RFC6869

Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) G. Salgueiro Request for Comments: 6869 J. Clarke Category: Standards Track P. Saint-Andre ISSN: 2070-1721 Cisco Systems

                                                       February 2013

                       vCard KIND:device

Abstract

This document defines a value of "device" for the vCard KIND property so that the vCard format can be used to represent computing devices such as appliances, computers, or network elements (e.g., a server, router, switch, printer, sensor, or phone).

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/rfc6869.

Copyright Notice

Copyright (c) 2013 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.

Introduction

Version 4 of the vCard specification RFC6350 defines a new "KIND" property to specify the type of entity that a vCard represents. During its work on the base vCard4 specification, the VCARDDAV Working Group defined values of "individual", "org", "group", and "location" for the KIND property.

During working group discussion of the document that became RFC6473, consideration was given to defining a more general value of "thing", but it was decided to split "thing" into software applications and hardware devices and to define only the "application" value at that time. Since then, use cases for device vCards have emerged. These use cases involve using vCards as a primer for inventory and asset tracking data specific to network elements. Therefore, this document complements RFC6473 by defining a value of "device" for the KIND property to represent computing devices such as appliances, computers, or network elements. In this context, the concept of a device is constrained to computing devices and thus is distinct from purely mechanical devices such as elevators, electric generators, etc., that cannot communicate in any way over a network. This does not preclude, however, network- attached sensors that are connected to such mechanical devices.

Scope

When the KIND property has a value of "device", the vCard represents a computing device such as an appliance, a computer, or a network element (e.g., a server, router, switch, printer, sensor, or phone). More formally, a "device" is functionally equivalent to the "device" object class used in the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol RFC4519 as derived from the Open Systems Interconnection model [X.521] [X.200]. However, whereas [X.521] specifies that devices are "physical" elements, a device in this context can also be virtual such as a virtual machine running within another physical element. As one example of the "device" KIND, vCards can be embedded into devices at manufacturing time so that basic information such as

serial number, support email, and documentation URL can be retrieved upon initial deployment. This vCard can be modified after the device is deployed to contain user-specified data about the device's characteristics. The vCard data can therefore be used for both asset tracking and operational purposes.

A device might have a number of embedded vCards for varying purposes. The process for discovering and accessing these vCards is purposefully left unspecified in this document, as this process could rely on any mechanism that makes sense for the device in question. For example, a device could have one or more of the following vCard instances:

o The device itself. For example, the FN ("full name") property

  might represent the hostname of a computing device; the URL
  property might represent a website that contains details on where
  to find documentation or get further information about the device;
  the KEY property might represent a digital certificate that was
  provisioned into the device at the time of manufacture
  [IEEE.802.1AR], or a public key certificate previously provisioned
  into the device; and the ADR, GEO, and TZ properties might
  represent the physical address, geographical location, and time
  zone where the device is deployed.

o An organization or person that produces or manufactures the

  device.

o A person or role that maintains or administers the device.

o Application-level vCards as described in RFC6473 for each

  application installed on the device.

When a device has vCards other than its KIND:device vCard, those vCards can be linked together with RELATED (see the definition of the RELATED organizational property in Section 6.6.6 of RFC6350). In multi-vCard instances, the KIND:device vCard would use the RELATED property to express the relationship with the ancillary vCard(s). Those supplementary vCards need not use RELATED to point back to the KIND:device vCard. In this manner, the vCard for the device itself can be easily distinguished from vCards referring to the vendor organization, device administrator, and installed applications.

The following base properties make sense for vCards that represent devices (this list is not exhaustive, and other properties might be applicable as well):

  *  ADR
  *  EMAIL
  *  FN
  *  GEO
  *  IMPP
  *  KEY
  *  KIND
  *  LANG
  *  LOGO
  *  NOTE
  *  ORG
  *  PHOTO
  *  RELATED
  *  REV
  *  SOURCE
  *  TEL
  *  TZ
  *  UID
  *  URL

Although it might be desirable to define a more fine-grained taxonomy of devices (e.g., a KIND of "device" with a subtype of "router" or "computer"), such a taxonomy is out of scope for this document.

Example

The following is an example of a router device that contains both manufacturing details as well as post-deployment attributes and uses the XML representation of vCard (xCard) described in RFC6351. This vCard points to another, related vCard that contains the details of an administrative contact for the device. This vCard also leverages the extensibility of the xCard format to reference additional namespaces in order to provide richer details about the given device (e.g., the serial number and software version are specified as xCard extensions).

