Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) C. Daboo
Request for Comments: 6352 Apple
Category: Standards Track August 2011
ISSN: 2070-1721
CardDAV: vCard Extensions to
Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV)
Abstract
This document defines extensions to the Web Distributed Authoring and
Versioning (WebDAV) protocol to specify a standard way of accessing,
managing, and sharing contact information based on the vCard format.
Status of This Memo
This is an Internet Standards Track document.
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). Further information on
Internet Standards is available in 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/rfc6352.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2011 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
This document may contain material from IETF Documents or IETF
Contributions published or made publicly available before November
10, 2008. The person(s) controlling the copyright in some of this
material may not have granted the IETF Trust the right to allow
Daboo Standards Track [Page 1]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
modifications of such material outside the IETF Standards Process.
Without obtaining an adequate license from the person(s) controlling
the copyright in such materials, this document may not be modified
outside the IETF Standards Process, and derivative works of it may
not be created outside the IETF Standards Process, except to format
it for publication as an RFC or to translate it into languages other
than English.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction and Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2. Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3. Requirements Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4. Address Book Data Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.1. Address Book Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
5. Address Book Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
5.1. Address Object Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
5.1.1. Data Type Conversion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5.1.1.1. Additional Precondition for GET . . . . . . . . . 8
5.2. Address Book Collections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
6. Address Book Feature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6.1. Address Book Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6.1.1. Example: Using OPTIONS for the Discovery of
Support for CardDAV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6.2. Address Book Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6.2.1. CARDDAV:addressbook-description Property . . . . . . . 10
6.2.2. CARDDAV:supported-address-data Property . . . . . . . 11
6.2.3. CARDDAV:max-resource-size Property . . . . . . . . . . 12
6.3. Creating Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
6.3.1. Extended MKCOL Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
6.3.1.1. Example - Successful MKCOL Request . . . . . . . . 14
6.3.2. Creating Address Object Resources . . . . . . . . . . 15
6.3.2.1. Additional Preconditions for PUT, COPY, and
MOVE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
6.3.2.2. Non-Standard vCard Properties and Parameters . . . 17
6.3.2.3. Address Object Resource Entity Tag . . . . . . . . 18
7. Address Book Access Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
7.1. Additional Principal Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
7.1.1. CARDDAV:addressbook-home-set Property . . . . . . . . 19
7.1.2. CARDDAV:principal-address Property . . . . . . . . . . 19
8. Address Book Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
8.1. REPORT Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
8.2. Ordinary Collections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
8.3. Searching Text: Collations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
8.3.1. CARDDAV:supported-collation-set Property . . . . . . . 22
8.4. Partial Retrieval . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
8.5. Non-Standard Properties and Parameters . . . . . . . . . . 23
Daboo Standards Track [Page 2]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
8.6. CARDDAV:addressbook-query Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
8.6.1. Limiting Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
8.6.2. Truncation of Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
8.6.3. Example: Partial Retrieval of vCards Matching
NICKNAME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
8.6.4. Example: Partial Retrieval of vCards Matching a
Full Name or Email Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
8.6.5. Example: Truncated Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
8.7. CARDDAV:addressbook-multiget Report . . . . . . . . . . . 31
8.7.1. Example: CARDDAV:addressbook-multiget Report . . . . . 32
8.7.2. Example: CARDDAV:addressbook-multiget Report . . . . . 33
9. Client Guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
9.1. Restrict the Properties Returned . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
9.2. Avoiding Lost Updates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
9.3. Client Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
9.4. Finding Other Users' Address Books . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
10. XML Element Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
10.1. CARDDAV:addressbook XML Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
10.2. CARDDAV:supported-collation XML Element . . . . . . . . . 36
10.3. CARDDAV:addressbook-query XML Element . . . . . . . . . . 37
10.4. CARDDAV:address-data XML Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
10.4.1. CARDDAV:allprop XML Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
10.4.2. CARDDAV:prop XML Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
10.5. CARDDAV:filter XML Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
10.5.1. CARDDAV:prop-filter XML Element . . . . . . . . . . . 40
10.5.2. CARDDAV:param-filter XML Element . . . . . . . . . . . 41
10.5.3. CARDDAV:is-not-defined XML Element . . . . . . . . . . 42
10.5.4. CARDDAV:text-match XML Element . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
10.6. CARDDAV:limit XML Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
10.6.1. CARDDAV:nresults XML Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
10.7. CARDDAV:addressbook-multiget XML Element . . . . . . . . . 44
11. Service Discovery via SRV Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
12. Internationalization Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
13. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
14. IANA Consideration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
14.1. Namespace Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
15. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
16. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
16.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
16.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Daboo Standards Track [Page 3]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
1. Introduction and Overview
Address books containing contact information are a key component of
personal information management tools, such as email, calendaring and
scheduling, and instant messaging clients. To date several protocols
have been used for remote access to contact data, including the
Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) [RFC4510], Internet
Message Support Protocol [IMSP], and Application Configuration Access
Protocol (ACAP) [RFC2244], together with SyncML used for
synchronization of such data.
WebDAV [RFC4918] offers a number of advantages as a framework or
basis for address book access and management. Most of these
advantages boil down to a significant reduction in the costs of
design, implementation, interoperability testing, and deployment.
The key features of address book support with WebDAV are:
1. Ability to use multiple address books with hierarchical layout.
2. Ability to control access to individual address books and address
entries as per WebDAV Access Control List (ACL) [RFC3744].
3. Principal collections can be used to enumerate and query other
users on the system as per WebDAV ACL [RFC3744].
4. Server-side searching of address data, avoiding the need for
clients to download an entire address book in order to do a quick
address 'expansion' operation.
5. Well-defined internationalization support through WebDAV's use of
XML.
6. Use of vCards [RFC2426] for well-defined address schema to
enhance client interoperability.
7. Many limited clients (e.g., mobile devices) contain an HTTP stack
that makes implementing WebDAV much easier than other protocols.
The key disadvantage of address book support in WebDAV is:
1. Lack of change notification. Many of the alternative protocols
also lack this ability. However, an extension for push
notifications could easily be developed.
vCard is a MIME directory profile aimed at encapsulating personal
addressing and contact information about people. The specification
of vCard was originally done by the Versit consortium, with a
Daboo Standards Track [Page 4]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
subsequent 3.0 version standardized by the IETF [RFC2426]. vCard is
in widespread use in email clients and mobile devices as a means of
encapsulating address information for transport via email or for
import/export and synchronization operations.
An update to vCard -- vCard v4 -- is currently being developed
[RFC6350] and is compatible with this specification.
2. Conventions
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 [RFC2119].
The term "protected" is used in the Conformance field of property
definitions as defined in Section 15 of [RFC4918].
This document uses XML DTD fragments ([W3C.REC-xml-20081126], Section
3.2) as a purely notational convention. WebDAV request and response
bodies cannot be validated by a DTD due to the specific extensibility
rules defined in Section 17 of [RFC4918] and due to the fact that all
XML elements defined by that specification use the XML namespace name
"DAV:". In particular:
1. Element names use the "DAV:" namespace.
2. Element ordering is irrelevant unless explicitly stated.
3. Extension elements (elements not already defined as valid child
elements) may be added anywhere, except when explicitly stated
otherwise.
4. Extension attributes (attributes not already defined as valid for
this element) may be added anywhere, except when explicitly
stated otherwise.
The namespace "urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:carddav" is reserved for the
XML elements defined in this specification, its revisions, and
related CardDAV specifications. XML elements defined by individual
implementations MUST NOT use the "urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:carddav"
namespace, and instead should use a namespace that they control.
When XML element types in the namespaces "DAV:" and
"urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:carddav" are referenced in this document
outside of the context of an XML fragment, the strings "DAV:" and
"CARDDAV:" will be prefixed to the element types, respectively.
Daboo Standards Track [Page 5]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
This document inherits, and sometimes extends, DTD productions from
Section 14 of [RFC4918].
