Uniform Resource Name (URN) Syntax
draft-ietf-urnbis-rfc2141bis-urn-01
The information below is for an old version of the document.
| Document | Type |
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft that was ultimately published as RFC 8141.
|
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Author | Alfred Hoenes | ||
| Last updated | 2011-10-31 (Latest revision 2010-11-29) | ||
| Replaces | draft-ah-rfc2141bis-urn | ||
| RFC stream | Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) | ||
| Formats | |||
| Reviews | |||
| Additional resources | Mailing list discussion | ||
| Stream | WG state | WG Document | |
| Document shepherd | (None) | ||
| IESG | IESG state | Became RFC 8141 (Proposed Standard) | |
| Consensus boilerplate | Unknown | ||
| Telechat date | (None) | ||
| Responsible AD | (None) | ||
| Send notices to | (None) |
draft-ietf-urnbis-rfc2141bis-urn-01
IETF URNbis WG A. Hoenes, Ed.
Internet-Draft TR-Sys
Obsoletes: 2141 (if approved) October 31, 2011
Intended status: Standards Track
Expires: May 3, 2012
Uniform Resource Name (URN) Syntax
draft-ietf-urnbis-rfc2141bis-urn-01
Abstract
Uniform Resource Names (URNs) are intended to serve as persistent,
location-independent, resource identifiers. This document serves as
the foundation of the 'urn' URI Scheme according to RFC 3986 and sets
forward the canonical syntax for URNs, which subdivides URNs into
"namespaces". A discussion of both existing legacy and new
namespaces and requirements for URN presentation and transmission are
presented. Finally, there is a discussion of URN equivalence and how
to determine it. This document supersedes RFC 2141.
The requirements and procedures for URN Namespace registration
documents are currently set forth in RFC 3406, which is also being
updated by a companion, revised specification dubbed RFC 3406bis.
Discussion
Comments are welcome on the urn@ietf.org mailing list (or sent to the
document editor). The home page of the URNbis WG is located at
<http://tools.IETF.ORG/wg/urnbis/>.
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
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 progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on May 3, 2012.
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Copyright Notice
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This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
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Without obtaining an adequate license from the person(s) controlling
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not be created outside the IETF Standards Process, except to format
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.1. Historical Perspective and Motivation . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2. Background on Properties of URNs . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.3. Objective of this Memo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.4. Requirement Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2. URN Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.1. Namespace Identifier (NID) Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.2. Namespace Specific String (NSS) Syntax . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.3. Special and Reserved Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.3.1. Delimiter Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.3.2. The Percent Character, Percent-Encoding . . . . . . . 14
2.3.3. Other Excluded Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3. Support of Existing Legacy Naming Systems and New Naming
Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4. URN Presentation and Transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
5. Lexical Equivalence of URNs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5.1. Examples of Lexical Equivalence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
6. Functional Equivalence of URNs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
7. The 'urn' URI Scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
7.1. Registration of URI Scheme 'urn' . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
8. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
9. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
10. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
11. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
11.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
11.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Appendix A. Handling of URNs by URL Resolvers/Browsers . . . . . 23
Appendix B. Collected ABNF (Informative) . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Appendix C. Breakdown of NSS Syntax Evolution since RFC 2141
(Informative) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Appendix D. Changes since RFC 2141 (Informative) . . . . . . . . 26
D.1. Essential Changes from RFC 2141 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
D.2. Changes from RFC 2141 to Individual Draft -00 . . . . . . 26
D.3. Changes from Individual Draft -00 to -02 . . . . . . . . . 27
D.4. Changes from Individual Draft -02 to WG Draft -00 . . . . 27
D.5. Changes from WG Draft -00 to WG Draft -01 . . . . . . . . 27
Appendix E. How to Locate IETF Documents (Informative) . . . . . 28
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1. Introduction
Uniform Resource Names (URNs) are intended to serve as persistent,
location-independent, resource identifiers and are designed to make
it easy to map other namespaces (that share the properties of URNs)
into URI-space. Therefore, the URN syntax provides a means to encode
character data in a form that can be sent in existing protocols,
transcribed on most keyboards, etc.
To this end, URNs are designed as an intrinsic part of the more
general framework of Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs); 'urn' is a
particular URI Scheme (according to STD 66, RFC 3986 [RFC3986] and
BCP 35, RFC 4395 [RFC4395]) that is dedicated to forming a
hierarchical framework for persistent identifiers.
The first level of hierarchy is given by the classification of URIs
into "URI Schemes", and for URNs, the second level is organized into
"URN Namespaces". Henceforth both terms are used in this
capitalization to distinguish them from the more general common
meaning of "scheme" and "namespace".
It is an explicit design goal that pre-existing systems of persistent
identifiers are mapped into the URN framework. Ordinarily, each such
traditional identifier system (namespace) -- standard or otherwise --
will occupy its own URN Namespace. However, shared URN Namespaces
are possible (and in fact, already exist), but the identifier-driven
mechanisms needed to distinguish the originating namespaces make
registration and maintenance of such URN Namespaces more complicated.
URN (as a URI Scheme) as such does not have a specific scope. The
applicability of the URN system, that is, the totality of the
resources that URNs can be assigned to, is the union of all
identifier systems that have a registered URN namespaces. Ideally
every new namespace will thus extend the URN applicability.
1.1. Historical Perspective and Motivation
Since this RFC will be of particular interest for groups and
individuals that are interested in persistent identifiers in general
and not in continuous contact with the IETF and the RFC series, this
section gives a brief outline of the evolution of the matter over
time. Appendix E gives hints on how to obtain RFCs and related
information.
Attempts to define generally applicable identifiers for network
resources go back to the mid-1970s. Among the applicable RFCs is RFC
615 [RFC0615], which subsequently has been obsoleted by RFC 645
[RFC0645].
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The seminal document in the RFC series regarding URIs (Uniform
Resource Identifiers) for use with the World Wide Web (WWW) was RFC
1630 [RFC1630], published in 1994. In the same year, the general
concept or Uniform Resource Names has been laid down in RFC 1737
[RFC1737] and that of Uniform Resource Locators in RFC 1736
[RFC1736].