<vcard xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:vcard-4.0">

 <kind><text>device</text></kind>
 <fn>
   <parameters>
     <type><text>x-model-name</text></type>
   </parameters>
   <text>RTR1001</text>
 </fn>
 <fn><text>core-rtr-1.example.net</text></fn>
 <url><uri>http://www.example.com/support/index.html</uri></url>
 <email><text>[email protected]</text></email>
 <email>
   <parameters>
     <type><text>x-local-support</text></type>
   </parameters>
   <text>[email protected]</text>
 </email>
 <impp><uri>xmpp:[email protected]</uri></impp>
 <related>
   <parameters>
     <type><text>contact</text></type>
   </parameters>
   <uri>urn:uuid:5CEF1870-0326-11E2-A21F-0800200C9A66</uri>
 </related>
 <logo><uri>http://www.example.com/images/logo.png</uri></logo>
 <geo><uri>geo:35.82,-78.64</uri></geo>
 <tz><text>America/New_York</text></tz>
 <rev><timestamp>20120104T213000Z</timestamp></rev>
 <uid><uri>urn:uuid:00CCFB88-155F-40F6-B9D9-B04D134860C0</uri></uid>
 <serial-number xmlns='http://example.org/profiles/serial-number'>
   FTX1234ABCD
 </serial-number>
 <note>
   <parameters>
     <type><text>x-contract-number</text></type>
   </parameters>
   <text>1234567</text>
 </note>
 <mac xmlns='http://example.org/profiles/mac'>
   00-00-5E-00-00-01
 </mac>
 <sw-version xmlns='http://example.org/profiles/sw-version'>
   2.1.5
 </sw-version>

</vcard>

IANA Considerations

IANA has added the following entry to the "vCard Property Values" table of the "vCard Elements" registry (http://www.iana.org/assignments/vcard-elements):

            +----------+--------+---------------------+
            | Property |  Value |      Reference      |
            +----------+--------+---------------------+
            |   KIND   | device | RFC 6869, Section 3 |
            +----------+--------+---------------------+

  Table 1: IANA Registration of KIND:device vCard Property Value

In conformance with Section 10.2.6 of RFC6350, the registration template is as follows:

Value: device

Purpose: The entity represented by the vCard is a computing device

  such as an appliance, computer, or network element.

Conformance: This value can be used with the "KIND" property.

Example: See Section 3 of RFC 6869.

Security Considerations

Registration of this vCard KIND to represent devices does not in itself introduce security considerations beyond those specified for vCards in general as described in RFC6350. Nevertheless, risks can arise for vulnerable Internet-connected devices as a result of the publication of the identification details provided by device vCards. Well-known publicly accessible device vCard repositories, while not defined in this document, can increase the probability of an exploitation of an existing vulnerability, especially for devices with no good way to update their software or firmware. It is the responsibility of the device administrator to adhere to best current security practices and employ proper strategies for software upgrades and security patches in order to mitigate vulnerability to attack. Specifications defining device-specific vCard extensions or profiles that might be included in such vCards also need to consider this potential increased risk.

References

Normative References

RFC6350 Perreault, S., "vCard Format Specification",

               RFC 6350, August 2011.

Informative References

[IEEE.802.1AR] Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers,

               "Secure Device Identity", IEEE 802.1AR, 2009.

RFC4519 Sciberras, A., "Lightweight Directory Access Protocol

               (LDAP): Schema for User Applications", RFC 4519,
               June 2006.

RFC6351 Perreault, S., "xCard: vCard XML Representation",

               RFC 6351, August 2011.

RFC6473 Saint-Andre, P., "vCard KIND:application", RFC 6473,

               December 2011.

[X.200] International Telecommunication Union, "Information

               Technology - Open Systems Interconnection - Basic
               Reference Model: The Basic Model", ITU-T
               Recommendation X.521, ISO Standard 9594-7,
               February 2001.

[X.521] International Telecommunication Union, "Information

               Technology - Open Systems Interconnection - The
               Directory: Selected Object Classes", ITU-T
               Recommendation X.200, ISO Standard 7498-1, July 1994.

Authors' Addresses

Gonzalo Salgueiro Cisco Systems 7200-12 Kit Creek Road Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 US

Phone: +1-919-392-3266 EMail: [email protected]

Joe Clarke Cisco Systems 7200-12 Kit Creek Road Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 US

Phone: +1-919-392-2867 EMail: [email protected]

Peter Saint-Andre Cisco Systems 1899 Wynkoop Street, Suite 600 Denver, CO 80202 US

Phone: +1-303-308-3282 EMail: [email protected]