Also, note that some CardDAV XML element names are identical to
WebDAV XML element names, though their namespace differs. Care must
be taken not to confuse the two sets of names.
3. Requirements Overview
This section lists what functionality is required of a CardDAV
server. To advertise support for CardDAV, a server:
o MUST support vCard v3 [RFC2426] as a media type for the address
object resource format;
o MUST support WebDAV Class 3 [RFC4918];
o MUST support WebDAV ACL [RFC3744];
o MUST support secure transport as defined in [RFC2818] using
Transport Layer Security (TLS) [RFC5246] and using the certificate
validation procedures described in [RFC5280];
o MUST support ETags [RFC2616] with additional requirements
specified in Section 6.3.2.3 of this document;
o MUST support all address book reports defined in Section 8 of this
document; and
o MUST advertise support on all address book collections and address
object resources for the address book reports in the
DAV:supported-report-set property, as defined in Versioning
Extensions to WebDAV [RFC3253].
In addition, a server:
o SHOULD support vCard v4 [RFC6350] as a media type for the address
object resource format;
o SHOULD support the extended MKCOL method [RFC5689] to create
address book collections as defined in Section 6.3.1 of this
document.
o SHOULD support the DAV:current-user-principal-URL property as
defined in [RFC5397] to give clients a fast way to locate user
principals.
Daboo Standards Track [Page 6]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
4. Address Book Data Model
As a brief overview, a CardDAV address book is modeled as a WebDAV
collection with a well-defined structure; each of these address book
collections contains a number of resources representing address
objects as their direct child resources. Each resource representing
an address object is called an "address object resource". Each
address object resource and each address book collection can be
individually locked and have individual WebDAV properties.
Requirements derived from this model are provided in Sections 5.1 and
5.2.
4.1. Address Book Server
A CardDAV server is an address-aware engine combined with a WebDAV
server. The server may include address data in some parts of its URL
namespace and non-address data in other parts.
A WebDAV server can advertise itself as a CardDAV server if it
supports the functionality defined in this specification at any point
within the root of its repository. That might mean that address data
is spread throughout the repository and mixed with non-address data
in nearby collections (e.g., address data may be found in /lisa/
addressbook/ as well as in /bernard/addressbook/, and non-address
data in /lisa/calendars/). Or, it might mean that address data can
be found only in certain sections of the repository (e.g.,
/addressbooks/user/). Address book features are only required in the
repository sections that are or contain address objects. So, a
repository confining address data to the /carddav/ collection would
only need to support the CardDAV required features within that
collection.
The CardDAV server is the canonical location for address data and
state information. Clients may submit requests to change data or
download data. Clients may store address objects offline and attempt
to synchronize at a later time. Address data on the server can
change between the time of last synchronization and when attempting
an update, as address book collections may be shared and accessible
via multiple clients. Entity tags and locking help this work.
5. Address Book Resources
5.1. Address Object Resources
This specification uses vCard as the default format for address or
contact information being stored on the server. However, this
specification does allow other formats for address data provided that
the server advertises support for those additional formats as
Daboo Standards Track [Page 7]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
described below. The requirements in this section pertain to vCard
address data or formats that follow the semantics of vCard data.
Address object resources contained in address book collections MUST
contain a single vCard component only.
vCard components in an address book collection MUST have a UID
property value that MUST be unique in the scope of the address book
collection in which it is contained.
5.1.1. Data Type Conversion
Servers might support more than one primary media type for address
object resources, for example, vCard v3.0 and vCard v4.0. In such
cases, servers have to accept all media types that they advertise via
the CARDDAV:supported-address-data WebDAV property (see
Section 6.2.2).
However, clients can use standard HTTP content negotiation behavior
(the Accept request header defined in Section 14.1 of [RFC2616]) to
request that an address object resource's data be returned in a
specific media type format. For example, a client merely capable of
handling vCard v3.0 would only want to have address object resources
returned in v3.0 format.
Additionally, REPORT requests, defined later in this specification,
allow for the return of address object resource data within an XML
response body. Again, the client can use content negotiation to
request that data be returned in a specific media type by specifying
appropriate attributes on the CARDDAV:address-data XML element used
in the request body (see Section 10.4).
In some cases, it might not be possible for a server to convert from
one media type to another. When that happens, the server MUST return
the CARDDAV:supported-address-data-conversion precondition (see
below) in the response body (when the failure to convert applies to
the entire response) or use that same precondition code in the
DAV:response XML element in the response for the targeted address
object resource when one of the REPORTs defined below is used. See
Section 8.7.2 for an example of this.
5.1.1.1. Additional Precondition for GET
This specification creates additional preconditions for the GET
method.
Daboo Standards Track [Page 8]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
The new precondition is:
(CARDDAV:supported-address-data-conversion): The resource targeted
by the GET request can be converted to the media type specified in
the Accept request header included with the request.
5.2. Address Book Collections
Address book collections appear to clients as a WebDAV collection
resource, identified by a URL. An address book collection MUST
report the DAV:collection and CARDDAV:addressbook XML elements in the
value of the DAV:resourcetype property. The element type declaration
for CARDDAV:addressbook is:
An address book collection can be created through provisioning (e.g.,
automatically created when a user's account is provisioned), or it
can be created with the extended MKCOL method (see Section 6.3.1).
This can be used by a user to create additional address books (e.g.,
"soccer team members") or for users to share an address book (e.g.,
"sales team contacts"). However, note that this document doesn't
define what extra address book collections are for. Users must rely
on non-standard cues to find out what an address book collection is
for, or use the CARDDAV:addressbook-description property defined in
Section 6.2.1 to provide such a cue.
The following restrictions are applied to the resources within an
address book collection:
a. Address book collections MUST only contain address object
resources and collections that are not address book collections.
That is, the only "top-level" non-collection resources allowed in
an address book collection are address object resources. This
ensures that address book clients do not have to deal with non-
address data in an address book collection, though they do have
to distinguish between address object resources and collections
when using standard WebDAV techniques to examine the contents of
a collection.
b. Collections contained in address book collections MUST NOT
contain address book collections at any depth. That is,
"nesting" of address book collections within other address book
collections at any depth is not allowed. This specification does
not define how collections contained in an address book
collection are used or how they relate to any address object
resources contained in the address book collection.
Daboo Standards Track [Page 9]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
Multiple address book collections MAY be children of the same
collection.
6. Address Book Feature
6.1. Address Book Support
A server supporting the features described in this document MUST
include "addressbook" as a field in the DAV response header from an
OPTIONS request on any resource that supports any address book
properties, reports, or methods. A value of "addressbook" in the DAV
response header MUST indicate that the server supports all MUST level
requirements and REQUIRED features specified in this document.
6.1.1. Example: Using OPTIONS for the Discovery of Support for CardDAV
>> Request <<
OPTIONS /addressbooks/users/ HTTP/1.1
Host: addressbook.example.com
>> Response <<
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Allow: OPTIONS, GET, HEAD, POST, PUT, DELETE, TRACE, COPY, MOVE
Allow: MKCOL, PROPFIND, PROPPATCH, LOCK, UNLOCK, REPORT, ACL
DAV: 1, 2, 3, access-control, addressbook
DAV: extended-mkcol
Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2006 09:32:12 GMT
Content-Length: 0
In this example, the OPTIONS response indicates that the server
supports CardDAV in this namespace; therefore, the '/addressbooks/
users/' collection may be used as a parent for address book
collections as the extended MKCOL method is available and as a
possible target for REPORT requests for address book reports.
6.2. Address Book Properties
6.2.1. CARDDAV:addressbook-description Property
Name: addressbook-description
Namespace: urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:carddav
Purpose: Provides a human-readable description of the address book
collection.
Daboo Standards Track [Page 10]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
Value: Any text.
Protected: SHOULD NOT be protected so that users can specify a
description.