The original formal specification of URN Syntax, RFC 2141 [RFC2141]
was adopted in 1997. That document was based on the original
specification of URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) in RFC 1738
[RFC1738] and RFC 1808 [RFC1808], which later on, in 1998, was
generalized and consolidated in the Generic URI specification,
RFC 2396 [RFC2396]. Most parts of these URI/URL documents were
superseded in 2005 by STD 66, RFC 3986 [RFC3986]. Notably, RFC 2141
makes (essentially normative) reference to a draft version of
RFC 2396.
Over time, the terms "URI", "URL", and "URN" have been refined and
slightly shifted according to emerging insight and use. This has
been clarified in a joint effort of the IETF and the World Wide Web
Council, published 2002 for the IETF in RFC 3305 [RFC3305].
The wealth of URI Schemes and URN Namespaces needs to be organized in
a persistent way, in order to guide application developers and users
to the standardized top level branches and the related
specifications. These registries are maintained by the Internet
Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) [IANA] at [IANA-URI] and
[IANA-URN], respectively. Registration procedures for URI Schemes
originally had been laid down in RFC 2717 [RFC2717] and guidelines
for the related specification documents were given in RFC 2718
[RFC2718]. These documents have been obsoleted and consolidated into
BCP 35, RFC 4395 [RFC4395], which is based on, and aligned with,
RFC 3986.
Note that RFC 2141 predates RFC 2717 and, although the 'urn' URI
scheme traditionally was listed in [IANA-URI] with a pointer to
RFC 2141, this registration has never been performed formally.
Similarly, the URN Namespace definition and registration mechanisms
originally have been specified in RFC 2611 [RFC2611], which has been
obsoleted by BCP 66, RFC 3406 [RFC3406]. Guidelines for documents
prescribing IANA procedures have been revised as well over the years,
and at the time of this writing, BCP 26, RFC 5226 [RFC5226] is the
normative document. Neither RFC 4395 nor RFC 3406 conform to
RFC 5226.
Early documents specifying URI and URN syntax, including RFC 2141,
made use of an ad-hoc variant of the original Backus-Naur Form (BNF)
that never has been formally specified.
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Over the years, the IETF has shifted to the use of a predominant
formal language used to define the syntax of textual protocol
elements, dubbed "Augmented Backus-Naur Form" (ABNF). The
specification of ABNF also has evolved, and now STD 68, RFC 5234
[RFC5234] is the normative document for it (that also will be used in
this RFC).
1.2. Background on Properties of URNs
RFC 1738 [RFC1738] defined the purpose of URNs as follows:
o The purpose or function of a URN is to provide a globally unique,
persistent identifier used for recognition, for access to
characteristics of the resource, or for access to the resource
itself.
Section 2 of RFC 1738 [RFC1738] listed the functional requirements
for URNs (quote slightly edited to reflect the time passed since that
RFC was written and the actual definition of the URN scheme that has
happened):
o Global scope: A URN is a name with global scope which does not
imply a location. It has the same meaning everywhere.
o Global uniqueness: The same URN will never be assigned to two
different resources.
o Persistence: It is intended that the lifetime of a URN be
permanent. That is, the URN will be globally unique forever, and
may well be used as a reference to a resource well beyond the
lifetime of the resource it identifies or of any naming authority
involved in the assignment of its name.
o Scalability: URNs can be assigned to any resource that might
conceivably be available on the network, for hundreds of years.
o Legacy support: The URN scheme permits the support of existing
legacy naming systems, insofar as they satisfy the other
requirements described here. [...]
o Extensibility: The URN scheme permits future extensions.
o Independence: It is solely the responsibility of a name issuing
authority to determine the conditions under which it will issue a
name.
o Resolution: URNs will not impede resolution. [...]
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The URN syntax described below also accommodates the fundamental
"Requirements for URN Encoding" in Section 3 of RFC 1738 [RFC1738],
as far as experience gained has not lead to lessen unrealistical
detail requirements:
o Single encoding: The encoding for presentation for people in clear
text, electronic mail and the like is the same as the encoding in
other transmissions.
o Simple comparison: A comparison algorithm for URNs is simple,
local, and deterministic. [...]
o Human transcribability: For URNs to be easily transcribable by
humans without error, they need to be short, use a minimum of
special characters, and be case insensitive. [...]
Note:
In particular practice gained with active URN Namespaces has shown
that this former goal is rather unrealistic, since usually
preference is given to 1:1 usage of existing namespaces, which
might not have this property. However, we hold that, at least,
the rough kind of resource identified by a URN should be easily
recognizable for humans.
o Transport friendliness: A URN can be transported unmodified in the
common Internet protocols, such as TCP, SMTP, FTP, Telnet, etc.,
as well as printed paper.
o Machine consumption: A URN can be parsed by a computer.
o Text recognition: The encoding of a URN needs to enhance the
ability to find and parse URNs in free text.
1.3. Objective of this Memo
RFC 2141 does not seamlessly match current Internet Standards. The
primary objective of this document is the alignment with the URI
standard [RFC3986] and URI Scheme guidelines [RFC4395], the ABNF
standard [RFC5234] and the current IANA Guidelines [RFC5226] in
general.
Further, experience from emerging international efforts to establish
a general, distributed, stable URN resolution service have been taken
into account during the draft stage of this document.
For advancing the URN specification on the Internet Standards-Track,
it needs to be based on documents of comparable maturity. Therefore,
to further advancements of the formal maturity level of this RFC, it
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deliberately makes normative references only to documents at Full
Standard or Best Current Practice level.
Thus, this replacement document for RFC 2141 should make it possible
to advance the URN framework on the Internet Standard maturity
ladder. All other related documents depend on it; therefore this is
the first step to undertake.
Out of scope for this document is a revision of the URN Namespace
Definition Mechanisms document, BCP 66. This is being undertaken in
a companion document, RFC 3406bis
[I-D.ietf-urnbis-rfc3406bis-urn-ns-reg].
1.4. Requirement Language
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 RFC 2119 [RFC2119].
