The Blocks Extensible Exchange Protocol Core
RFC 3080
Network Working Group M. Rose
Request For Comments: 3080 Invisible Worlds, Inc.
Category: Standards Track March 2001
The Blocks Extensible Exchange Protocol Core
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 (2001). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
This memo describes a generic application protocol kernel for
connection-oriented, asynchronous interactions called the BEEP
(Blocks Extensible Exchange Protocol) core. BEEP permits
simultaneous and independent exchanges within the context of a single
application user-identity, supporting both textual and binary
messages.
Rose Standards Track [Page 1]
RFC 3080 The BEEP Core March 2001
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2. The BEEP Core . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1 Roles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.1.1 Exchange Styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.2 Messages and Frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.2.1 Frame Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.2.1.1 Frame Header . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2.1.2 Frame Payload . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.2.1.3 Frame Trailer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2.2 Frame Semantics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.2.2.1 Poorly-formed Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.3 Channel Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.3.1 Message Semantics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.3.1.1 The Greeting Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.3.1.2 The Start Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.3.1.3 The Close Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.3.1.4 The OK Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.3.1.5 The Error Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.4 Session Establishment and Release . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.5 Transport Mappings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.5.1 Session Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.5.2 Message Exchange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.6 Asynchrony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.6.1 Within a Single Channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.6.2 Between Different Channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.6.3 Pre-emptive Replies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.6.4 Interference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.7 Peer-to-Peer Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3. Transport Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.1 The TLS Transport Security Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
3.1.1 Profile Identification and Initialization . . . . . . . . 34
3.1.2 Message Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.1.3 Message Semantics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.1.3.1 The Ready Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.1.3.2 The Proceed Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4. User Authentication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
4.1 The SASL Family of Profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
4.1.1 Profile Identification and Initialization . . . . . . . . 39
4.1.2 Message Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
4.1.3 Message Semantics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
5. Registration Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
5.1 Profile Registration Template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
5.2 Feature Registration Template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
6. Initial Registrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
6.1 Registration: BEEP Channel Management . . . . . . . . . . 45
6.2 Registration: TLS Transport Security Profile . . . . . . . 45
Rose Standards Track [Page 2]
RFC 3080 The BEEP Core March 2001
6.3 Registration: SASL Family of Profiles . . . . . . . . . . 46
6.4 Registration: application/beep+xml . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
7. DTDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Show full document text