COPY/MOVE behavior: This property value SHOULD be preserved in COPY
and MOVE operations.
allprop behavior: SHOULD NOT be returned by a PROPFIND DAV:allprop
request.
Description: This property contains a description of the address
book collection that is suitable for presentation to a user. The
xml:lang attribute can be used to add a language tag for the value
of this property.
Definition:
Example:
Adresses de Oliver Daboo
6.2.2. CARDDAV:supported-address-data Property
Name: supported-address-data
Namespace: urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:carddav
Purpose: Specifies what media types are allowed for address object
resources in an address book collection.
Protected: MUST be protected as it indicates the level of support
provided by the server.
COPY/MOVE behavior: This property value MUST be preserved in COPY
and MOVE operations.
allprop behavior: SHOULD NOT be returned by a PROPFIND DAV:allprop
request.
Description: The CARDDAV:supported-address-data property is used to
specify the media type supported for the address object resources
contained in a given address book collection (e.g., vCard version
Daboo Standards Track [Page 11]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
3.0). Any attempt by the client to store address object resources
with a media type not listed in this property MUST result in an
error, with the CARDDAV:supported-address-data precondition
(Section 6.3.2.1) being violated. In the absence of this
property, the server MUST only accept data with the media type
"text/vcard" and vCard version 3.0, and clients can assume that is
all the server will accept.
Definition:
Example:
6.2.3. CARDDAV:max-resource-size Property
Name: max-resource-size
Namespace: urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:carddav
Purpose: Provides a numeric value indicating the maximum size in
octets of a resource that the server is willing to accept when an
address object resource is stored in an address book collection.
Value: Any text representing a numeric value.
Protected: MUST be protected as it indicates limits provided by the
server.
COPY/MOVE behavior: This property value MUST be preserved in COPY
and MOVE operations.
allprop behavior: SHOULD NOT be returned by a PROPFIND DAV:allprop
request.
Daboo Standards Track [Page 12]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
Description: The CARDDAV:max-resource-size is used to specify a
numeric value that represents the maximum size in octets that the
server is willing to accept when an address object resource is
stored in an address book collection. Any attempt to store an
address book object resource exceeding this size MUST result in an
error, with the CARDDAV:max-resource-size precondition
(Section 6.3.2.1) being violated. In the absence of this
property, the client can assume that the server will allow storing
a resource of any reasonable size.
Definition:
Example:
102400
6.3. Creating Resources
Address book collections and address object resources may be created
by either a CardDAV client or the CardDAV server. This specification
defines restrictions and a data model that both clients and servers
MUST adhere to when manipulating such address data.
6.3.1. Extended MKCOL Method
An HTTP request using the extended MKCOL method [RFC5689] can be used
to create a new address book collection resource. A server MAY
restrict address book collection creation to particular collections.
To create an address book, the client sends an extended MKCOL request
to the server and in the body of the request sets the
DAV:resourcetype property to the resource type for an address book
collection as defined in Section 5.2.
Support for creating address books on the server is only RECOMMENDED
and not REQUIRED because some address book stores only support one
address book per user (or principal), and those are typically pre-
created for each account. However, servers and clients are strongly
encouraged to support address book creation whenever possible to
allow users to create multiple address book collections to help
organize their data better.
Daboo Standards Track [Page 13]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
The DAV:displayname property can be used for a human-readable name of
the address book. Clients can either specify the value of the
DAV:displayname property in the request body of the extended MKCOL
request or, alternatively, issue a PROPPATCH request to change the
DAV:displayname property to the appropriate value immediately after
using the extended MKCOL request. When displaying address book
collections to users, clients SHOULD check the DAV:displayname
property and use that value as the name of the address book. In the
event that the DAV:displayname property is not set, the client MAY
use the last part of the address book collection URI as the name;
however, that path segment may be "opaque" and not represent any
meaningful human-readable text.
6.3.1.1. Example - Successful MKCOL Request
This example creates an address book collection called /home/lisa/
addressbook/ on the server addressbook.example.com with specific
values for the properties DAV:resourcetype, DAV:displayname, and
CARDDAV:addressbook-description.
>> Request <<
MKCOL /home/lisa/addressbook/ HTTP/1.1
Host: addressbook.example.com
Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"
Content-Length: xxx
Lisa's Contacts
My primary address book.
Daboo Standards Track [Page 14]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
>> Response <<
HTTP/1.1 201 Created
Cache-Control: no-cache
Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2006 09:32:12 GMT
Content-Type: application/xml; charset="utf-8"
Content-Length: xxxx
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
6.3.2. Creating Address Object Resources
Clients populate address book collections with address object
resources. The URL for each address object resource is entirely
arbitrary and does not need to bear a specific relationship (but
might) to the address object resource's vCard properties or other
metadata. New address object resources MUST be created with a PUT
request targeted at an unmapped URI. A PUT request targeted at a
mapped URI updates an existing address object resource.
When servers create new resources, it's not hard for the server to
choose a unique URL. It's slightly tougher for clients, because a
client might not want to examine all resources in the collection and
might not want to lock the entire collection to ensure that a new one
isn't created with a name collision. However, there is an HTTP
feature to mitigate this. If the client intends to create a new
address resource, the client SHOULD use the HTTP header "If-None-
Match: *" on the PUT request. The Request-URI on the PUT request
MUST include the target collection, where the resource is to be
created, plus the name of the resource in the last path segment. The
"If-None-Match" header ensures that the client will not inadvertently
overwrite an existing resource even if the last path segment turned
out to already be used.
Daboo Standards Track [Page 15]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
>> Request <<
PUT /lisa/addressbook/newvcard.vcf HTTP/1.1
If-None-Match: *
Host: addressbook.example.com
Content-Type: text/vcard
Content-Length: xxx
BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:3.0
FN:Cyrus Daboo
N:Daboo;Cyrus
ADR;TYPE=POSTAL:;2822 Email HQ;Suite 2821;RFCVille;PA;15213;USA
EMAIL;TYPE=INTERNET,PREF:cyrus@example.com
NICKNAME:me
NOTE:Example VCard.
ORG:Self Employed
TEL;TYPE=WORK,VOICE:412 605 0499
TEL;TYPE=FAX:412 605 0705
URL:http://www.example.com
UID:1234-5678-9000-1
END:VCARD
>> Response <<
HTTP/1.1 201 Created
Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 16:53:32 GMT
Content-Length: 0
ETag: "123456789-000-111"
The request to change an existing address object resource without
overwriting a change made on the server uses a specific ETag in an
"If-Match" header, rather than the "If-None-Match" header.
File names for vCards are commonly suffixed by ".vcf", and clients
may choose to use the same convention for URLs.
6.3.2.1. Additional Preconditions for PUT, COPY, and MOVE
This specification creates additional preconditions for the PUT,
COPY, and MOVE methods. These preconditions apply:
o When a PUT operation of an address object resource into an address
book collection occurs.
o When a COPY or MOVE operation of an address object resource into
an address book collection occurs.
Daboo Standards Track [Page 16]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
The new preconditions are:
(CARDDAV:supported-address-data): The resource submitted in the
PUT request, or targeted by a COPY or MOVE request, MUST be a
supported media type (i.e., vCard) for address object resources.
(CARDDAV:valid-address-data): The resource submitted in the PUT
request, or targeted by a COPY or MOVE request, MUST be valid data
for the media type being specified (i.e., MUST contain valid vCard
data).
(CARDDAV:no-uid-conflict): The resource submitted in the PUT
request, or targeted by a COPY or MOVE request, MUST NOT specify a
vCard UID property value already in use in the targeted address
book collection or overwrite an existing address object resource
with one that has a different UID property value. Servers SHOULD
report the URL of the resource that is already making use of the
same UID property value in the DAV:href element.
(CARDDAV:addressbook-collection-location-ok): In a COPY or MOVE
request, when the Request-URI is an address book collection, the
URI targeted by the Destination HTTP Request header MUST identify
a location where an address book collection can be created.