2. URN Syntax
This document defines the URI Scheme 'urn'. Hence, URNs are specific
URIs as specified in STD 66 [RFC3986]. The formal syntax definitions
below are given in ABNF according to STD 68 [RFC5234] and make use of
some "Core Rules" specified in Appendix B of that Standard and
several generic rules defined in Appendix A of RFC 3986.
The syntax definitions below do, and syntax definitions in dependent
documents MUST, conform to the URI syntax specified in RFC 3986, in
the sense that additional syntax rules must only constrain the
general rules from RFC 3986. In other words: a general URI parser
based on RFC 3986 MUST be able to parse any legal URN, and specific
semantics can be obtained from URN-specific parsing.
NOTE: The remainder of this Section still requires substantial
work! To give a starting point for WG discussion, within this
entire Section, much of the elaborations and editorial comments
from the Individual I-D predecessor of this draft are kept. This
will be cleaned up after discussion.
URNs conform to the <path-rootless> variant of the general URI syntax
specified in Section 3 of [RFC3986] :
URI = scheme ":" path-rootless [ "?" query ] [ "#" fragment ]
path-rootless = segment-nz *( "/" segment )
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segment-nz = 1*pchar
segment = *pchar
pchar = unreserved / pct-encoded / sub-delims / ":" / "@"
In the case of URNs, we have:
scheme = "urn"
and for <path-rootless>, only a single segment is used, but the
following additional syntax rule is superimposed on <path-rootless>
to establish a level of hierarchy called "Namespace":
urn-path = NID ":" NSS
Here "urn" is the URI scheme name, <NID> is the Namespace Identifier,
and <NSS> is the Namespace Specific String. The colons are REQUIRED
separator characters.
Per RFC 3986, the URN Scheme name (here "urn") is case-insensitive.
The Namespace ID (also a case-insensitive string) determines the
syntactic structure and the semantic interpretation of the Namespace
Specific String. Details on NID syntax can be found below in
Section 2.1, and the NSS syntax is elaborated upon in Section 2.2.
Each particular namespace is based on a specific document that must
normatively describe (among other things) the details of the <NSS>
values allowed in conjunction with the respective <NID>. The syntax
and semantics of these <NID> values are ordinarily specified by an
existing persistent identifier system (namespace); for instance, in
the 'ISBN' URN Namespace, each NSS must be a valid ISBN. Some
namespaces may have strict rules for well formed NSSs, while some
others may be far more relaxed. There may also be significant
differences regarding the identifier assignment process. The overall
specification requirements and registration procedures for URN
Namespaces are the subject of a dedicated document, currently RFC
3406 [RFC3406] -- now being updated for conformance to BCP 26 and
alignment with implementation experience, in RFC 3406bis
[I-D.ietf-urnbis-rfc3406bis-urn-ns-reg].
Notes:
RFC 2141 has deferred the decision on whether <query> and
<fragment> components are applicable to URNs and reserved the use
of bare (unencoded) question mark ("?") and hash ("#") characters
in URNs for future usage in conformance with the generic URI
syntax.
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There is evidence of desire to be able to use these components
(which are split off by the high-level parsing rules of RFC 3986),
or at least the <fragment> component, in URNs belonging to
selected namespaces. Thus, this draft version tentatively aims at
allowing these components in the general syntax.
It has been pointed out recently that contemporary web browsers do
not communicate fragment identifiers to the web server but perform
fragment selection locally on the returned (HTML) resource. This
seems to violate Section 3.5, para 1 of RFC 3986, which indicates
that "The fragment identifier ... allows indirect identification
of a secondary resource by reference to a primary resource and
additional identifying information. The identified secondary
resource may be some portion or subset of the primary resource,
some view on representations of the primary resource, or some
other resource defined or described by those representations."
Hence, if the fragment identifier is stripped off a URI, the
recipient is unable to make a selection of "some view on
representations of the primary resource ..." based on it.
However, this empirical observation indicates that URN Namespaces
that rely on (unmodified) browser resolution via HTTP/HTML cannot
rely on the usage of fragment identifiers to steer the resolution
process. Thus, the use of fragment identifiers only seems to be
useful for URN Namespaces that are intended to either (a)
exclusively make use of resolution systems / clients that can cope
with handing off a full-featured URN (including a possible
fragment identifier) to the resolution service, or (b) exclusively
emply HTML/HTTP based resolution systems / clients, i.e. where the
resolution results are returned as HTML such that web browsers can
perform the fragment selection, or as some other media type that
supports embedded fragment identifiers supported by off-the-shelf
web browsers -- perhaps possible for certain variants of XML-based
media types.
The considerations below reflect the current thinking based on
implementation experience and ongoing discussion.
The syntax of <query> and <fragment> are defined in RFC 3986.
Question mark and hash sign remain reserved as separator characters
for these URI components and cannot appear unencoded in a NSS. This
way, backwards compatibility with existing URN namespaces is
guaranteed and compatibility with general URI parsers is improved.
The <query> part MUST NOT be present in any *assigned* URN. This
specification reserves its use for future standardization related to
URN resolution. This part can only be added to an assigned URN and
appear in a URI reference [RFC3986] to a URN that is intended to be
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used with URN resolution services, and, in accordance with the
general specification of this part in RFC 3986, its purpose is
restricted to designate service aspects of the intended resolution
response, e.g., to select the kind and amount of metadata sought
about the given object that is identified by the basic, assigned URN.
The <fragment> part is not generally allowed in URNs. It is only
applicable to URN Namespaces that specifically opt to support its
usage. Thus, a URN Namespace registration document MAY specify the
usage of <fragment> with URNs of that particular URN Namespace.
Absent a registered namespace definition based on this document and
RFC 3406bis that explicitly specifies its usage, URNs within a
particular URN Namespace MUST NOT contain a fragment identifier.
The use of fragment identifiers may be useful if the URN Namespace is
based on an existing identifier scheme that designates objects of
reasonable complexity such that there is a need to make reference of
parts of such resources in typical network access environments
without incurring the effort to assign and maintain different
(assigned) NSSs in such cases.
