String Profile for Internet Small Computer Systems Interface (iSCSI) Names
RFC 3722
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RFC - Proposed Standard
(April 2004; No errata)
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Author |
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Mark Bakke
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Last updated |
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2015-10-14
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IETF
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plain text
html
pdf
htmlized
bibtex
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WG state
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(None)
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Document shepherd |
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No shepherd assigned
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IESG |
IESG state |
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RFC 3722 (Proposed Standard)
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Consensus Boilerplate |
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Unknown
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Telechat date |
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Responsible AD |
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Allison Mankin
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Send notices to |
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<ElizabethRodriguez@ieee.org>
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Network Working Group M. Bakke
Request for Comments: 3722 Cisco
Category: Standards Track April 2004
String Profile for Internet Small Computer
Systems Interface (iSCSI) Names
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 (2004). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
This document describes how to prepare internationalized iSCSI names
to increase the likelihood that name input and comparison work in
ways that make sense for typical users throughout the world.
The Internet Small Computer Systems Interface (iSCSI) protocol
provides a way for hosts to access SCSI devices over an IP network.
The iSCSI end-points, called initiators and targets, each have a
globally-unique name that must be transcribable, as well as easily
compared.
1. Introduction
The iSCSI protocol [RFC3720] provides a way for hosts to access SCSI
[SAM2] devices over an IP network. The iSCSI end-points, called
initiators and targets, each have a globally-unique name, defined in
[RFC3721].
An iSCSI name is a string of UTF-8 [RFC3629] characters that includes
a type designator, a naming authority based on domain names, and a
unique part within the naming authority. The unique part may be
generated based on anything the naming authority deems useful, and
may include user input.
These names may need to be transcribed (sent between two
administrators via email, voice, paper, etc), so a case-insensitive
comparison would be desirable. However, these names must often be
Bakke Standards Track [Page 1]
RFC 3722 String Profile for iSCSI Names April 2004
compared by initiator and target implementations, most of which are
done in simple, embedded software. This makes case-sensitive
comparison highly desirable for these implementors.
However, a completely case-sensitive implementation would result in
identifiers such as "example-name" and "Example-Name" being
different, which could lead to confusion as these names are
transcribed.
The goal, then, is to generate iSCSI names that can be transcribed
and entered by users, and also compared byte-for-byte, with minimal
confusion. To attain these goals, iSCSI names are generalized using
a normalized character set (converted to lower case or equivalent),
with no white space allowed, and very limited punctuation.
For those using only ASCII characters (U+0000 to U+007F), the
following characters are allowed:
- ASCII dash character ('-' = U+002d)
- ASCII dot character ('.' = U+002e)
- ASCII colon character (':' = U+003a)
- ASCII lower-case characters ('a'..'z' = U+0061..U+007a)
- ASCII digit characters ('0'..'9' = U+0030..U+0039)
In addition, any upper-case characters input via a user interface
MUST be mapped to their lower-case equivalents.
This document specifies the valid character set for iSCSI names,
along with the rules for normalizing and generating iSCSI names based
on user input or other information that contains international
characters.
In particular, it defines the following, as required by [RFC3454]:
- The intended applicability of the profile: internationalized iSCSI
names.
- The character repertoire that is the input and output to
stringprep: Unicode 3.2, specified in section 3.
- The mappings used: specified in section 4.
- The Unicode normalization used: specified in section 5.
- The characters that are prohibited as output: specified in section
6.
This profile MUST be used with the iSCSI protocol.
Bakke Standards Track [Page 2]
RFC 3722 String Profile for iSCSI Names April 2004
2. Terminology
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 [RFC2119].
Examples in this document use the notation for code points and names
from the Unicode Standard [Unicode3.2] and ISO/IEC 10646 [ISO10646].
For example, the letter "a" may be represented as either "U+0061" or
"LATIN SMALL LETTER A". In the lists of prohibited characters, the
"U+" is left off to make the lists easier to read. The comments for
character ranges are shown in square brackets (such as "[SYMBOLS]")
and do not come from the standards.
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