(CARDDAV:max-resource-size): The resource submitted in the PUT
request, or targeted by a COPY or MOVE request, MUST have a size
in octets less than or equal to the value of the
CARDDAV:max-resource-size property value (Section 6.2.3) on the
address book collection where the resource will be stored.
6.3.2.2. Non-Standard vCard Properties and Parameters
vCard provides a "standard mechanism for doing non-standard things".
This extension support allows implementers to make use of non-
standard vCard properties and parameters whose names are prefixed
with the text "X-".
Servers MUST support the use of non-standard properties and
parameters in address object resources stored via the PUT method.
Servers may need to enforce rules for their own "private" properties
or parameters, so servers MAY reject any attempt by the client to
change those or use values for those outside of any restrictions the
server may have. A server SHOULD ensure that any "private"
Daboo Standards Track [Page 17]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
properties or parameters it uses follow the convention of including a
vendor ID in the "X-" name, as described in Section 3.8 of [RFC2426],
e.g., "X-ABC-PRIVATE".
6.3.2.3. Address Object Resource Entity Tag
The DAV:getetag property MUST be defined and set to a strong entity
tag on all address object resources.
A response to a GET request targeted at an address object resource
MUST contain an ETag response header field indicating the current
value of the strong entity tag of the address object resource.
Servers SHOULD return a strong entity tag (ETag header) in a PUT
response when the stored address object resource is equivalent by
octet equality to the address object resource submitted in the body
of the PUT request. This allows clients to reliably use the returned
strong entity tag for data synchronization purposes. For instance,
the client can do a PROPFIND request on the stored address object
resource, have the DAV:getetag property returned, compare that value
with the strong entity tag it received on the PUT response, and know
that if they are equal, then the address object resource on the
server has not been changed.
In the case where the data stored by a server as a result of a PUT
request is not equivalent by octet equality to the submitted address
object resource, the behavior of the ETag response header is not
specified here, with the exception that a strong entity tag MUST NOT
be returned in the response. As a result, a client may need to
retrieve the modified address object resource (and ETag) as a basis
for further changes, rather than use the address object resource it
had sent with the PUT request.
7. Address Book Access Control
CardDAV servers MUST support and adhere to the requirements of WebDAV
ACL [RFC3744]. WebDAV ACL provides a framework for an extensible set
of privileges that can be applied to WebDAV collections and ordinary
resources.
7.1. Additional Principal Properties
This section defines additional properties for WebDAV principal
resources as defined in [RFC3744].
Daboo Standards Track [Page 18]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
7.1.1. CARDDAV:addressbook-home-set Property
Name: addressbook-home-set
Namespace: urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:carddav
Purpose: Identifies the URL of any WebDAV collections that contain
address book collections owned by the associated principal
resource.
Protected: MAY be protected if the server has fixed locations in
which address books are created.
COPY/MOVE behavior: This property value MUST be preserved in COPY
and MOVE operations.
allprop behavior: SHOULD NOT be returned by a PROPFIND DAV:allprop
request.
Description: The CARDDAV:addressbook-home-set property is meant to
allow users to easily find the address book collections owned by
the principal. Typically, users will group all the address book
collections that they own under a common collection. This
property specifies the URL of collections that are either address
book collections or ordinary collections that have child or
descendant address book collections owned by the principal.
Definition:
Example:
/bernard/addresses/
7.1.2. CARDDAV:principal-address Property
Name: principal-address
Namespace: urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:carddav
Purpose: Identifies the URL of an address object resource that
corresponds to the user represented by the principal.
Daboo Standards Track [Page 19]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
Protected: MAY be protected if the server provides a fixed location
for principal addresses.
COPY/MOVE behavior: This property value MUST be preserved in COPY
and MOVE operations.
allprop behavior: SHOULD NOT be returned by a PROPFIND DAV:allprop
request.
Description: The CARDDAV:principal-address property is meant to
allow users to easily find contact information for users
represented by principals on the system. This property specifies
the URL of the resource containing the corresponding contact
information. The resource could be an address object resource in
an address book collection, or it could be a resource in a
"regular" collection.
Definition:
Example:
/system/cyrus.vcf
8. Address Book Reports
This section defines the reports that CardDAV servers MUST support on
address book collections and address object resources.
CardDAV servers MUST advertise support for these reports on all
address book collections and address object resources with the
DAV:supported-report-set property defined in Section 3.1.5 of
[RFC3253]. CardDAV servers MAY also advertise support for these
reports on ordinary collections.
Some of these reports allow address data (from possibly multiple
resources) to be returned.
8.1. REPORT Method
The REPORT method (defined in Section 3.6 of [RFC3253]) provides an
extensible mechanism for obtaining information about a resource.
Unlike the PROPFIND method, which returns the value of one or more
named properties, the REPORT method can involve more complex
Daboo Standards Track [Page 20]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
processing. REPORT is valuable in cases where the server has access
to all of the information needed to perform the complex request (such
as a query), and where it would require multiple requests for the
client to retrieve the information needed to perform the same
request.
A server that supports this specification MUST support the
DAV:expand-property report (defined in Section 3.8 of [RFC3253]).
8.2. Ordinary Collections
Servers MAY support the reports defined in this document on ordinary
collections (collections that are not address book collections) in
addition to address book collections or address object resources. In
computing responses to the reports on ordinary collections, servers
MUST only consider address object resources contained in address book
collections that are targeted by the REPORT based on the value of the
Depth request header.
8.3. Searching Text: Collations
Some of the reports defined in this section do text matches of
character strings provided by the client and compared to stored
address data. Since vCard data is by default encoded in the UTF-8
charset and may include characters outside of the US-ASCII charset
range in some property and parameter values, there is a need to
ensure that text matching follows well-defined rules.
To deal with this, this specification makes use of the IANA Collation
Registry defined in [RFC4790] to specify collations that may be used
to carry out the text comparison operations with a well-defined rule.
Collations supported by the server MUST support "equality" and
"substring" match operations as per [RFC4790], Section 4.2, including
the "prefix" and "suffix" options for "substring" matching. CardDAV
uses these match options for "equals", "contains", "starts-with", and
"ends-with" match operations.
CardDAV servers are REQUIRED to support the "i;ascii-casemap"
[RFC4790] and "i;unicode-casemap" [RFC5051] collations and MAY
support other collations.
Servers MUST advertise the set of collations that they support via
the CARDDAV:supported-collation-set property defined on any resource
that supports reports that use collations.
Daboo Standards Track [Page 21]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
In the absence of a collation explicitly specified by the client, or
if the client specifies the "default" collation identifier (as
defined in [RFC4790], Section 3.1), the server MUST default to using
"i;unicode-casemap" as the collation.
Wildcards (as defined in [RFC4790], Section 3.2) MUST NOT be used in
the collation identifier.
If the client chooses a collation not supported by the server, the
server MUST respond with a CARDDAV:supported-collation precondition
error response.
8.3.1. CARDDAV:supported-collation-set Property
Name: supported-collation-set
Namespace: urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:carddav
Purpose: Identifies the set of collations supported by the server
for text matching operations.
Protected: MUST be protected as it indicates support provided by the
server.
COPY/MOVE behavior: This property value MUST be preserved in COPY
and MOVE operations.
allprop behavior: SHOULD NOT be returned by a PROPFIND DAV:allprop
request.
Description: The CARDDAV:supported-collation-set property contains
two or more CARDDAV:supported-collation elements that specify the
identifiers of the collations supported by the server.
Definition:
Daboo Standards Track [Page 22]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
Example:
i;ascii-casemap
i;octet
i;unicode-casemap
8.4. Partial Retrieval
Some address book reports defined in this document allow partial
retrieval of address object resources. A CardDAV client can specify
what information to return in the body of an address book REPORT
request.