A URN Namespace definition has two options to support fragment
identifiers, and in general, only one of these methods is possible
within a given URN Namespace:
(a) Fragment identifiers (if any) are assigned individually to parts
of a larger entity during the URN assignment process. If a URN
Namespace opts for this model, its specification MUST describe
the additional syntax restrictions to be adhered and the
particulars of the (per-URN) assignment process.
(b) A specific set of fragment identifiers is generally applicable
to all resources targeted by URNs of the specific URN Namespace.
In this case, the specification document MUST specify a finite
set of <fragment> values, or precise, generic rules for the
formation of syntactically valid fragment identifiers for the
particular URN Namespace. The specification SHOULD indicate the
treatment of syntactically valid <fragment> values in case they
are not semantically valid for a given base URN. Absent such
specification, the default is to ignore such fragment
identifiers.
URN resolver clients MUST pass a given <fragment> part of a URN
unchanged to the resolver service. The default URN resolution
behavior is to ignore any <fragment> part if either the applicable
URN Namespace definition did not specify its use, or if no specific
related information was available for the basic resource in case (b)
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above, or if that basic URN plus fragment identifier has not been
assigned in case (a) above.
2.1. Namespace Identifier (NID) Syntax
The following is the syntax for the Namespace Identifier. To (i) be
consistent with all potential resolution schemes and (ii) not put any
undue constraints on any potential resolution scheme, Namespace
Identifiers are ASCII strings with the syntax:
NID = ( ALPHA / DIGIT ) 1*31( ALPHA / DIGIT / "-" )
Note for discussion:
The above definition is taken from RFC 2141 and changed to reflect
requirements from RFC 3406[bis]. RFC 3406[bis] contains further
syntax restrictions on NID strings.
Should this be further restricted, e.g., to avoid possible
confusion caused by multiple adjacent hyphens and NIDs looking
like a numerical value or a numerical range?
Does the WG opt to move the more restrictive NID syntax details
from the rfc3406bis draft to this section?
Such restrictions would be fully backward compatible because no
NIDs have been defined so far that would violate these
restrictions. Hyphens have been used only in the naming pattern
for "Informal Namespace IDs" per RFC 3406[bis].
Namespace Identifiers are case-insensitive, so that for instance
"ISBN" and "isbn" refer to the same namespace.
To avoid confusion with the URI Scheme name "urn", the NID "urn" is
permanently reserved by this RFC and MUST NOT be used or registered.
Note for discussion:
This reservation is carried over unchanged from RFC 2141, for
historical reasons. Further possible reservations and/or details
are out of scope for this document, but within the scope of the
rfc3406bis draft!
2.2. Namespace Specific String (NSS) Syntax
As already required since RFC 1737, there is a single canonical
representation of the NSS portion of an URN.
The format of this single canonical form follows:
NSS = 1*pchar ; or equivalent: NSS = segment-nz
(<pchar> and <segment-nz> are defined in Section 3.3 of RFC 3986.)
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Note: The informational Appendix C expands on the evolution of the
NSS syntax specification since RFC 2141.
Depending on the rules governing a namespace, valid identifiers in a
namespace might contain characters that are not members of the URN
character repertoire above (<pchar>). In order to achieve
conformance with this NSS specification, such strings MUST be
translated into canonical NSS format before embedding them into a
URN, using them as protocol elements, or otherwise passing them on to
other applications. Translation is done by encoding each character
outside the URN character repertoire as a sequence of octets using
UTF-8 encoding STD 63 [RFC3629], and the "percent-encoding" of each
of those octets as "%" followed by two <HEXDIG> characters. The
latter two characters form the hexadecimal representation of that
octet.
2.3. Special and Reserved Characters
The remaining printable characters not included in the <pchar>
repertoire comprise the generic delimiters and the reserved
characters, which are restricted for special use only. These
characters are discussed below, giving the specifics of why each
character is special or reserved.
2.3.1. Delimiter Characters
RFC 3986 [RFC3986] defines the general delimiter characters used in
URIs:
gen-delims = ":" / "/" / "?" / "#" / "[" / "]" / "@"
From among the <gen-delims>, ":" and "@" are also included in <pchar>
and hence allowed in the path components of URIs.
The at-character ("@") in generic URIs only has a specific meaning
when contained in the <authority> part, which is absent in URNs.
Hence, "@" is available in the <NSS> part of URNs.
With URNs, the colon (":") is used as a delimiter character not only
between the scheme name ("urn") and the <NID>, but also between the
latter and the <NSS>, and many existing URN namespaces additionally
use ":" to further subdivide a single RFC 3986 path segment in the
<NSS> in a hierarchical manner.
Note: Using ":" as a sub-delimiter in the path in favor of "/" is
attractive because it avoids possible complications that could arise
from accidental inappropriate use of relative URI references
[RFC3986] for URNs.
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The characters "/", "?", and "#" separate path components and the
<query> and <fragment> parts in the generic URI syntax; they are
restricted to this role in URNs as well, although the <path> in URNs
only admits a single <segment> and hence "/" is not allowed.
Therefore, these characters MUST NOT appear literally in the <NSS>
part of a URN in unencoded form. Namespaces that need these
characters MUST employ in their URNs the appropriate percent-encoding
for each such character.
The square brackets ("[" and "]") also play a particular role when
contained in the <authority> part, which is absent in URNs. However,
for conformance with the generic URI syntax, they are not allowed
literally in the <NSS> component of URNs. If a specific URN
namespace reflects semantics that require these characters, they MUST
be percent-encoded in the respective URNs.
2.3.2. The Percent Character, Percent-Encoding
The percent character ("%") is reserved in the URN syntax for
introducing the escape sequence for an octet that is either not a
printable ASCII character or reserved for special purposes, as
described in this section. The presence of a "%" character in a URN
MUST always be followed by two <HEXDIG> characters, which three
together semanticaly form an abstract <pct-encoded> octet. Literal
use of the "%" character in an underlying namespace MUST therefore be
encoded as "%25" in URNs for that namespace.
Namespaces MAY designate one or more characters from the URN
character repertoire as having special meaning for that namespace.
