URI-WG Historical Documents

"Mailserver URL Specification", Paul E. Hoffman, 07 Jul 1995. <draft-ietf-uri-url-mailserver-02.txt>

A new URL scheme, "mailserver", is defined. It allows mail client software to create RFC822 mail messages from a URL.

"finger URL Specification", Paul E. Hoffman, 28 Jul 1995. <draft-ietf-uri-url-finger-03.txt>

A new URL scheme, "finger", is defined. It allows client software to request information from finger servers that conform to RFC 1288.

"Uniform Resource Names, ISO OIDs and DNS", M. Mealling, P. Faltstrom, L. Daigle, 22 Nov 1995, <draft-mealling-oid-dns-00.txt>

This paper describes a "resolution-mechanism"-independent architecture for Uniform Resource Name (URN) usage and name space management. This non-monolithic architecture allows different components of the name space to be managed by the appropriate level of network authority. This not only integrates well with traditional Internet models, it allows flexibility in choice of implementation of support for each layer of the name space. An implementation for the architecture, using OIDs and DNS-based infrastructure, is outlined.

"A Critique of Existing URN Proposals", M. Madsen, 22 Aug 1995, <draft-ietf-uri-urn-madsen-critique-00.txt>

This document criticises existing URN (Uniform Resource Name) proposals in the light of generality, extensibility, and general futureproofing. The idea is to draw upon the best characteristics of the existing proposals so as to converge on an acceptably functional and nonrestrictive draft specification for both URN syntax and resolution schemes.

"How Roy would Implement URNs and URCs Today", R. Fielding, 07 Jul 1995, <draft-ietf-uri-roy-urn-urc-00.txt>

This document describes how the author would implement Uniform Resource Names (URNs) and Uniform Resource Characteristics (URCs), such that the basic concepts and technology can be usable by today's World-Wide Web clients and servers. It is intended to identify the key ingredients which make the WWW extensible and open to the introduction of URNs and URCs, and thereby steer the implementors of URI technology toward more consistent solutions.

"Issues Concerning URN Assignment and Resolution", S. Browne, K. Moore, 07 Jul 1995, <draft-ietf-uri-urn-issues-00.txt>

A number of schemes have been proposed over the past year or so for assigning and resolving Uniform Resource Names (URNs) and for associating meta-information with URNs. The Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) Working Group is currently faced with the task of evaluating these schemes. The schemes all claim to satisfy the functional requirements for URNs stated in RFC 1737. A number of additional issues that will be helpful to consider for purposes of evaluation are listed and discussed in this draft. Although this draft is long on questions and short on answers, it attempts to distill the issues on which consensus (even if it's agreement to disagree) needs to be reached before progress on standardization can be made.

"Location-Independent URLs /or/ URNs considered harmful", K. Moore, 07 Jul 1995, <draft-ietf-uri-urns-harmful-00.txt>

This document describes a means by which location-independent access to resources can be provided, without creating a new class of resource names. Instead, a resolution service is proposed for existing URLs, which allows information providers to advertise meta-information about a resource named by a URL, and/or alternate locations from which that par- ticular resource might be accessed.

Depending on your point of view, the approach described in this document might be taken as one or more of: (a) an alternative solution to the "URL problem", (b) a strategy for gradual transition from URLs to URNs, or (c) a worst-case scenario in the event that URN adoption takes too long.

"Thoughts on Standardizing URN Resolution Protocols", K. Sollins, 26 Jun 1995, <draft-ietf-uri-urn-res-thoughts-00.txt>

The problem of standardizing URN resolution needs to be thought through carefully. If we partition the problem of name resolution, it becomes clearer that the user to resolution service interaction should be standardized. In contrast, in order to support a variety of models, behaviors, and other policies for name resolution services, we must allow for a multiplicity of such services, each perhaps requiring a different protocol between its servers. The URI group can still limit its efforts, but should support more than one such service as a proof of concept that multiple service types can be supported.

"The Handle System",
W. Arms, D. Ely, 20 Aug 1996. <draft-ietf-uri-urn-handles-00.txt>

The Handle System provides identifiers for digital objects and other resources in distributed computer systems. These identifiers are known as handles. The system ensures that handles are unique and that they can be retained over long time periods. Since the system makes no assumptions about the characteristics of the items that are identified, handles can be used in a wide variety of systems and applications.

The handle system has the following components: naming authorities, handle generators, the global handle server, local handle servers, caching handle servers, client software libraries, proxy servers, and administrative tools. For reasons of performance and availability, the global, local, and caching servers are implemented as distributed systems comprising many server computers. All components, except the local handle server, have been implemented and are available for general use by the research community.

The handle system provides all the capabilities listed in RFC 1737, K. Sollins, L. Masinter, "Functional Requirements for Uniform Resource Names", 12/20/1994.

"URN Services", K. Shafer, E. Miller, V. Tkac, S. Weibel, 29 Jun 1995, <draft-ietf-uri-urn-resolution-01.txt>

This document focuses on the syntax and function of URNs, the nature of registered and unregistered naming authorities, and the relationships of URNs to an open-ended variety of resolution services that might link these objects within the URI architecture.