A CardDAV client can request particular WebDAV property values, all
WebDAV property values, or a list of the names of the resource's
WebDAV properties. A CardDAV client can also request address data to
be returned and whether all vCard properties should be returned or
only particular ones. See CARDDAV:address-data in Section 10.4.
8.5. Non-Standard Properties and Parameters
Servers MUST support the use of non-standard vCard property or
parameter names in the CARDDAV:address-data XML element in address
book REPORT requests to allow clients to request that non-standard
properties and parameters be returned in the address data provided in
the response.
Servers MAY support the use of non-standard vCard property or
parameter names in the CARDDAV:prop-filter and CARDDAV:param-filter
XML elements specified in the CARDDAV:filter XML element of address
book REPORT requests.
Servers MUST fail with the CARDDAV:supported-filter precondition if
an address book REPORT request uses a CARDDAV:prop-filter or
CARDDAV:param-filter XML element that makes reference to a non-
standard vCard property or parameter name on which the server does
not support queries.
8.6. CARDDAV:addressbook-query Report
The CARDDAV:addressbook-query REPORT performs a search for all
address object resources that match a specified filter. The response
of this report will contain all the WebDAV properties and address
object resource data specified in the request. In the case of the
Daboo Standards Track [Page 23]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
CARDDAV:address-data XML element, one can explicitly specify the
vCard properties that should be returned in the address object
resource data that matches the filter.
The format of this report is modeled on the PROPFIND method. The
request and response bodies of the CARDDAV:addressbook-query report
use XML elements that are also used by PROPFIND. In particular, the
request can include XML elements to request WebDAV properties to be
returned. When that occurs, the response should follow the same
behavior as PROPFIND with respect to the DAV:multistatus response
elements used to return specific WebDAV property results. For
instance, a request to retrieve the value of a WebDAV property that
does not exist is an error and MUST be noted with a response XML
element that contains a 404 (Not Found) status value.
Support for the CARDDAV:addressbook-query REPORT is REQUIRED.
Marshalling:
The request body MUST be a CARDDAV:addressbook-query XML element
as defined in Section 10.3.
The request MUST include a Depth header. The scope of the query
is determined by the value of the Depth header. For example, to
query all address object resources in an address book collection,
the REPORT would use the address book collection as the Request-
URI and specify a Depth of 1 or infinity.
The response body for a successful request MUST be a
DAV:multistatus XML element (i.e., the response uses the same
format as the response for PROPFIND). In the case where there are
no response elements, the returned DAV:multistatus XML element is
empty.
The response body for a successful CARDDAV:addressbook-query
REPORT request MUST contain a DAV:response element for each
address object that matched the search filter. Address data is
returned in the CARDDAV:address-data XML element inside the
DAV:propstat XML element.
Preconditions:
(CARDDAV:supported-address-data): The attributes "content-type"
and "version" of the CARDDAV:address-data XML element (see
Section 10.4) specify a media type supported by the server for
address object resources.
Daboo Standards Track [Page 24]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
(CARDDAV:supported-filter): The CARDDAV:prop-filter (see
Section 10.5.1) and CARDDAV:param-filter (see Section 10.5.2) XML
elements used in the CARDDAV:filter XML element (see Section 10.5)
in the REPORT request only make reference to vCard properties and
parameters for which queries are supported by the server. That
is, if the CARDDAV:filter element attempts to reference an
unsupported vCard property or parameter, this precondition is
violated. A server SHOULD report the CARDDAV:prop-filter or
CARDDAV:param-filter for which it does not provide support.
(CARDDAV:supported-collation): Any XML attribute specifying a
collation MUST specify a collation supported by the server as
described in Section 8.3.
Postconditions:
(DAV:number-of-matches-within-limits): The number of matching
address object resources must fall within server-specific,
predefined limits. For example, this condition might be triggered
if a search specification would cause the return of an extremely
large number of responses.
8.6.1. Limiting Results
A client can limit the number of results returned by the server
through use of the CARDDAV:limit element in the request body. This
is useful when clients are only interested in a few matches or only
have limited space to display results to users and thus don't need
the overhead of receiving more than that. When the results are
truncated by the server, the server MUST follow the rules below for
indicating a result set truncation to the client.
8.6.2. Truncation of Results
A server MAY limit the number of resources in a response, for
example, to limit the amount of work expended in processing a query,
or as the result of an explicit limit set by the client. If the
result set is truncated because of such a limit, the response MUST
use status code 207 (Multi-Status), return a DAV:multistatus response
body, and indicate a status of 507 (Insufficient Storage) for the
Request-URI. That DAV:response element SHOULD include a DAV:error
element with the DAV:number-of-matches-within-limits precondition, as
defined in [RFC3744], Section 9.2.
Daboo Standards Track [Page 25]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
The server SHOULD also include the partial results in additional
DAV:response elements. If a client-requested limit is being applied,
the 507 response for the Request-URI MUST NOT be included in
calculating the limit (e.g., if the client requests that only a
single result be returned, and multiple matches are present, then the
DAV:multistatus response will include one DAV:response for the
matching resource and one DAV:response for the 507 status on the
Request-URI).
8.6.3. Example: Partial Retrieval of vCards Matching NICKNAME
In this example, the client requests that the server search for
address object resources that contain a NICKNAME property whose value
equals some specific text and return specific vCard properties for
those vCards found. In addition, the DAV:getetag property is also
requested and returned as part of the response.
>> Request <<
REPORT /home/bernard/addressbook/ HTTP/1.1
Host: addressbook.example.com
Depth: 1
Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"
Content-Length: xxxx
me
Daboo Standards Track [Page 26]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
>> Response <<
HTTP/1.1 207 Multi-Status
Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2006 09:32:12 GMT
Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"
Content-Length: xxxx
/home/bernard/addressbook/v102.vcf
"23ba4d-ff11fb"
BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:3.0
NICKNAME:me
UID:34222-232@example.com
FN:Cyrus Daboo
EMAIL:daboo@example.com
END:VCARD
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
8.6.4. Example: Partial Retrieval of vCards Matching a Full Name or
Email Address
In this example, the client requests that the server search for
address object resources that contain a FN property whose value
contains some specific text or that contain an EMAIL property whose
value contains other text and return specific vCard properties for
those vCards found. In addition, the DAV:getetag property is also
requested and returned as part of the response.
>> Request <<
REPORT /home/bernard/addressbook/ HTTP/1.1
Host: addressbook.example.com
Depth: 1
Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"
Content-Length: xxxx
Daboo Standards Track [Page 27]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
daboo
daboo
>> Response <<
HTTP/1.1 207 Multi-Status
Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2006 09:32:12 GMT
Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"
Content-Length: xxxx
/home/bernard/addressbook/v102.vcf
"23ba4d-ff11fb"
BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:3.0
NICKNAME:me
UID:34222-232@example.com
FN:David Boo
EMAIL:daboo@example.com
Daboo Standards Track [Page 28]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
END:VCARD
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
/home/bernard/addressbook/v104.vcf
"23ba4d-ff11fc"
BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:3.0
NICKNAME:oliver
UID:34222-23222@example.com
FN:Oliver Daboo
EMAIL:oliver@example.com
END:VCARD
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
8.6.5. Example: Truncated Results
In this example, the client requests that the server search for
address object resources that contain a FN property whose value
contains some specific text and return the DAV:getetag property for
two results only. The server response includes a 507 status for the
Request-URI indicating that there were more than two resources that
matched the query, but that the server truncated the result set as
requested by the client.