If the namespace also uses that character in a literal sense as well,
the character used in a literal sense MUST be encoded with "%"
followed by the hexadecimal representation of that octet. Further, a
character MUST NOT be percent-encoded if the character is not a
reserved character. Therefore, the process of registering a
namespace identifier shall include publication of a definition of
which characters have a special meaning to that namespace -- cf. RFC
3406bis [I-D.ietf-urnbis-rfc3406bis-urn-ns-reg].
2.3.3. Other Excluded Characters
The following list is included only for the sake of completeness. It
includes the characters discussed in Sections 2.3.1 and 2.3.2. Any
octets/characters on this list are explicitly NOT part of the URN
<NSS> character repertoire, and if used in an URN, MUST be percent-
encoded.
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excluded = CTL / SP ; control characters and space
/ DQUOTE ; "
/ "#" ; from <gen-delims>
/ "%" ; see above
/ "/" ; from <gen-delims>
/ "<" / ">"
/ "?" ; from <gen-delims>
/ "[" ; from <gen-delims>
/ "\"
/ "]" ; from <gen-delims>
/ "^"
/ "`"
/ "{" / "|" / "}"
/ %x7F ; DEL (control character)
/ %x80-FF ; non-ASCII
The NUL octet (0 hex) is renowned for a long history of trouble in
implementations. It MUST NOT be used in URNs, in either unencoded or
percent-encoded form.
In a textual context for a URN, the NSS part ends when an octet/
character from the excluded character set (<excluded>) is
encountered. The character from the excluded character set is NOT
part of the NSS.
The more general issue of discerning URNs in non-structured text is
not specific to URNs, but a general issue for recognizing URIs (by
humans or automata), and hence out of scope of this document.
3. Support of Existing Legacy Naming Systems and New Naming Systems
Any namespace (existing or newly devised) that is proposed as a URN
namespace and fulfills the criteria of URN namespaces MUST be
expressed in this syntax. If names in these namespaces contain
characters other than those defined for the URN character set, they
MUST be translated into canonical form as discussed in Section 2.2.
4. URN Presentation and Transport
The URN syntax defines the canonical format for URNs and all URN
transport and interchanges MUST take place in this format. Further,
all URN-aware applications MUST offer the option of displaying URNs
in this canonical form to allow for direct transcription (for example
by cut-and-paste techniques). Such applications MAY support display
of URNs in a more human-friendly form and may use a character set
that includes characters that aren't permitted in URN syntax as
defined in this RFC (that is, they may replace %-notation by
characters in some extended character set in display to humans).
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5. Lexical Equivalence of URNs
For various purposes such as caching, it is often desirable to
determine whether two URNs are the same without resolving them. The
general-purpose means of doing so is by testing for "lexical
equivalence" as defined below.
Two URNs are lexically equivalent if they are octet-by-octet equal
after the following preprocessing:
1. normalize the case of the leading "urn" scheme name;
2. normalize the case of the NID;
3. normalize the case of any percent-encoding.
Note that percent-encoding MUST NOT be removed. It is an
implementation detail not affecting interoperability whether a URN
comparison function internally prefers normalization (in the above 3
steps) to lower or to upper case.
Some namespaces may define additional lexical equivalences, such as
case-insensitivity of the NSS (or parts thereof). Additional lexical
equivalences MUST be documented as part of namespace registration,
MUST always only have the effect of eliminating some of the false
negatives obtained by the procedure above, i.e. they MUST NOT say
that two URNs are not equivalent if the procedure above says they are
equivalent.
5.1. Examples of Lexical Equivalence
The following hypothetical URN comparisons highlight the lexical
equivalence definitions:
1- URN:foo:a123,456
2- urn:foo:a123,456
3- urn:FOO:a123,456
4- urn:foo:A123,456
5- urn:foo:a123%2C456
6- URN:FOO:a123%2c456
URNs 1, 2, and 3 are all lexically equivalent. URN 4 is not
lexically equivalent to any of the other URNs of the above set.
URNs 5 and 6 are only lexically equivalent to each other.
6. Functional Equivalence of URNs
Functional equivalence is determined by practice within a given
namespace and managed by resolvers for that namespace. Thus, it is
beyond the scope of this document. Namespace registrations must
include guidance on how to determine functional equivalence for that
namespace, i.e., when two URNs are identical within a namespace.
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On the other hand, it is permissible to have two different URNs --
even from different URN namespaces -- be assigned to a particular
resource. This can only be detected by resolving the URNs and
analysis of the resolution responses; hence, this is out of scope for
this memo.
7. The 'urn' URI Scheme
At the time of publication of RFC 2141, no formal registration
procedure for URI Schemes had been established yet, and so IANA only
informally has registered the 'urn' URI Scheme with a reference to
[RFC2141].
Section 7.1 below contains the URI scheme registration template for
the 'urn' scheme, in accordance with RFC 4395 [RFC4395].
Note: In order to be usable as a standalone text (after being
extracted from this RFC), the template below does not contain
formal anchors to the references listed in Section 11, but instead
gives the common document designations in prose. However, for
compliance with editorial policy, it needs to be noted here:
This registration template refers to RFCs 2196, 2276, 2608, 3401
through 3404, 3406bis, 3629 (STD 63), and 3986 (STD 66) ([RFC2169]
[RFC2276] [RFC2608] [RFC3401] [RFC3402] [RFC3403] [RFC3404]
[I-D.ietf-urnbis-rfc3406bis-urn-ns-reg] [RFC3629] [RFC3986]).
7.1. Registration of URI Scheme 'urn'
[ RFC Editor: Please replace "XXXX" in all instances of "RFC XXXX"
below by the RFC number assigned to this document. ]
URI scheme name: urn
Status: permanent
URI scheme syntax:
See Section 2 of RFC XXXX.
URI scheme semantics:
'urn' URIs, known as Universal Resource Names (URNs), serve as
persistent, location-independent, resource identifiers for
concrete and abstract objects that have network accessible
instances and/or metadata.
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URNs are structured hierarchically into URN Namespaces, the
management of which is delegated to namespace-specific
authorities. Each such URN namespace is founded in an independent
specification and registered with IANA, following the guidelines
and procedures of BCP 66 (at the time of this registration: RFC
3406, an update is in progress as RFC 3406bis
[I-D.ietf-urnbis-rfc3406bis-urn-ns-reg]).
