One document matched: draft-masinter-url-ipv6-02.txt

Differences from draft-masinter-url-ipv6-01.txt

INTERNET-DRAFT                      L. Masinter, J. Gettys, B. Carpenter
draft-masinter-url-ipv6-02
Expires six months after publication date                April 15, 1999

                     An ".ipv6" Top Level Pseudo-Domain

Status of this Memo

   This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with
   all provisions of Section 10 of RFC 2026.

   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
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   The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at
   http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt

   The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at
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Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999).  All Rights Reserved.

Abstract

   The normal textual representation for IPv6 addresses as a set
   of colon-separated hexadecimal numbers does not work well with
   most deployed URL-parsing software. This document describes an
   alternate format which will pass unharmed through most URL-parsing
   software.

1. Introduction

   The normal textual representation for IPv6 addresses as a set of
   colon-separated hexadecimal numbers does not work well with most
   deployed URL-parsing software. This document describes an alternate
   format which will pass unharmed through most URL-parsing software.

   Rather than describing an alternative syntax for IPv6
   addresses only within URLs, it proposes a pseudo-domain ".ipv6"
   for using a domain-name-like syntax that actually represents
   the literal IPv6 address.
   
2. Background

   The standard representation for IPv6 addresses in text is defined
   in section 2.2 of [RFC2373] ("Text Representation of Addresses").
   This representation uses hexadecimal values separated by colon ":",
   double colon "::", and optionally ending period-separated decimal
   values for the four low-order 8-bit pieces of the address.

   Unfortunately, using this IPv6 syntax within URLs [RFC2396] would
   be disruptive for many applications. Within the "hostport" section
   of the generic URI syntax, the colon is used to separate the host
   name or address from an (optional) port number. Thus, in some
   addresses, a colon followed by a decimal number could ambiguously
   be interpreted as a port designator or as a part of the IPv6
   address.
   
   Even if there were no ambiguity, this syntax is incompatible with a
   many deployed applications that parse (but do not resolve) URLs,
   including many CGI scripts, robots, search engines, and so forth.
   
3. Syntax
 
   This specification defines a simple, safe representation for IPv6
   addresses which can be used within URLs and also in other contexts.
   It does so by defining a syntax which will look like a domain name
   to otherwise unaware software.

   The syntax is best described as a transformation of the
   normal IPv6 syntax as defined in section 2.2 of [RFC2373];
   starting with such an address:

     1) replace every colon ":" with a "-"
     2) append ".ipv6" to the end

   Thus, an HTTP service available at port 70 of IPv6 address
   "ABCD:EF01::2345:10.9.8.7" could be written as
       
        http://ABCD-EF01--2345-10.9.8.7.ipv6:70/
    
   This syntax should always be used. Internet software that resolves
   host names and addresses in URLs should be modified to recognize
   the "ipv6" pseudo-domain.

4. Implementation considerations

   It would be useful for systems to uniformly recognize
   the "ipv6" pseudo-domain throughout, e.g., as a special
   case within "gethostbyname". [RFC 2133].


5. IANA considerations

   IANA is requested to reserve the "ipv6" top level pseudo-domain for
   the purpose outlined in this memo.
   
6. References

[RFC2396] R. Fielding, L. Masinter, T. Berners-Lee, "Uniform Resource
          Identifiers: Generic Syntax", August, 1998.
   
[RFC2373] R. Hinden, S. Deering. "IP Version 6 Addressing
          Architecture", July, 1998.

[RFC2133] R. Gilligan, S. Thomson, J. Bound, W.Stevens. 
          "Basic Socket Interface Extensions for IPv6".

7. Authors' Addresses

   Larry Masinter
   Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
   3333 Coyote Hill Road
   Palo Alto, CA 94034, USA
   Fax: +1 650 812 4365
   EMail: masinter@parc.xerox.com

   James Gettys
   MIT Laboratory for Computer Science
   545 Technology Square
   Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
   Fax: +1 617 258 8682
   Email: jg@w3.org

   Brian Carpenter
   IBM United Kingdom Laboratories
   MP 185, Hursley Park
   Winchester, Hampshire SO21 2JN, UK
   Email: brian@hursley.ibm.com


7. Full Copyright Statement

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999).  All Rights Reserved.

   This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
   others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain
   it or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied,
   published and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction
   of any kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this
   paragraph are included on all such copies and derivative works.
   However, this document itself may not be modified in any way, such
   as by removing the copyright notice or references to the Internet
   Society or other Internet organizations, except as needed for the
   purpose of developing Internet standards in which case the
   procedures for copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process
   must be followed, or as required to translate it into languages
   other than English.

   The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
   revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.

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   an "AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET
   ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
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