>> Request <<
REPORT /home/bernard/addressbook/ HTTP/1.1
Host: addressbook.example.com
Depth: 1
Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"
Content-Length: xxxx
Daboo Standards Track [Page 29]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
daboo
2
>> Response <<
HTTP/1.1 207 Multi-Status
Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2006 09:32:12 GMT
Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"
Content-Length: xxxx
/home/bernard/addressbook/
HTTP/1.1 507 Insufficient Storage
Only two matching records were returned
/home/bernard/addressbook/v102.vcf
"23ba4d-ff11fb"
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
/home/bernard/addressbook/v104.vcf
"23ba4d-ff11fc"
Daboo Standards Track [Page 30]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
8.7. CARDDAV:addressbook-multiget Report
The CARDDAV:addressbook-multiget REPORT is used to retrieve specific
address object resources from within a collection, if the Request-URI
is a collection, or to retrieve a specific address object resource,
if the Request-URI is an address object resource. This report is
similar to the CARDDAV:addressbook-query REPORT (see Section 8.6),
except that it takes a list of DAV:href elements instead of a
CARDDAV:filter element to determine which address object resources to
return.
Support for the addressbook-multiget REPORT is REQUIRED.
Marshalling:
The request body MUST be a CARDDAV:addressbook-multiget XML
element (see Section 10.7), which MUST contain at least one
DAV:href XML element and one optional CARDDAV:address-data element
as defined in Section 10.4. If DAV:href elements are present, the
scope of the request is the set of resources identified by these
elements, which all need to be members (not necessarily internal
members) of the resource identified by the Request-URI.
Otherwise, the scope is the resource identified by the Request-URI
itself.
The request MUST include a Depth: 0 header; however, the actual
scope of the REPORT is determined as described above.
The response body for a successful request MUST be a
DAV:multistatus XML element.
The response body for a successful CARDDAV:addressbook-multiget
REPORT request MUST contain a DAV:response element for each
address object resource referenced by the provided set of DAV:href
elements. Address data is returned in the CARDDAV:address-data
element inside the DAV:prop element.
In the case of an error accessing any of the provided DAV:href
resources, the server MUST return the appropriate error status
code in the DAV:status element of the corresponding DAV:response
element.
Daboo Standards Track [Page 31]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
Preconditions:
(CARDDAV:supported-address-data): The attributes "content-type"
and "version" of the CARDDAV:address-data XML elements (see
Section 10.4) specify a media type supported by the server for
address object resources.
Postconditions:
None.
8.7.1. Example: CARDDAV:addressbook-multiget Report
In this example, the client requests the server to return specific
vCard properties of the address components referenced by specific
URIs. In addition, the DAV:getetag property is also requested and
returned as part of the response. Note that, in this example, the
resource at
http://addressbook.example.com/home/bernard/addressbook/vcf1.vcf does
not exist, resulting in an error status response.
>> Request <<
REPORT /home/bernard/addressbook/ HTTP/1.1
Host: addressbook.example.com
Depth: 1
Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"
Content-Length: xxxx
/home/bernard/addressbook/vcf102.vcf
/home/bernard/addressbook/vcf1.vcf
Daboo Standards Track [Page 32]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
>> Response <<
HTTP/1.1 207 Multi-Status
Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2006 09:32:12 GMT
Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"
Content-Length: xxxx
/home/bernard/addressbook/vcf102.vcf
"23ba4d-ff11fb"
BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:3.0
NICKNAME:me
UID:34222-232@example.com
FN:Cyrus Daboo
EMAIL:daboo@example.com
END:VCARD
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
/home/bernard/addressbook/vcf1.vcf
HTTP/1.1 404 Resource not found
8.7.2. Example: CARDDAV:addressbook-multiget Report
In this example, the client requests the server to return vCard v4.0
data of the address components referenced by specific URIs. In
addition, the DAV:getetag property is also requested and returned as
part of the response. Note that, in this example, the resource at
http://addressbook.example.com/home/bernard/addressbook/vcf3.vcf
exists but in a media type format that the server is unable to
convert, resulting in an error status response.
Daboo Standards Track [Page 33]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
>> Request <<
REPORT /home/bernard/addressbook/ HTTP/1.1
Host: addressbook.example.com
Depth: 1
Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"
Content-Length: xxxx
/home/bernard/addressbook/vcf3.vcf
>> Response <<
HTTP/1.1 207 Multi-Status
Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2006 09:32:12 GMT
Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"
Content-Length: xxxx
/home/bernard/addressbook/vcf3.vcf
HTTP/1.1 415 Unsupported Media Type
Unable to convert from vCard v3.0
to vCard v4.0
9. Client Guidelines
9.1. Restrict the Properties Returned
Clients may not need all the properties in a vCard object when
presenting information to the user, or looking up specific items for
their email address, for example. Since some property data can be
large (e.g., PHOTO or SOUND with in-line content) clients can choose
to ignore those by only requesting the specific items it knows it
will use, through use of the CARDDAV:address-data XML element in the
relevant reports.
Daboo Standards Track [Page 34]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
However, if a client needs to make a change to a vCard, it can only
change the entire vCard data via a PUT request. There is no way to
incrementally make a change to a set of properties within a vCard
object resource. As a result, the client will have to cache the
entire set of properties on a resource that is being changed.
9.2. Avoiding Lost Updates
When resources are accessed by multiple clients, the possibility of
clients overwriting each other's changes exists. To alleviate this,
clients SHOULD use the If-Match request header on PUT requests with
the ETag of the previously retrieved resource data to check whether
the resource was modified since it was previously retrieved. If a
precondition failure occurs, clients need to reload the resource and
go through their own merge or conflict resolution process before
writing back the data (again using the If-Match check).
9.3. Client Configuration
When CardDAV clients need to be configured, the key piece of
information that they require is the principal-URL of the user whose
address book information is desired. Servers SHOULD support the
DAV:current-user-principal-URL property as defined in [RFC5397] to
give clients a fast way to locate user principals.
Given support for SRV records (Section 11) and DAV:current-user-
principal-URL [RFC5397], users only need enter a user identifier,
host name, and password to configure their client. The client would
take the host name and do an SRV lookup to locate the CardDAV server,
then execute an authenticated PROPFIND on the root/resource looking
for the DAV:current-user-principal-URL property. The value returned
gives the client direct access to the user's principal-URL and from
there all the related CardDAV properties needed to locate address
books.
9.4. Finding Other Users' Address Books
For use cases of address book sharing, one might wish to find the
address book belonging to another user. To find other users' address
books on the same server, the DAV:principal-property-search REPORT
[RFC3744] can be used to search principals for matching properties
and return specified properties for the matching principal resources.
To search for an address book owned by a user named "Laurie", the
REPORT request body would look like this:
Daboo Standards Track [Page 35]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
Laurie
The server performs a case-sensitive or caseless search for a
matching string subset of "Laurie" within the DAV:displayname
property. Thus, the server might return "Laurie Dusseault", "Laurier
Desruisseaux", or "Wilfrid Laurier" all as matching DAV:displayname
values, and the address books for each of these.
10. XML Element Definitions
10.1. CARDDAV:addressbook XML Element
Name: addressbook
Namespace: urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:carddav
Purpose: Specifies the resource type of an address book collection.
Description: See Section 5.2.
Definition:
10.2. CARDDAV:supported-collation XML Element
Name: supported-collation
Namespace: urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:carddav
Purpose: Identifies a single collation via its collation identifier
as defined by [RFC4790].
Description: The CARDDAV:supported-collation contains the text of a
collation identifier as described in Section 8.3.1.
Daboo Standards Track [Page 36]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
Definition:
10.3. CARDDAV:addressbook-query XML Element
Name: addressbook-query
Namespace: urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:carddav
Purpose: Defines a report for querying address book data
Description: See Section 8.6.
Definition:
10.4. CARDDAV:address-data XML Element
Name: address-data
Namespace: urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:carddav
Purpose: Specifies one of the following:
1. The parts of an address object resource that should be
returned by a given address book REPORT request, and the media
type and version for the returned data; or
2. The content of an address object resource in a response to an
address book REPORT request.