Encoding considerations:
All URNs are ASCII strings conforming to the general URI syntax
from STD 66. As described in Sections 2.2 and 2.3.2 of RFC XXXX,
characters needed by the URN namespace specific semantics but not
contained in the US-ASCII charset MUST be encoded in UTF-8
according to STD 63; any octets outside the allowed character set
MUST then be percent-encoded.
Applications/protocols that use this URI scheme:
URNs that serve to identify abstract resources for protocol
purposes are expected to be recognized directly by the
implementations of these portocols.
In general, resolution systems for URNs are specified on a per-
namespace basis. If appropriate for the namespace, these systems
resolve URNs to (possibly multiple) URIs that allow the network
access to the identified object or metadata on it.
"Architectural Principles of Uniform Resource Name Resolution"
(RFC 2276) explains the basic concepts. Some resolution systems
laid down in IETF specifications are:
* Trivial HTTP-based URN Resolution (RFC 2169)
* Dynamic Delegation Discovery System (DDDS, RFCs 3401-3404)
* Service Location Protocol (SLPv2, RFC 2608)
Interoperability Considerations:
Persistence and stability of URNs require appropriate resolution
systems.
Security Considerations:
See Section 8 of RFC XXXX.
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Contact:
The IETF URNbis working group.
This registration will be discussed on the following IETF lists:
urn and uri-review (AT ietf.org).
Author / Change controller:
The authors of RFC XXXX.
Change control is with the IESG.
References:
RFC XXXX.
Procedures for the specification and registration of URN
namespaces are detailed in BCP 66 (at the time of this writing:
RFC 3406; an update is in progress in the URNbis WG as RFC 3406bis
[I-D.ietf-urnbis-rfc3406bis-urn-ns-reg]).
8. Security Considerations
This document specifies the syntax and general requirements for URNs,
which are the specific URIs that use the 'urn' URI scheme. As such,
the general security considerations of STD 66 [RFC3986] apply.
However, each URN namespace will have specific security
considerations, according to the semantics and usage of the
underlying namespace. While some namespaces may assign special
meaning to particular characters generically allowed in the Namespace
Specific String, any security considerations resulting from such
assignment are outside the scope of this document. It is REQUIRED by
BCP 66 (currently [RFC3406], to be replaced by RFC 3406bis
[I-D.ietf-urnbis-rfc3406bis-urn-ns-reg]) that the process of
registering a namespace identifier include any such considerations.
9. IANA Considerations
IANA is asked to update the existing informal registration of the
'urn' URI Scheme by the template in Section 7.1 above and list this
RFC as the current normative reference in [IANA-URI].
IANA is asked to add a note to [IANA-URN] that 'urn' is a permanently
reserved formal namespace identifier string that cannot be
registered, in order to avoid confusion with the 'urn' URI scheme.
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10. Acknowledgements
This document is heavily based on RFC 2141, the author of which has
laid the foundation for this work; that RFC contained the following
Acknowledgements:
Thanks to various members of the URN working group for comments on
earlier drafts of this document. This document is partially
supported by the National Science Foundation, Cooperative
Agreement NCR-9218179.
This document also heavily relies on and acknowledges the work done
for STD 66 [RFC3986] and earlier RFCs that are being quoted
informally, in particular RFC 1737 [RFC1737]. The experiences
gathered during the first 10 years of URN usage were also helpful, so
individuals and organizations which have implemented and used URNs
are also acknowledged.
Many individuals in the URNbis working group have participated in the
detailed discussion of this memo. Particular thanks for detailed
review comments and text suggestions go to Juha Hakala and Mykyta
Yevstifeyev.
11. References
11.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC3629] Yergeau, F., "UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO
10646", STD 63, RFC 3629, November 2003.
[RFC3986] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform
Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66,
RFC 3986, January 2005.
[RFC4395] Hansen, T., Hardie, T., and L. Masinter, "Guidelines and
Registration Procedures for New URI Schemes", BCP 35,
RFC 4395, February 2006.
[RFC5234] Crocker, D. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax
Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234, January 2008.
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11.2. Informative References
[I-D.ietf-urnbis-rfc3406bis-urn-ns-reg]
Hoenes, A., "Uniform Resource Name (URN) Namespace
Definition Mechanisms",
draft-ietf-urnbis-rfc3406bis-urn-ns-reg-00 (work in
progress), December 2010.
[IANA] IANA, "The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority",
<http://www.iana.org/>.
[IANA-URI] IANA, "URI Schemes Registry",
<http://www.iana.org/assignments/uri-schemes/>.
[IANA-URN] IANA, "URN Namespace Registry",
<http://www.iana.org/assignments/urn-namespaces/>.
[RFC0615] Crocker, D., "Proposed Network Standard Data Pathname
syntax", RFC 615, March 1974.
[RFC0645] Crocker, D., "Network Standard Data Specification syntax",
RFC 645, June 1974.
[RFC1630] Berners-Lee, T., "Universal Resource Identifiers in WWW: A
Unifying Syntax for the Expression of Names and Addresses
of Objects on the Network as used in the World-Wide Web",
RFC 1630, June 1994.
[RFC1736] Kunze, J., "Functional Recommendations for Internet
Resource Locators", RFC 1736, February 1995.
[RFC1737] Sollins, K. and L. Masinter, "Functional Requirements for
Uniform Resource Names", RFC 1737, December 1994.
[RFC1738] Berners-Lee, T., Masinter, L., and M. McCahill, "Uniform
Resource Locators (URL)", RFC 1738, December 1994.
[RFC1808] Fielding, R., "Relative Uniform Resource Locators",
RFC 1808, June 1995.
[RFC2141] Moats, R., "URN Syntax", RFC 2141, May 1997.
[RFC2169] Daniel, R., "A Trivial Convention for using HTTP in URN
Resolution", RFC 2169, June 1997.
[RFC2276] Sollins, K., "Architectural Principles of Uniform Resource
Name Resolution", RFC 2276, January 1998.
