RFC 4198

A Uniform Resource Name (URN) Namespace for Federated Content

📅 published November 2005, from ietf

RFC 4198: A Uniform Resource Name (URN) Namespace for Federated Content 🎀

📄 Title: A Uniform Resource Name (URN) Namespace for Federated Content 👩‍💻 Author: Dave Tessman, Zelestra 🗂️ Category: Informational 📅 Date: November 2005 📚 Series: Network Working Group, RFC 4198 🔁 Obsoletes / Updates: The title block doesn't list anything this RFC obsoletes or updates.

Status of This Memo ✨

This memo gives information to the Internet community. It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. 💖

Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2005).

Abstract 🌸

Okay so this doc describes a URN (Uniform Resource Name) namespace for naming content resources inside federated content collections. Those are groups where there usually isn't a strong central boss, just a shared vibe of naming, metadata, and access conventions that keeps everyone interoperating. 🫶

1. Introduction 🦋

Federated content collections are loose little squads of both small and large content providers, with an active community but no significant central authority. Members are bound together by shared purpose and interoperate through shared naming, metadata, and access conventions. Federations can also be made of other federations, which gets wild and creates complex associations and dependencies. 🕸️

A content provider can join or leave a federation at any time, and it can be part of more than one federation at once. Content providers can also stop existing as organizations altogether, which frees up their domain names for someone else to use. 💀 Plus, content identifiers are spread all over the members of a federation. They get stored on various media, sometimes for a long time before anyone uses them. So even though URLs work well when there's no strong content naming authority, they're not enough as content identifiers inside a federation, because they can't be uniquely and permanently tied to a specific content resource. 🙈

This URN namespace gives you a mechanism where a central naming authority is not required. Providers keep naming authority over their own content, following guidelines that guarantee URNs are unique and permanent. ✨

A simple identifier resolution convention is also recommended, so every provider has a consistent URN resolver interface. 🎀

This namespace specification is for a formal namespace. 💅

2. Terminology 💜

Okay so in this doc, the key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [1]. 📖

3. Specification Template 🧚

Namespace ID

  • "fdc"

Registration Information

  • Registration Version Number: 1
  • Registration Date: 2005-04-25

Declared registrant of the namespace

  • Name: Zelestra
  • Address: 2314 Henrietta Avenue, La Crescenta, CA 91214-3007, USA
  • Contact: Dave Tessman
  • E-mail: dtessman@zelestra.com

Declaration of syntactic structure

The NSS has the following ABNF [2] specification: 🍓

NSS         = ProviderId ":" DateId ":" ResourceId
ProviderId  = 1*(label ".") toplabel
DateId      = (CCYY [MM [DD]]) / 1*3(DIGIT)
ResourceId  = 1*(alphanum / other / ("%" hex hex))
label       = alphanum / alphanum *(alphanum / "-") alphanum
toplabel    = ALPHA / ALPHA *(alphanum / "-") alphanum
CCYY        = 4(DIGIT)
MM          = ("0" %x31-39) / ("1" %x30-32)
DD          = ("0" %x31-39) / (%x31-32 DIGIT) / "30" / "31"
alphanum    = ALPHA / DIGIT
hex         = DIGIT / %x41-46 / %x61-66
other       = "(" / ")" / "+" / "," / "-" / "." / ":" / "=" /
              "@" / ";" / "$" / "_" / "!" / "*" / "'"

The ProviderId is the content provider's identifier. It MUST be an Internet domain name, and it MUST be owned by the organization that creates the resource and allocates the URN to it. 🔥

The DateId is a date in ISO 8601 Basic Format (CCYY[MM[DD]]). It MUST correspond to a specific day on which the organization allocating the URN owned the domain name specified in the ProviderId. If it's not included, the default value for MM and DD is "01". DateIds of 1 to 3 digits are reserved. 📅

The ResourceId MUST be unique among all ResourceIds coming from the same provider that have the same DateId. 🔑

Relevant ancillary documentation

None. 🫧

Identifier uniqueness considerations

The combination of ProviderId and DateId identifies the organization that's allocating the URN. That organization is responsible for making sure the ResourceId is unique. 🌈

Identifier persistence considerations

A URN of this namespace may only be allocated by an organization that owns an Internet domain name. The URN identifies a date on which the organization owned that domain name. The combination of domain name and date will uniquely identify that organization for all time. ⏳

Process of identifier assignment

The organization identified by the ProviderId/DateId combination is responsible for allocating a ResourceId that is unique among all the ResourceIds it allocates with that DateId. 🎀

Process of identifier resolution

Content providers are responsible for providing a URN resolution service, if any, for URNs they've assigned with a valid ProviderId/DateId combination. 🛠️

Content providers SHOULD support URN resolution by using the HTTP protocol convention described in RFC 2169 [3]. The ProviderId SHOULD be used as the HTTP server location. 🌐

Rules for Lexical Equivalence

In addition to the rules defined in RFC 2141 [4], normalize the case of the ProviderId to lower case before comparison. 🔤

Conformance with URN Syntax

There are no additional characters reserved. 🙌

Validation mechanism

None additional to resolution specified. ✅

Scope

Global 🌍

4. Examples 🍬

These examples are representative of URNs in this namespace, but they may not refer to actual resources. 👀

urn:fdc:example.com:2002:A572007
urn:fdc:example.net:200406:ivr:51089
urn:fdc:example.org:20010527:img089322-038

5. Security Considerations 🚨

⚠️ There are no additional security considerations other than those normally associated with the use and resolution of URNs in general. Stay alert anyway, bestie. 😭

6. Namespace Considerations 💎

Distributed naming authority, identifier flexibility, and a recommended URN resolution mechanism make this namespace a unique and valuable tool for meeting the URN requirements of small content providers and federated content collections. 👑

7. Community Considerations 🫶

By setting up a simple, flexible, and efficient way for smaller content providers to uniquely identify and publish their content, this namespace makes it easier for those providers to join federated collections. A consistent identifier format and resolution mechanism also helps federations accept content references from smaller providers and combine into federations of federations. More participation and aggregation means a bigger selection of distinctive content that's more accessible to the community. It's giving collaboration. 🌸

To use this namespace, a content provider should further break down the ResourceId portion of the namespace syntactic structure to meet its internal content identification needs. It should also set up an internal governance mechanism to make sure every identifier it creates follows the requirements of this namespace. It is also recommended that the identifier resolution mechanism described in RFC 2169 [3] be set up within an HTTP server designated by the ProviderId portion of the namespace syntactic structure. 🧁

8. IANA Considerations 🗂️

This document includes a URN NID registration that conforms to RFC 3406 [5] and has been entered into the IANA registry of URN NIDs. ✨

Normative References

  • [1] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
  • [2] Crocker, D. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax Specifications: ABNF", RFC 4234, October 2005.
  • [3] Daniel, R., "A Trivial Convention for using HTTP in URN Resolution", RFC 2169, June 1997.
  • [4] Moats, R., "URN Syntax", RFC 2141, May 1997.

Informative References

  • [5] Daigle, L., van Gulik, D., Iannella, R., and P. Faltstrom, "Uniform Resource Names (URN) Namespace Definition Mechanisms", BCP 66, RFC 3406, October 2002.

Author's Address 💌

Dave Tessman Zelestra 2314 Henrietta Avenue La Crescenta, California 91214-3007 USA

Phone: +1 818 249 8906 EMail: dtessman@zelestra.com

Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2005).

This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors retain all their rights.

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Acknowledgement 💐

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