"The Path URN Specification", Daniel LaLiberte, Michael Shapiro, 27 Jul 1995, <draft-ietf-uri-urn-path-01.txt>

A new "path" URN scheme is proposed that defines a uniformly hierarchical name space. This URN scheme supports dynamic relocation and replication of resources. Existing DNS technology is used to resolve a path into sets of equivalent URLs, and then one URL is resolved into the named resource.

"An SGML-based URC Service", R. Daniel, T. Allen, 16 Jun 1995, <draft-ietf-uri-urc-sgml-00.txt>

The URI Working Group has been developing an architecture where Internet resources are identified using a Uniform Resource Name (URN), and retrieved using a Uniform Resource Locator (URL). Mapping URNs to URLs is the job of the Uniform Resource Characteristics (URC) service, whose requirements were given in [1]. This paper presents one possible specification for the URC service. This spec provides the means for the URC service to formally specify new capabilities, while retaining the speed that is paramount to the fundamental use of the URC service as the means for URN to URL resolution.

"Specification of Uniform Resource Characteristics", M. Mealling, 12 Apr 1994, <draft-ietf-uri-urc-00.txt>

In this paper, the author proposes a set of requirments for a Uniform Resource Characteristic which is designed to provide a method for encapsulating meta-information about a given Uniform Resource Name or Uniform Resource Location.

"Uniform Resource Names", Mitra, C. Weider, M. Mealling, 28 Nov 1994, <draft-ietf-uri-resource-names-03.txt>

This document defines a syntax for URNs, and operational rules for their assignment and usage. The intent is to provide enough information for implementors of IIIR systems to use these in their work.

"URN to URC resolution scenario", Mitra, 14 Apr 1994, <draft-ietf-uri-urn2urc-00.txt>

This document is intended to address the issue of URN to URC resolution at a level between the IIIR Vision document [clw/peterd:1] and the various standards documents such as the URL specification. [timb]. This document is also intended to act as some pointers for people who might want to implement URNs in information systems they are building.

"Encoding and Use of Uniform Resource Characteristics", M. Mealling, 06 Jul 1994, <draft-ietf-uri-urc-spec-00.txt>

This document describes a Uniform Resource Characteristic, a method for encoding information about a given network resource. This information is called meta-information since it is not information that is actually found in the resource itself. The design of this Uniform Resource Characteristic was driven by the set of design requirements as specified in the "Specification of Uniform Resource Characteristics" Internet draft [Mealling 94]. The method of encoding is based on the simple use of attribute/value pairs utilized in several existing network systems including RFC822 e-mail headers, IAFA templates, and the draft whois++ system [Deutsch 94]. In addition to the specification, several examples are provided which illustrate complex information encoding and actual client/server using whois++ as the protocol.

"URN Resolution Overview", Paul E. Hoffman and Ron Daniel, Jr., 21 Apr 1995, <draft-ietf-uri-urn-res-descript-00.txt>

This document gives an overview of how Uniform Resource Names (URNs) will be resolved. It describes how different URN resolution schemes will fit together, the requirements for the multiple URN schemes, expectations for URN clients, and other general resolution issues.

This document does not cover any specific resolution schemes, the syntax for URNs, or the format of resolution results. It is expected that these issues (and other URN-related topics) will be covered in different Internet Drafts submitted to the IETF URI Working Group.

"Generic URN Syntax", Paul E. Hoffman and Ron Daniel, Jr., 21 Apr 1995, <draft-ietf-uri-urn-syntax-00.txt>

This document defines the syntax for Uniform Resource Names (URNs). This syntax is basically the same as the URN syntax described in RFC 1630.

This document does not cover any specific resolution schemes or the format of resolution results. It is expected that these issues (and other URN-related topics) will be covered in different Internet Drafts submitted to the IETF URI Working Group.

"x-dns-2 URN Scheme", Paul E. Hoffman and Ron Daniel, Jr., 21 Apr 1995, <draft-ietf-uri-urn-x-dns-2-00.txt>

This document defines a scheme for resolving Uniform Resource Names (URNs) using the domain name system. The scheme, called x-dns-2, allows URN publishers to create URN resolvers without central registration, and without changing or adding any domain names.

"Trivial URC Syntax: urc0", Paul E. Hoffman and Ron Daniel, Jr., 21 Apr 1995, <draft-ietf-uri-urc-trivial-00.txt>

This document defines a trivial, machine-parsable Uniform Resource Citiation (URC) syntax that can be returned from the resolution of Uniform Resource Names (URNs). The syntax, called urc0, is also appropriate for any program that can return URCs. More sophisticated URC schemes will be developed later. urc0 is intended to be the simplest possible machine-parsable representation of a URC.

This document does not cover any specific resolution schemes or the syntax for URNs. It is expected that these issues (and other URN-related topics) will be covered in different Internet Drafts submitted to the IETF URI Working Group.

"URC Scenarios and Requirements", R. Daniel, M. Mealling, 27 Mar 1995, <draft-ietf-uri-urc-req-01.txt> or multiple formats at LANL

This draft describes the place of the Uniform Resource Characteristic (URC) service within the overall context of Uniform Resource Identification on the Internet. It presents several scenarios illustrating how the URC service might be used. From these usage scenarios, we derive a set of requirements that any proposed URC services must meet.