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[RFC2396] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform
Resource Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax", RFC 2396,
August 1998.
[RFC2608] Guttman, E., Perkins, C., Veizades, J., and M. Day,
"Service Location Protocol, Version 2", RFC 2608,
June 1999.
[RFC2611] Daigle, L., van Gulik, D., Iannella, R., and P. Faltstrom,
"URN Namespace Definition Mechanisms", BCP 33, RFC 2611,
June 1999.
[RFC2717] Petke, R. and I. King, "Registration Procedures for URL
Scheme Names", BCP 35, RFC 2717, November 1999.
[RFC2718] Masinter, L., Alvestrand, H., Zigmond, D., and R. Petke,
"Guidelines for new URL Schemes", RFC 2718, November 1999.
[RFC3305] Mealling, M. and R. Denenberg, "Report from the Joint W3C/
IETF URI Planning Interest Group: Uniform Resource
Identifiers (URIs), URLs, and Uniform Resource Names
(URNs): Clarifications and Recommendations", RFC 3305,
August 2002.
[RFC3401] Mealling, M., "Dynamic Delegation Discovery System (DDDS)
Part One: The Comprehensive DDDS", RFC 3401, October 2002.
[RFC3402] Mealling, M., "Dynamic Delegation Discovery System (DDDS)
Part Two: The Algorithm", RFC 3402, October 2002.
[RFC3403] Mealling, M., "Dynamic Delegation Discovery System (DDDS)
Part Three: The Domain Name System (DNS) Database",
RFC 3403, October 2002.
[RFC3404] Mealling, M., "Dynamic Delegation Discovery System (DDDS)
Part Four: The Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI)",
RFC 3404, October 2002.
[RFC3406] Daigle, L., van Gulik, D., Iannella, R., and P. Faltstrom,
"Uniform Resource Names (URN) Namespace Definition
Mechanisms", BCP 66, RFC 3406, October 2002.
[RFC5226] Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an
IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26, RFC 5226,
May 2008.
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Appendix A. Handling of URNs by URL Resolvers/Browsers
The URN syntax has been defined so that URNs can be used in places
where URLs are expected. A resolver that conforms to the current URI
syntax specification [RFC3986] will extract a scheme value of "urn"
rather than a scheme value of "urn:<nid>".
An URN MUST be considered an opaque URI by URL resolvers and passed
(with the "urn:" tag) to a URN resolver for resolution. The URN
resolver can either be an external resolver that the URL resolver
knows of, or it can be functionality built into the URL resolver.
To avoid confusion of users, a URL browser SHOULD display the
complete URN (including the "urn:" tag) to ensure that there is no
confusion between URN Namespace identifiers and URI Scheme names.
Appendix B. Collected ABNF (Informative)
As a service to implementers specifically interested in URN syntax,
the complete ABNF for URNs is collected here, including the
referenced rules from [RFC5234] and [RFC3986]. In case of
(unexpected) inconsistencies, these documents remain normative for
the respective productions.
URNs conform to the <path-rootless> variant of the general URI syntax
specified in Section 3 of [RFC3986] :
URI = scheme ":" path-rootless [ "?" query ] [ "#" fragment ]
scheme = ALPHA *( ALPHA / DIGIT / "+" / "-" / "." )
path-rootless = segment-nz *( "/" segment )
query = *( pchar / "/" / "?" )
fragment = *( pchar / "/" / "?" )
segment-nz = 1*pchar
segment = *pchar
pchar = unreserved / pct-encoded / sub-delims / ":" / "@"
unreserved = ALPHA / DIGIT / "-" / "." / "_" / "~"
pct-encoded = "%" HEXDIG HEXDIG
sub-delims = "!" / "$" / "&" / "'" / "(" / ")"
/ "*" / "+" / "," / ";" / "="
In the case of URNs, the above rules are subject to more specific
restrictions:
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scheme = "urn"
; specific, fixed (assigned) value
urn-path = NID ":" NSS
; to be superimposed on <path-rootless>
NID = ( ALPHA / DIGIT ) 1*31( ALPHA / DIGIT / "-" )
; RFC 3406[bis] contains more specific rules
NSS = 1*pchar
; or equivalent: NSS = segment-nz
The above rules make use of the following "Core Rules" from Appendix
B.1 of [RFC5234] :
ALPHA = %x41-5A / %x61-7A ; A-Z / a-z
DIGIT = %x30-39 ; 0-9
HEXDIG = DIGIT / "A" / "B" / "C" / "D" / "E" / "F"
Appendix C. Breakdown of NSS Syntax Evolution since RFC 2141
(Informative)
In order to make visible the detailed migration path from RFC 2141
and the influence of the evolution of URI syntax from RFC 2396 to RFC
3986 on it, this appendix provides a highly annotated and expanded
version of the NSS syntax provided in Section 2.2:
NSS = 1*pchar ; or equivalent: NSS = segment-nz
In particular, the breakdown below serves to provide evidence of that
this syntax correctly reflects the addition of "&" and "~" to the
repertoire of characters allowed in the NSS portion of URNs
previously allowed by RFC 2141; it expands on the syntax specified in
RFC 2141 after translation to standard ABNF.
NSS = 1*URN-char
URN-char = trans / pct-encoded
; Note that <pct-encoded> from RFC 3986 here replaces the
; explicit, expanded form used in RFC 2141.
trans = ALPHA / DIGIT / u-other
; Note that RFC 2141's <other> has been disambiguated here
; into <u-other>.
; RFC 2141 also said:
; / reserved
; This caused an ambiguity in RFC 2141 with respect to "%", which
; now is resolved here by omission of this dangling alternative.
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;
; After adoption of the generic URI syntax from RFC 3986, there
; is no more need to deal here with the higher-level separator
; characters "/", "?", and "#" contained in <reserved>
; (beyond "%", which is fully taken care of by <pct-encoded>),
; which are part of RFC 3986's <gen-delims>, as shown below.
; From RFC 2141:
; reserved = '%" / "/" / "?" / "#" ; SIC!
; ^ ^
u-other = ":" / "@"
; those from RFC 3986 <gen-delims>
; specifically allowed in <pchar>.
