Network Working Group A. Newton
Request for Comments: 4991 VeriSign, Inc.
Category: Standards Track August 2007
A Common Schema for Internet Registry Information Service
Transfer Protocols
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 IETF Trust (2007).
Abstract
This document describes an XML Schema for use by Internet Registry
Information Service (IRIS) application transfer protocols that share
common characteristics. It describes common information about the
transfer protocol, such as version, supported extensions, and
supported security mechanisms.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Document Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
3. Formal XML Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
4. Version Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5. Size Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
6. Authentication Success Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
7. Authentication Failure Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
8. Other Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
9. Internationalization Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
10. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
10.1. XML Namespace URN Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
11. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
12. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
12.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
12.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Appendix A. Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Newton Standards Track [Page 1]
RFC 4991 Common Schema for IRIS Transfer Protocols August 2007
1. Introduction
IRIS [8] has two transfer protocols, LWZ (lightweight using
compression) [9] and XPC (XML pipelining with chunks) [10], that
share common negotiation mechanisms. Both transfer protocols have a
need for the server to provide rich status information to clients
during protocol negotiation. In many cases, this status information
would be too complex to describe using simple bit fields and length-
specified octet sequences. This document defines an XML Schema for
this rich status information and describes the usage of conformant
XML for conveying this status information.
This document defines five types of information used in the
negotiation of protocol capabilities: version, size, authentication
success, authentication failure, and other information. The version
information is used to negotiate the versions and extensions to the
transfer protocol, the application operations protocol, and data
models used by the application operations. Size information is used
to indicate request and response size capabilities and errors.
Authentication success and failure information is used to indicate
the outcome of an authentication action. Other types of information
may also be conveyed that is generally a result of an error but
cannot be corrected through defined protocol behavior.
As an example, upon initiation of a connection, a server may send
version information informing the client of the data models supported
by the server and the security mechanisms supported by the server.
The client may then respond appropriately. For example, the client
may not recognize any of the data models supported by the server, and
therefore close the connection. On the other hand, the client may
recognize the data models and the security mechanisms and begin the
procedure to initialize a security mechanism with the server before
proceeding to query data according to a recognized data model.
Both LWZ [9] and XPC [10] provide examples of the usage of the XML
Schema defined in this document.
2. Document 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 RFC 2119 [6].
Newton Standards Track [Page 2]
RFC 4991 Common Schema for IRIS Transfer Protocols August 2007
3. Formal XML Syntax
The following is the XML Schema used to define transfer protocol
status information. See the following specifications: [2], [3], [4],
[5]. Updates or changes to this schema require a document that
UPDATES or OBSOLETES this document.
A schema for describing status information
for use by multiple transfer protocols.
Newton Standards Track [Page 4]
RFC 4991 Common Schema for IRIS Transfer Protocols August 2007
Newton Standards Track [Page 5]
RFC 4991 Common Schema for IRIS Transfer Protocols August 2007
4. Version Information
The element is used to describe version information about
the transfer protocol, the application protocol, and data models used
by the application protocol.
The element has one or more child
elements. elements have zero or more
child elements. And elements have zero or more
elements. Each of these element types has a 'protocolId'
attribute identifying the protocol they represent and an optional
'extensionIds' attribute identifying the protocol extensions they
support.
During capabilities negotiation, it is expected that both sides of
the negotiation recognize the 'protocolId' value of the
element and at least one of the and
elements. If the negotiation produces a situation where
this is not possible, an error SHOULD be given and communication
ended. It is not expected that each side must recognize the
'extensionIds' values, and unrecognized 'extensionIds' values MUST be
ignored.
Additionally, the element has optional
'authenticationIds', 'responseSizeOctets', and 'requestSizeOctets'
attributes. The 'authenticationIds' attribute identifies
authentication mechanisms supported by the associated transfer
protocol. The 'responseSizeOctets' attribute describes the maximum
response size in octets the server will give. The
'requestSizeOctets' attribute describes the maximum request size in
octets the server will accept.
The protocol, extension, and authentication mechanism identifiers are
of no specific type, and this document defines none. Specifications
using this XML Schema MUST define the identifiers for use with the
element and its children.
The meaning of octets for the transfer of data is counted in
different ways for different transfer protocols. Some transfer
protocols need only to specify the octets of the data being
transferred, while other transfer protocols need to account for
additional octets used to transfer the data. Specifications using
this XML Schema MUST describe how these octet counts are calculated.
Newton Standards Track [Page 6]
RFC 4991 Common Schema for IRIS Transfer Protocols August 2007
The following is example XML describing version information.
Version Information Example
5. Size Information
The element provides a means for a server to communicate to a
client that a given request has exceeded a negotiated size
() or that a response to a given request will exceed a
negotiated size ().
