RFC2957
Network Working Group L. Daigle Request for Comments: 2957 Thinking Cat Enterprises Category: Informational P. Faltstrom
Cisco Systems Inc.
October 2000
The application/whoispp-query Content-Type
Status of this Memo
This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2000). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
This document defines the expression of Whois++ protocol (RFC 1835) queries within MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) (RFC 2046) media types. The intention of this document, in conjunction with RFC 2958 is to enable MIME-enabled mail software, and other systems using Internet media types, to carry out Whois++ transactions.
Contents
MIME Registration Information
To: [email protected] Subject: Registration of MIME media type application/whoispp-query
MIME Type name: Application
MIME subtype name: whoispp-query
Required parameters: none
Optional parameters: none
Encoding considerations: Any valid MIME encodings may be used
Security considerations: This content-type contains purely descriptive information (i.e., no directives). There are security considerations with regards to the appropriateness (privacy) of information provided through the use of this content-type, and the authenticity of the information so-provided. This content-type
provides no native mechanisms for authentication.
Published specification: this document
Person & email address to contact for further information:
Leslie L. Daigle
[email protected]
Intended usage: common
whoispp-query Syntax
The following grammar, which uses BNF-like notation as defined in RFC2234 defines the set of acceptable input to a Whois++ server. As such, it describes the expected structure of a whoispp-query media type object.
N.B.: As outlined in the ABNF definition, rule names and string literals are in the US-ASCII character set, and are case-insensitive.
whois-command = ( system-command / terms [":" globalcnstrnts] )
nl
system-command = "constraints" / "describe" / "commands" /
"polled-by" / "polled-for" / "version" / "list" /
"show" [1*sp bytestring] / "help" [1*sp
bytestring] / "?" [bytestring]
terms = and-expr *("or" and-expr)
and-expr = not-expr *("and" not-expr)
not-expr = ["not"] (term / ( "(" terms ")" ))
term = ( generalterm / specificterm / combinedterm )
localcnstrnts
generalterm = bytestring
specificterm = specificname "=" bytestring
specificname = "handle" / "value" / "template"
combinedterm = attributename "=" bytestring
globalcnstrnts = globalcnstrnt *(";" globalcnstrnt)
globalcnstrnt = "format" "=" format / "maxfull" "=" 1*digit /
"maxhits" "=" 1*digit / "case" "=" casevalue /
"search" "=" searchvalue / opt-globalcnst
opt-globalcnst = "authenticate" "=" auth-method / "language" "="
language / "incharset" "=" characterset /
"outcharset" "=" characterset / "ignore" "="
attriblist / "include" "=" attriblist
localcnstrnts = 0*(";" localcnstrnt)
localcnstrnt = "case" "=" casevalue / "search" "=" searchvalue
format = "full" / "abridged" / "handle" / "summary" /
"server-to-ask"
auth-method = bytestring
language = <The language code defined in RFC1766 [ALVE95]>
characterset = "us-ascii" / "iso-8859-1" / "iso-8859-2" / "iso-
8859-3" / "iso-8859-4" / "iso-8859-5" / "iso-
8859-6" / "iso-8859-7" / "iso-8859-8" / "iso-
8859-9" / "iso-8859-10" / "UNICODE-1-1-UTF-8" /
"UNICODE-2-0-UTF-8" "UTF-8"
;"UTF-8" is as defined in RFC2279. This is ;the character set label that should be used ;for UTF encoded information; the labels ;"UNICODE-2-0-UTF-8" and "UNICODE-1-1-UTF-8" ;are retained primarily for compatibility with ;older Whois++ servers (and as outlined in ;RFC2279).
searchvalue = "exact" / "substring" / "regex" / "fuzzy" /
"lstring"
casevalue = "ignore" / "consider"
bytestring = 0*charbyte
attributename = 1*attrbyte
attriblist = attributename 0*("," attributename)
charbyte = "\" specialbyte / normalbyte
normalbyte = <%d33-255, except specialbyte>
attrbyte = <%d33-127 except specialbyte> /
"\" <specialbyte except
":" " " tab nl>
specialbyte = " " / tab / "=" / "," / ":" / ";" / "\" /
"*" / "." / "(" / ")" /
"[" / "]" / "^" /
"$" / "!" / "?"
tab = %d09 sp = %d32 ; space
digit = "0" / "1" / "2" / "3" / "4" /
"5" / "6" / "7" / "8" /
"9"
nl = %d13 %d10 ; CR LF
NOTE: Blanks that are significant to a query must be escaped. The following characters, when significant to the query, may be preceded and/or followed by a single blank:
: ; , ( ) = !
Security Considerations
Security issues are discussed in section 1.
References
[ALVE95] Alvestrand H., "Tags for the Identification of Languages",
RFC 1766, March 1995.
RFC2234 Crocker, D. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax
Specifications: ABNF", RFC 2234, November 1997.
RFC2958 Daigle, L. and P. Faltstrom, "The application/whoispp-
response Content-type", RFC 2958, October 2000.
RFC1835 Deutsch, P., Schoultz, R., Faltstrom, P. and C. Weider,
"Architecture of the WHOIS++ service", RFC 1835, August 1995.
RFC2046 Freed, N. and N. Borenstein, "Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions (MIME) Part Two: Media Types", RFC 2046, November 1996.
[HARR85] Harrenstein K., Stahl M. and E. Feinler, "NICNAME/WHOIS",
RFC 954, October 1985.
[POST82] Postel J., "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol", STD 10, RFC
821, August 1982.
[IIIR] Weider C. and P. Deutsch, "A Vision of an Integrated
Internet Information Service", RFC 1727, December 1994.
[WINDX] Weider, C., Fullton, J. and S. Spero, "Architecture of the
Whois++ Index Service", RFC 1913, February 1996.
RFC2279 Yergeau F., " UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO 10646",
RFC 2279, January 1998.
Authors' Addresses
Leslie L. Daigle Thinking Cat Enterprises
Email: [email protected]
Patrik Faltstrom Cisco Systems Inc 170 W Tasman Drive SJ-13/2 San Jose CA 95134 USA
EMail: [email protected] URL: http://www.cisco.com
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Acknowledgement
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