Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) J. Rosenberg
Request for Comments: 6914 jdrosen.net
Category: Informational April 2013
ISSN: 2070-1721
SIMPLE Made Simple: An Overview of the IETF Specifications
for Instant Messaging and Presence Using
the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)
Abstract
The IETF has produced many specifications related to Presence and
Instant Messaging with the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP).
Collectively, these specifications are known as SIP for Instant
Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions (SIMPLE). This document
serves as a guide to the SIMPLE suite of specifications. It
categorizes the specifications, explains what each is for, and how
they relate to each other.
Status of This Memo
This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
published for informational purposes.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has
received public review and has been approved for publication by the
Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Not all documents
approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of Internet
Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 5741.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6914.
Rosenberg Informational [Page 1]RFC 6914 Simple Made Simple April 2013Copyright Notice
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Presence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1. Core Protocol Machinery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2. Presence Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.3. Privacy and Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.4. Provisioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.5. Federation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.6. Optimizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3. Instant Messaging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.1. Page Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.2. Session Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.3. IM Chat Rooms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.4. IM Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
5. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
6. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1. Introduction
The IETF has produced many specifications related to Presence and
Instant Messaging with the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)
[RFC3261]. Collectively, these specifications are known as SIP for
Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions (SIMPLE). These
specifications cover topics ranging from protocols for subscription
and publication to presence document formats to protocols for
managing privacy preferences. The large number of specifications can
make it hard to figure out exactly what SIMPLE is, what
specifications cover it, what functionality it provides, and how
these specifications relate to each other.
Rosenberg Informational [Page 2]RFC 6914 Simple Made Simple April 2013
This document serves to address these problems. It provides an
enumeration of the protocols that make up the SIMPLE suite of
specifications from IETF. It categorizes them into related areas of
functionality, briefly explains the purpose of each, and how the
specifications relate to each other. Each specification also
includes a letter that designates its category [RFC2026]. These
datatracker.ietf.org