A server may indicate one of two size conditions by specifying the
following child elements:
- this child element simply indicates that the
size exceeded the negotiated size.
- this child element indicates that the size exceeded the
negotiated size and conveys the number of octets that is the
maximum for a request if the parent element is a element
or the number of octets needed to provide the response if the
parent element is a element.
The meaning of octets for the transfer of data is counted in
different ways for different transfer protocols. Some transfer
protocols need only to specify the octets of the data being
transferred, while other transfer protocols need to account for
additional octets used to transfer the data. Specifications using
this XML Schema MUST describe how these octet counts are calculated.
The following is example XML describing size information.
1211
Newton Standards Track [Page 7]
RFC 4991 Common Schema for IRIS Transfer Protocols August 2007
Size Information Example
6. Authentication Success Information
The element indicates that a client has
successfully authenticated to a server. Along with this indication,
it can provide text that may be presented to a user with regard to
this successful authentication using child elements.
Each element MUST have a 'language' attribute
describing the language of the content of the element.
Clients are not expected to concatenate multiple descriptions;
therefore, servers MUST NOT provide multiple elements
with the same language descriptor.
Finally, additional security data may be sent back with the
authentication success message using the element. The content
of this element is of the base64Binary simple type.
The following is example XML describing authentication success
information.
user 'bob' authenticates via password
Authentication Success Example
7. Authentication Failure Information
The element indicates that a client has
failed to properly authenticate to a server. Along with this
indication, it can provide text that may be presented to a user with
regard to this authentication failure using child
elements.
Each element MUST have a 'language' attribute
describing the language of the content of the element.
Clients are not expected to concatenate multiple descriptions;
therefore, servers MUST NOT provide multiple elements
with the same language descriptor.
The following is example XML describing authentication failure
information.
Newton Standards Track [Page 8]
RFC 4991 Common Schema for IRIS Transfer Protocols August 2007
please consult your admin if you have forgotten your password
Authentication Failure Example
8. Other Information
The element conveys status information that may require
interpretation by a human to be meaningful. This element has a
required 'type' attribute, which contains an identifier regarding the
nature of the information. This document does not define any
identifiers for use in this attribute, but the intent is that these
identifiers are well-known so that clients may take different classes
of action based on the content of this attribute. Therefore,
specifications making use of this XML Schema MUST define these
identifiers.
The element may have zero or more elements.
Each element MUST have a 'language' attribute
describing the language of the content of the element.
Servers may use these child elements to convey textual information to
clients regarding the class (or type) of status information being
specified by the element. Clients are not expected to
concatenate multiple descriptions; therefore, servers MUST NOT
provide multiple elements with the same language
descriptor.
The following is example XML describing other information.
unavailable, come back
later
Other Information Example
9. Internationalization Considerations
XML processors are obliged to recognize both UTF-8 and UTF-16 [1]
encodings. XML provides for mechanisms to identify and use other
character encodings. Application transfer protocols MUST define
which additional character encodings, if any, are to be allowed in
the use of the XML defined in this document.
Newton Standards Track [Page 9]
RFC 4991 Common Schema for IRIS Transfer Protocols August 2007
10. IANA Considerations
10.1. XML Namespace URN Registration
This document makes use of the XML namespace and schema registry
specified in XML_URN [7]. Accordingly, the following registrations
have been made by IANA:
o XML Namespace URN/URI:
* urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:iris-transport
o Contact:
* Andrew Newton
o XML:
* None
o XML Schema URN/URI:
* urn:ietf:params:xml:schema:iris-transport
o Contact:
* Andrew Newton
o XML:
* The XML Schema specified in Section 3
11. Security Considerations
Transfer protocols using XML conformant to the XML Schema in this
document and offering security properties such as authentication and
confidentiality SHOULD offer an initial message from the server to
the client using the element. This element
SHOULD contain all relevant authentication identifiers in its
'authenticationId' attribute. The purpose of providing this initial
message is to help thwart downgrade attacks.
Newton Standards Track [Page 10]
RFC 4991 Common Schema for IRIS Transfer Protocols August 2007
12. References
12.1. Normative References
[1] The Unicode Consortium, "The Unicode Standard, Version 3", ISBN
0-201-61633-5, 2000, .
[2] World Wide Web Consortium, "Extensible Markup Language (XML)
1.0", W3C XML, February 1998, .
[3] World Wide Web Consortium, "Namespaces in XML", W3C XML
Namespaces, January 1999, .
[4] World Wide Web Consortium, "XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes", W3C
XML Schema, October 2004,
RFC, FYI, BCP