; From RFC 3986:
; gen-delims = ":" / "/" / "?" / "#" / "[" / "]" / "@"
/ "!" / "$" / "'" / "(" / ")"
/ "*" / "+" / "," / ";" / "="
; this is RFC 3986 <sub-delims> except "&".
; From RFC 3986:
; sub-delims = "!" / "$" / "&" / "'" / "(" / ")"
; / "*" / "+" / "," / ";" / "="
; The URNbis WG arrived at unanimous consensus that "&" can be
; allowed without harm to backward compatibility for existing
; URN Namespaces.
/ "-" / "." / "_" ; <unreserved> except "~"
; From RFC 3986:
; unreserved = ALPHA / DIGIT
; / "-" / "." / "_" / "~"
; The URNbis WG arrived at unanimous consensus that "~" can be
; allowed without harm to backward compatibility for existing
; URN Namespaces.
; Since we now allow "&" and "~" , <trans> becomes <pchar> ,
; greatly simplifying the syntax rules and parsers!
; From RFC 3986:
; segment-nz = 1*pchar
; pchar = unreserved / pct-encoded / sub-delims / ":" / "@"
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Appendix D. Changes since RFC 2141 (Informative)
D.1. Essential Changes from RFC 2141
[ RFC Editor: please remove the Appendix D.1 headline and all
subsequent subsections starting with Appendix D.2. ]
T.B.D. (after consolidation of this memo)
D.2. Changes from RFC 2141 to Individual Draft -00
Abstract amended: URI scheme, replacement for 2141, point to 3406.
Use contemporary boilerplate. Added transient "Discussion" section.
s1: added new 1st para (URI scheme) and 3rd para (hierarchy).
s1.1 (Historical Perspective) added for background & motivation.
s1.2 (Objective) added.
s1.3 (2119 keywords) added -- used now throughout normative text.
s2 (URN Syntax): Shifted from BNF to ABNF; explain relationship to
3986 and gaps, how the gaps could be bridged, distinguish between URI
generics and URN specifics; got rid of references to immature
documents (1630, 1737).
s2.1 (NID syntax): Use ABNF and RFC 5234 terminals (core rules);
removed reference to an old draft of 2396; clarified prohibition to
use "urn" as NID.
s2.2 (NSS syntax): Shifted from BNF to ABNF; made ABNF consistent
with subsequent textual description; exposition much expanded,
showing relationship with 3986 and resulting incompatibilities;
proposed how to bridge gaps, to make parsing more uniform among URIs;
updated i18n considerations and pointer to UTF-8 specification.
s.2.3, s2.3.*: reworked and much expanded, along the grouping of
delimiter characters from 3986 in new s2.3.1 (including old s.2.3.2);
made text fully consistent with ABNF in s2.2; consistent usage of
term "percent-encoded"; old s.2.3.1 became s2.3.2; old s3.4 became
s3.3.3, providing complete, annotated list of excluded characters,
ordered by ascending code point; and restating design decisions
needed to be made to close gaps to 3986.
s3 through s6: only minor editorial changes.
s7: formal registration of 'urn' URI scheme added, using 4395
template.
s8: Security Cons. slightly amended.
s9: new: IANA Cons. added wrt s7.1 and prohibition of NID "urn".
s10: Acknowledgments amended.
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s11: References split into Normative and Informative; updated refs
and added many; only FS and BCP allowed as Normative Refs to further
promotion of document.
Added Appendices A through D.
D.3. Changes from Individual Draft -00 to -02
Updated "Discussion" on front page to point to dedicated urn list.
Numerous editorial improvements and additions for clarification, in
particular in the Introduction. No technical changes.
More Informative References; missing details supplied in D.2.
D.4. Changes from Individual Draft -02 to WG Draft -00
Added new s1.2 to Introduction, with excerpts from RFC 1737 to
provide background on URN functional and syntax requirements.
Renumbered previous s1.2 and s1.3 to s1.3 and s1.4, respectively.
Supplied text in s2 regarding the envisioned use of query and
fragment parts, based on various discussion -- including a
preliminary evaluation in PersID.
Changed "SHOULD never" to "MUST NOT" for NUL character in NSS.
Various editorial and grammar fixes; corrected STD / BCP numbers.
D.5. Changes from WG Draft -00 to WG Draft -01
Reflect WG consensus on adding "&" and "~" to the set of characters
allowed in the NSS part of URNs, thus aligning URN syntax with
generic URI syntax from RFC 3986.
Moved breakdown of NSS syntax evolution from s2.2 to new Appendix C.
Avoid "[URN] character set" in favor of "character repertoire" to
minimize potential clashes with IETF terminology on charsets.
s2.3.3: URN recognition in text documents is regarded out of scope.
The previous version was ambiguous on whether eventual query and/or
fragment parts were regarded as part of the NSS; after closer
inspection of the syntax, clarification has been added that the <urn-
path> syntax is indeed superimposed on the <segment-nz> ABNF rule for
URNs, and hence does not cover the trailing higher level parts
(query, fragment) according to the URI syntax.
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Filled in Appendix B contents.
Numerous editorial and grammar improvements.
Appendix E. How to Locate IETF Documents (Informative)
Request For Comments (RFCs) are available from the RFC Editor site
using the canonical URIs <http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfcNNNN.txt>
or <ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfcNNNN.txt> (where 'NNNN' is
the serial number of the RFC), and from numerous mirror sites.
Additional metadata for any RFC, including possible Errata, are
available from <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfcNNNN> (where 'NNNN'
again is the serial number of the RFC). A HTML-ized version and a
PDF facsimile of each RFC are available from the IETF Tools site at
<http://tools.ietf.org/http/rfcNNNN> and
<http://tools.ietf.org/pdf/rfcNNNN>, respectively.
Current Internet Draft documents are available via the search engines
at <http://www.ietf.org/id-info/> and
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Author's Address
Alfred Hoenes (editor)
TR-Sys
Gerlinger Str. 12
Ditzingen D-71254
Germany
EMail: ah@TR-Sys.de
Hoenes Expires May 3, 2012 [Page 28]