Description: When used in an address book REPORT request, the
CARDDAV:address-data XML element specifies which parts of address
object resources need to be returned in the response. If the
CARDDAV:address-data XML element doesn't contain any CARDDAV:prop
elements, address object resources will be returned in their
entirety. Additionally, a media type and version can be specified
to request that the server return the data in that format if
possible.
Finally, when used in an address book REPORT response, the
CARDDAV:address-data XML element specifies the content of an
address object resource. Given that XML parsers normalize the
Daboo Standards Track [Page 37]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
two-character sequence CRLF (US-ASCII decimal 13 and US-ASCII
decimal 10) to a single LF character (US-ASCII decimal 10), the CR
character (US-ASCII decimal 13) MAY be omitted in address object
resources specified in the CARDDAV:address-data XML element.
Furthermore, address object resources specified in the
CARDDAV:address-data XML element MAY be invalid per their media
type specification if the CARDDAV:address-data XML element part of
the address book REPORT request did not specify required vCard
properties (e.g., UID, etc.) or specified a CARDDAV:prop XML
element with the "novalue" attribute set to "yes".
Note: The CARDDAV:address-data XML element is specified in requests
and responses inside the DAV:prop XML element as if it were a
WebDAV property. However, the CARDDAV:address-data XML element is
not a WebDAV property and as such it is not returned in PROPFIND
responses nor used in PROPPATCH requests.
Note: The address data embedded within the CARDDAV:address-data XML
element MUST follow the standard XML character data encoding
rules, including use of <, >, & etc., entity encoding or
the use of a construct. In the latter case, the
vCard data cannot contain the character sequence "]]>", which is
the end delimiter for the CDATA section.
Definition:
when nested in the DAV:prop XML element in an address book
REPORT request to specify which parts of address object
resources should be returned in the response;
when nested in the DAV:prop XML element in an address book
REPORT response to specify the content of a returned
address object resource.
attributes can be used on each variant of the
CALDAV:address-data XML element.
Daboo Standards Track [Page 38]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
10.4.1. CARDDAV:allprop XML Element
Name: allprop
Namespace: urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:carddav
Purpose: Specifies that all vCard properties shall be returned.
Description: This element can be used when the client wants all
vCard properties of components returned by a report.
Definition:
Note: The CARDDAV:allprop element defined here has the same name as
the DAV:allprop element defined in WebDAV. However, the
CARDDAV:allprop element defined here uses the
"urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:carddav" namespace, as opposed to the "DAV:"
namespace used for the DAV:allprop element defined in WebDAV.
10.4.2. CARDDAV:prop XML Element
Name: prop
Namespace: urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:carddav
Purpose: Defines which vCard properties to return in the response.
Description: The "name" attribute specifies the name of the vCard
property to return (e.g., "NICKNAME"). The "novalue" attribute
can be used by clients to request that the actual value of the
property not be returned (if the "novalue" attribute is set to
"yes"). In that case, the server will return just the vCard
property name and any vCard parameters and a trailing ":" without
the subsequent value data.
vCard allows a "group" prefix to appear before a property name in
the vCard data. When the "name" attribute does not specify a
group prefix, it MUST match properties in the vCard data without a
group prefix or with any group prefix. When the "name" attribute
includes a group prefix, it MUST match properties that have
exactly the same group prefix and name. For example, a "name" set
to "TEL" will match "TEL", "X-ABC.TEL", and "X-ABC-1.TEL" vCard
properties. A "name" set to "X-ABC.TEL" will match an "X-ABC.TEL"
vCard property only; it will not match "TEL" or "X-ABC-1.TEL".
Daboo Standards Track [Page 39]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
Definition:
Note: The CARDDAV:prop element defined here has the same name as the
DAV:prop element defined in WebDAV. However, the CARDDAV:prop
element defined here uses the "urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:carddav"
namespace, as opposed to the "DAV:" namespace used for the DAV:prop
element defined in WebDAV.
10.5. CARDDAV:filter XML Element
Name: filter
Namespace: urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:carddav
Purpose: Determines which matching objects are returned.
Description: The "filter" element specifies the search filter used
to match address objects that should be returned by a report. The
"test" attribute specifies whether any (logical OR) or all
(logical AND) of the prop-filter tests need to match in order for
the overall filter to match.
Definition:
10.5.1. CARDDAV:prop-filter XML Element
Name: prop-filter
Namespace: urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:carddav
Purpose: Limits the search to specific vCard properties.
Daboo Standards Track [Page 40]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
Description: The CARDDAV:prop-filter XML element specifies search
criteria on a specific vCard property (e.g., "NICKNAME"). An
address object is said to match a CARDDAV:prop-filter if:
* A vCard property of the type specified by the "name" attribute
exists, and the CARDDAV:prop-filter is empty, or it matches any
specified CARDDAV:text-match or CARDDAV:param-filter
conditions. The "test" attribute specifies whether any
(logical OR) or all (logical AND) of the text-filter and param-
filter tests need to match in order for the overall filter to
match.
or:
* A vCard property of the type specified by the "name" attribute
does not exist, and the CARDDAV:is-not-defined element is
specified.
vCard allows a "group" prefix to appear before a property name in
the vCard data. When the "name" attribute does not specify a
group prefix, it MUST match properties in the vCard data without a
group prefix or with any group prefix. When the "name" attribute
includes a group prefix, it MUST match properties that have
exactly the same group prefix and name. For example, a "name" set
to "TEL" will match "TEL", "X-ABC.TEL", "X-ABC-1.TEL" vCard
properties. A "name" set to "X-ABC.TEL" will match an "X-ABC.TEL"
vCard property only, it will not match "TEL" or "X-ABC-1.TEL".
Definition:
10.5.2. CARDDAV:param-filter XML Element
Name: param-filter
Namespace: urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:carddav
Purpose: Limits the search to specific parameter values.
Daboo Standards Track [Page 41]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
Description: The CARDDAV:param-filter XML element specifies search
criteria on a specific vCard property parameter (e.g., TYPE) in
the scope of a given CARDDAV:prop-filter. A vCard property is
said to match a CARDDAV:param-filter if:
* A parameter of the type specified by the "name" attribute
exists, and the CARDDAV:param-filter is empty, or it matches
the CARDDAV:text-match conditions if specified.
or:
* A parameter of the type specified by the "name" attribute does
not exist, and the CARDDAV:is-not-defined element is specified.
Definition:
10.5.3. CARDDAV:is-not-defined XML Element
Name: is-not-defined
Namespace: urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:carddav
Purpose: Specifies that a match should occur if the enclosing vCard
property or parameter does not exist.
Description: The CARDDAV:is-not-defined XML element specifies that a
match occurs if the enclosing vCard property or parameter value
specified in an address book REPORT request does not exist in the
address data being tested.
Definition:
10.5.4. CARDDAV:text-match XML Element
Name: text-match
Namespace: urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:carddav
Purpose: Specifies a substring match on a vCard property or
parameter value.
Daboo Standards Track [Page 42]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
Description: The CARDDAV:text-match XML element specifies text used
for a substring match against the vCard property or parameter
value specified in an address book REPORT request.
The "collation" attribute is used to select the collation that the
server MUST use for character string matching. In the absence of
this attribute, the server MUST use the "i;unicode-casemap"
collation.
The "negate-condition" attribute is used to indicate that this
test returns a match if the text matches, when the attribute value
is set to "no", or return a match if the text does not match, if
the attribute value is set to "yes". For example, this can be
used to match components with a CATEGORIES property not set to
PERSON.
The "match-type" attribute is used to indicate the type of match
operation to use. Possible choices are:
"equals" - an exact match to the target string
"contains" - a substring match, matching anywhere within the
target string
"starts-with" - a substring match, matching only at the start
of the target string
"ends-with" - a substring match, matching only at the end of
the target string
Definition:
10.6. CARDDAV:limit XML Element
Name: limit
Namespace: urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:carddav
Purpose: Specifies different types of limits that can be applied to
the results returned by the server.
