RFC2732

Network Working Group R. Hinden Request for Comments: 2732 Nokia Category: Standards Track B. Carpenter

                                                               IBM
                                                       L. Masinter
                                                              AT&T
                                                     December 1999

           Format for Literal IPv6 Addresses in URL's

Status of this Memo

This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999). All Rights Reserved.

Abstract

This document defines the format for literal IPv6 Addresses in URL's for implementation in World Wide Web browsers. This format has been implemented in the IPv6 versions of several widely deployed browsers including Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla, and Lynx. It is also intended to be used in the IPv6 version of the service location protocol.

This document incudes an update to the generic syntax for Uniform Resource Identifiers defined in RFC 2396 [URL]. It defines a syntax for IPv6 addresses and allows the use of "[" and "]" within a URI explicitly for this reserved purpose.

Introduction

The textual representation defined for literal IPv6 addresses in [ARCH] is not directly compatible with URL's. Both use ":" and "." characters as delimiters. This document defines the format for literal IPv6 Addresses in URL's for implementation in World Wide Web browsers. The goal is to have a format that allows easy "cut" and "paste" operations with a minimum of editing of the literal address.

The format defined in this document has been implemented in the IPv6 versions of several widely deployed browsers including Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla, and Lynx. It is also intended to be used in the IPv6 version of the service location protocol.

Requirements

The keywords MUST, MUST NOT, REQUIRED, SHALL, SHALL NOT, SHOULD, SHOULD NOT, RECOMMENDED, MAY, and OPTIONAL, if and where they appear in this document, are to be interpreted as described in [KEYWORDS].

World Wide Web browsers SHOULD implement the format of IPv6 literals in URL's defined in this document. Other types of applications and protocols that use URL's MAY use this format.

Literal IPv6 Address Format in URL's Syntax

To use a literal IPv6 address in a URL, the literal address should be enclosed in "[" and "]" characters. For example the following literal IPv6 addresses:

  FEDC:BA98:7654:3210:FEDC:BA98:7654:3210
  1080:0:0:0:8:800:200C:4171
  3ffe:2a00:100:7031::1
  1080::8:800:200C:417A
  ::192.9.5.5
  ::FFFF:129.144.52.38
  2010:836B:4179::836B:4179

would be represented as in the following example URLs:

  http://[FEDC:BA98:7654:3210:FEDC:BA98:7654:3210]:80/index.html
  http://[1080:0:0:0:8:800:200C:417A]/index.html
  http://[3ffe:2a00:100:7031::1]
  http://[1080::8:800:200C:417A]/foo
  http://[::192.9.5.5]/ipng
  http://[::FFFF:129.144.52.38]:80/index.html
  http://[2010:836B:4179::836B:4179]

Changes to RFC 2396

This document updates the generic syntax for Uniform Resource Identifiers defined in RFC 2396 [URL]. It defines a syntax for IPv6 addresses and allows the use of "[" and "]" within a URI explicitly for this reserved purpose.

The following changes to the syntax in RFC 2396 are made: (1) change the 'host' non-terminal to add an IPv6 option:

  host          = hostname | IPv4address | IPv6reference
  ipv6reference = "[" IPv6address "]"

where IPv6address is defined as in RFC2373 [ARCH].

(2) Replace the definition of 'IPv4address' with that of RFC 2373, as it correctly defines an IPv4address as consisting of at most three decimal digits per segment.

(3) Add "[" and "]" to the set of 'reserved' characters:

  reserved    = ";" | "/" | "?" | ":" | "@" | "&" | "=" | "+" |
                "$" | "," | "[" | "]"

and remove them from the 'unwise' set:

  unwise      = "{" | "}" | "|" | "\" | "^" | "`"

Security Considerations

The use of this approach to represent literal IPv6 addresses in URL's does not introduce any known new security concerns.

IANA Considerations

None.

Authors' Addresses

Robert M. Hinden Nokia 313 Fairchild Drive Mountain View, CA 94043 USA

Phone: +1 650 625 2004 EMail: [email protected] Web: http://www.iprg.nokia.com/~hinden

Brian E. Carpenter IBM iCAIR, Suite 150 1890 Maple Avenue Evanston IL 60201 USA

EMail: [email protected]

Larry Masinter AT&T Labs 75 Willow Road Menlo Park, CA 94025

EMail: [email protected] Web: http://larry.masinter.net

References

[ARCH] Hinden, R. and S. Deering, "IP Version 6 Addressing

          Architecture", RFC 2373, July 1998.

[STD-PROC] Bradner, S., The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3,

          BCP 9, RFC 2026, October 1996.

[URL] Fielding, R., Masinter, L. and T. Berners-Lee, "Uniform

          Resource Identifiers: Generic Syntax", RFC 2396, August
          1998.

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Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999). All Rights Reserved.

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Acknowledgement

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