discussed the Handle
   System and its relationship to existing systems of identifiers.  The
   IESG wishes to point out that these discussions have not resulted in
   IETF consensus on the described Handle System, nor on how it might
   fit into the IETF architecture for identifiers.  Though there has
   been discussion of handles as a form of URI, specifically as a URN,
   these documents describe an alternate view of how namespaces and
   identifiers might work on the Internet and include characterizations
   of existing systems which may not match the IETF consensus view.

Abstract

   The Handle System is a general-purpose global name service that
   allows secured name resolution and administration over the public
   Internet.  This document describes the protocol used for client
   software to access the Handle System for both handle resolution and
   administration.  The protocol specifies the procedure for a client
   software to locate the responsible handle server of any given handle.
   It also defines the messages exchanged between the client and server
   for any handle operation.

Sun, et al.                  Informational                      [Page 1]
RFC 3652             Handle System Protocol (v2.1)         November 2003

Table of Contents

   1.  Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.  Protocol Elements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
       2.1.  Conventions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
             2.1.1.  Data Transmission Order. . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
             2.1.2.  Transport Layer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
             2.1.3.  Character Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
             2.1.4.  Standard String Type: UTF8-String. . . . . . . .  7
       2.2.  Common Elements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
             2.2.1.  Message Envelope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
             2.2.2.  Message Header . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
             2.2.3.  Message Body . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
             2.2.4.  Message Credential . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
       2.3.  Message Transmission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
   3.  Handle Protocol Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
       3.1.  Client Bootstrapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
             3.1.1.  Global Handle Registry and its Service
                     Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
             3.1.2.  Locating the Handle System Service Component . . 22
             3.1.3.  Selecting the Responsible Server . . . . . . . . 23
       3.2.  Query Operation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
             3.2.1.  Query Request. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
             3.2.2.  Successful Query Response. . . . . . . . . . . . 25
             3.2.3.  Unsuccessful Query Response. . . . . . . . . . . 26
       3.3.  Error Response from Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
       3.4.  Service Referral . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
       3.5.  Client Authentication. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
             3.5.1.  Challenge from Server to Client. . . . . . . . . 29
             3.5.2.  Challenge-Response from Client to Server . . . . 30
             3.5.3.  Challenge-Response Verification-Request. . . . . 33
             3.5.4.  Challenge-Response Verification-Response . . . . 33
       3.6.  Handle Administration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
             3.6.1.  Add Handle Value(s). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
             3.6.2.  Remove Handle Value(s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
             3.6.3.  Modify Handle Value(s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
             3.6.4.  Create Handle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
             3.6.5.  Delete Handle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
       3.7.  Naming Authority (NA) Administration . . . . . . . . . . 40
             3.7.1.  List Handle(s) under a Naming Authority. . . . . 40
             3.7.2.  List Sub-Naming Authorities under a Naming
                     Authority. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41