Daboo Standards Track [Page 43]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
Description: The CARDDAV:limit XML element can be used to specify
different types of limits that the client can request the server
to apply to the results returned by the server. Currently, only
the CARDDAV:nresults limit can be used; other types of limit could
be defined in the future.
Definition:
10.6.1. CARDDAV:nresults XML Element
Name: nresults
Namespace: urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:carddav
Purpose: Specifies a limit on the number of results returned by the
server.
Description: The CARDDAV:nresults XML element contains a requested
maximum number of DAV:response elements to be returned in the
response body of a query. The server MAY disregard this limit.
The value of this element is an unsigned integer.
Definition:
10.7. CARDDAV:addressbook-multiget XML Element
Name: addressbook-multiget
Namespace: urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:carddav
Purpose: CardDAV report used to retrieve specific address objects
via their URIs.
Description: See Section 8.7.
Definition:
Daboo Standards Track [Page 44]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
11. Service Discovery via SRV Records
[RFC2782] defines a DNS-based service discovery protocol that has
been widely adopted as a means of locating particular services within
a local area network and beyond, using SRV RRs.
This specification adds two service types for use with SRV records:
carddav: Identifies a CardDAV server that uses HTTP without TLS
[RFC2818].
carddavs: Identifies a CardDAV server that uses HTTP with TLS
[RFC2818].
Example: non-TLS service record
_carddav._tcp SRV 0 1 80 addressbook.example.com.
Example: TLS service
_carddavs._tcp SRV 0 1 443 addressbook.example.com.
12. Internationalization Considerations
CardDAV allows internationalized strings to be stored and retrieved
for the description of address book collections (see Section 6.2.1).
The CARDDAV:addressbook-query REPORT (Section 8.6) includes a text
searching option controlled by the CARDDAV:text-match element and
details of character handling are covered in the description of that
element (see Section 10.5.4).
13. Security Considerations
HTTP protocol transactions are sent in the clear over the network
unless protection from snooping is negotiated. This can be
accomplished by use of TLS as defined in [RFC2818]. In particular,
if HTTP Basic authentication [RFC2617] is available, the server MUST
allow TLS to be used at the same time, and it SHOULD prevent use of
Basic authentication when TLS is not in use. Clients SHOULD use TLS
whenever possible.
With the ACL extension [RFC3744] present, WebDAV allows control over
who can access (read or write) any resource on the WebDAV server. In
addition, WebDAV ACL provides for an "inheritance" mechanism, whereby
resources may inherit access privileges from other resources. Often,
the "other" resource is a parent collection of the resource itself.
Servers are able to support address books that are "private"
Daboo Standards Track [Page 45]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
(accessible only to the "owner"), "shared" (accessible to the owner
and other specified authenticated users), and "public" (accessible to
any authenticated or unauthenticated users). When provisioning
address books of a particular type, servers MUST ensure that the
correct privileges are applied on creation. In particular, private
and shared address books MUST NOT be accessible by unauthenticated
users (to prevent data from being automatically searched or indexed
by web "crawlers").
Clients SHOULD warn users in an appropriate fashion when they copy or
move address data from a private address book to a shared address
book or public address book. Clients SHOULD provide a clear
indication as to which address books are private, shared, or public.
Clients SHOULD provide an appropriate warning when changing access
privileges for a private or shared address book with data so as to
allow unauthenticated users access.
This specification currently relies on standard HTTP authentication
mechanisms for identifying users. These comprise Basic and Digest
authentication [RFC2617] as well as TLS [RFC2818] using client-side
certificates.
14. IANA Consideration
This document uses a URN to describe a new XML namespace conforming
to the registry mechanism described in [RFC3688].
14.1. Namespace Registration
Registration request for the carddav namespace:
URI: urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:carddav
Registrant Contact: The IESG
XML: None - not applicable for namespace registrations.
15. Acknowledgments
Thanks go to Lisa Dusseault and Bernard Desruisseaux for their work
on CalDAV, on which CardDAV is heavily based. The following
individuals contributed their ideas and support for writing this
specification: Mike Douglass, Stefan Eissing, Helge Hess, Arnaud
Quillaud, Julian Reschke, Elias Sinderson, Greg Stein, Wilfredo
Sanchez, and Simon Vaillancourt.
Daboo Standards Track [Page 46]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
16. References
16.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC2426] Dawson, F. and T. Howes, "vCard MIME Directory Profile",
RFC 2426, September 1998.
[RFC2616] Fielding, R., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Frystyk, H.,
Masinter, L., Leach, P., and T. Berners-Lee, "Hypertext
Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1", RFC 2616, June 1999.
[RFC2617] Franks, J., Hallam-Baker, P., Hostetler, J., Lawrence, S.,
Leach, P., Luotonen, A., and L. Stewart, "HTTP
Authentication: Basic and Digest Access Authentication",
RFC 2617, June 1999.
[RFC2782] Gulbrandsen, A., Vixie, P., and L. Esibov, "A DNS RR for
specifying the location of services (DNS SRV)", RFC 2782,
February 2000.
[RFC2818] Rescorla, E., "HTTP Over TLS", RFC 2818, May 2000.
[RFC3253] Clemm, G., Amsden, J., Ellison, T., Kaler, C., and J.
Whitehead, "Versioning Extensions to WebDAV
(Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning)", RFC 3253,
March 2002.
[RFC3688] Mealling, M., "The IETF XML Registry", BCP 81, RFC 3688,
January 2004.
[RFC3744] Clemm, G., Reschke, J., Sedlar, E., and J. Whitehead, "Web
Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV)
Access Control Protocol", RFC 3744, May 2004.
[RFC4790] Newman, C., Duerst, M., and A. Gulbrandsen, "Internet
Application Protocol Collation Registry", RFC 4790,
March 2007.
[RFC4918] Dusseault, L., "HTTP Extensions for Web Distributed
Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV)", RFC 4918, June 2007.
[RFC5051] Crispin, M., "i;unicode-casemap - Simple Unicode Collation
Algorithm", RFC 5051, October 2007.
Daboo Standards Track [Page 47]
RFC 6352 CardDAV August 2011
[RFC5246] Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, "The Transport Layer Security
(TLS) Protocol Version 1.2", RFC 5246, August 2008.
[RFC5280] Cooper, D., Santesson, S., Farrell, S., Boeyen, S.,
Housley, R., and W. Polk, "Internet X.509 Public Key
Infrastructure Certificate and Certificate Revocation List
(CRL) Profile", RFC 5280, May 2008.
[RFC5397] Sanchez, W. and C. Daboo, "WebDAV Current Principal
Extension", RFC 5397, December 2008.
[RFC5689] Daboo, C., "Extended MKCOL for Web Distributed Authoring
and Versioning (WebDAV)", RFC 5689, September 2009.
[RFC6350] Perreault, S., "vCard Format Specification", RFC 6350,
August 2011.
[W3C.REC-xml-20081126]
Bray, T., Paoli, J., Sperberg-McQueen, C., Maler, E., and
F. Yergeau, "Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (Fifth
Edition)", World Wide Web Consortium Recommendation REC-
xml-20081126, November 2008,
.
16.2. Informative References
[IMSP] Myers, J., "IMSP - Internet Message Support Protocol",
Work in Progress, June 1995.
[RFC2244] Newman, C. and J. Myers, "ACAP -- Application
Configuration Access Protocol", RFC 2244, November 1997.
[RFC4510] Zeilenga, K., "Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
(LDAP): Technical Specification Road Map", RFC 4510,
June 2006.
Author's Address
Cyrus Daboo
Apple, Inc.
1 Infinite Loop
Cupertino, CA 95014
USA
EMail: cyrus@daboo.name
URI: http://www.apple.com/
Daboo Standards Track [Page 48]
RFC, FYI, BCP