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Applications URNBIS Uniform Resource Name URN Uniform Resource Identifier URI A Uniform Resource Name (URN) is a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) that is assigned under the "urn" scheme and a particular URN namespace, with the intent that the URN will be either a persistent, location-independent resource identifier or in some cases an abstract designator that is persistent but that does not identify a resource. With regard to URN syntax, this document defines the canonical syntax for URNs (in a way that is consistent with URI syntax), specifies methods for determining URN equivalence, and discusses URI conformance. With regard to URN namespaces, this document specifies a method for defining a URN namespace and associating it with a namespace identifier, and describes procedures for registering namespace identifiers with the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). This document obsoletes both RFC 2141 and RFC 3406.

A Uniform Resource Name (URN) is a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) that is assigned under the "urn" scheme and a particular namespace, with the intent that the URN will be either a persistent, location-independent resource identifier or in some cases an abstract designator that is persistent but that does not identify a resource. A URN namespace is a collection of such identifiers, each of which is (1) unique, (2) assigned in a consistent and managed way, and (3) assigned according to a common definition. The assignment of URNs is done by an organization (or, in some cases, according to an algorithm or other automated process) that has been formally delegated a namespace within the "urn" scheme (e.g., a URN in the 'example' namespace might be of the form "urn:example:foo"). This document rests on two key assumptions: Assignment of a URN is a managed process. The space of URN namespaces is itself managed. While other URI schemes may allow identifiers to be freely chosen and assigned, such is not the case for URNs. The syntactical correctness of a string starting with "urn:" is not sufficient to make it a URN. In order for the string to be a valid URN, the namespace identifier must be registered in accordance with the rules defined here and the remaining parts of the full assigned-name portion of the URN must be generated in accordance with the rules for the registered namespace. So that information about both URN syntax and URN namespaces is available in one place, this document does the following: Defines the canonical syntax for URNs in general (in a way that is consistent with URI syntax), specifies methods for determining URN equivalence, and discusses URI conformance. Specifies a method for defining a URN namespace and associating it with a namespace identifier, and describes procedures for registering namespace identifiers with the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). For URN syntax and URN namespaces, this document modernizes and replaces the definitions from and . These modifications build on the requirements provided in and many years of experience with URNs, in both cases attempting to make the smallest reasonable set of changes from the previous definitions. The intent is to define URNs in a consistent manner so that, wherever practical, the parsing, handling, and resolution of URNs can be independent of the namespace within which a given URN is assigned. This document obsoletes both and .

Several important terms used in this document, including some "normalization" operations that are not part of the Unicode Standard , are defined in the URI specification . The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in .

The syntax of URNs as provided in was defined before the updated specification of URIs in . In order to ensure consistency with the URI syntax as well as semantic flexibility in the use of URNs within particular applications (see for further discussion), this specification does the following: Extends URN syntax to explicitly allow the characters '/', "?", and "#", which were reserved for future use by ; this change effectively also allows several components of the URI syntax although without tying those components to URI semantics. Defines syntax for an additional component that can be used in interactions with a URN resolution service. Makes several smaller syntax adjustments. However, this specification does not extend the URN syntax to allow characters outside the ASCII range , which implies that any such characters need to be percent-encoded as described in Section 2.1 of the URI specification . The syntax for a URN is defined as follows using the Augmented Backus-Naur Form (ABNF) as specified in . Rules not defined here (i.e., alphanum, pchar, path-absolute, query, and fragment) are defined as part of the URI syntax and used here to point out the syntactic relationship with the terms used there.

Note: The character "?" can be used without percent-encoding inside q-components, r-components, and f-components. The following sections provide additional information about the syntactic elements of URNs.

The syntax here is slightly more restrictive than what was defined in . This specification prohibits the character "-" at the end of a NID. NIDs are case insensitive (e.g., "ISBN" and "isbn" are equivalent). Characters outside the ASCII range are not permitted in NIDs, and no encoding mechanism for such characters is supported.

The namespace specific string (NSS) is a unique identifier that is assigned and managed in a consistent way and that conforms to the definition of the relevant namespace. The combination of the NID (unique across the entire "urn" scheme) and the NSS (unique within the namespace) ensures that the resulting URN is a globally unique URI. This document modifies the syntax of the NSS to allow the following characters: "/", "~", and "&". In particular, allowing the "/" character effectively makes it possible to encapsulate hierarchical identifiers from other naming systems. For instance, consider the hypothetical example of a hierarchical naming system in which the identifiers take the form of a series of numbers separated by the "/" character, such as "1/406/47452/2". If the naming authority for such identifiers were to use URNs, it would be natural to place the existing identifiers in the NSS, resulting in URNs such as "urn:example:1/406/47452/2". Depending on the rules governing a namespace, names that are valid in a namespace might contain characters that are not allowed by the "pchar" production referenced above (e.g., characters outside the ASCII range or characters that are reserved in URIs, such as "?", and "#"). While such a string might be a valid name, it is not a valid URN until it has been translated into a conformant NSS. Translation is done by percent-encoding each disallowed character using the method defined in Section 2.1 of the generic URI specification . Note that the "%" character is allowed in the NSS only for the purpose of percent-encoding. In order to make URNs as stable and persistent as possible when protocols evolve and the environment around them changes, namespaces SHOULD NOT allow characters outside the basic Latin repertoire unless the nature of the particular namespace makes such characters necessary. If a namespace designates one or more characters conforming to the "pchar" rule as having special meaning for that namespace (e.g., "@") and the namespace also uses that character in a literal sense, when used in a literal sense the character MUST be percent-encoded (e.g., "%40"). For related considerations with regard to NID registration, see .

The q-component, r-component, and f-component are optional components that follow the assigned-name portion of the URN. Because this specification focuses almost exclusively on URN syntax, it does not define the semantics of the q-component, r-component, and f-component for URNs in general. Instead, additional specifications might establish these matters for URN-related services (such as URN resolution) or for individual URN namespaces (e.g., to handle extended information about the resource identified by a URN). Defining the details of such usage is the responsibility of specifications for URN resolution services, namespace registration requests or specifications for individual namespaces, and other appropriate documentation (such as policy documents governing the management of a given URN namespace). Unless specifically defined for a particular namespace after publication of this document, use of these components is disallowed, thereby maintaining strict backward compatibility with namespaces defined in accordance with and registered in accordance with .

Although the URN q-component has close to the same syntax as the URI query component, the URN q-component need not be semantically equivalent to the URI query component and therefore is called by a different name in this specification to emphasize that the relationship is about syntax only (see also ). The q-component is indicated by the first question mark ("?") character and terminated by a double question mark ("??"), by a number sign ("#") character, or by the end of the URI. The q-string MUST NOT begin with a question mark ("?") since a double question mark is reserved for use by an r-component (). The characters slash ("/") and question mark ("?") may represent data within the q-string. Note that characters outside the ASCII range MUST be percent-encoded using the method defined in Section 2.1 of the generic URI specification . As described under , the q-component SHALL NOT be taken into account when determining URN equivalence. The q-component is primarily intended to be used for passing information in requests to the resources identified by a URN or to applications that manage such resources. Consider the hypothetical example of passing parameters to an application that returns metadata about a resource (say, Dublin Core data about a published book). This could perhaps be accomplished by specifying the desired metadata field (e.g., "description") in the q-component, resulting in URNs such as "urn:example:0-395-36341-1?operation=search&field=description". However, this primary purpose is not intended to forestall other potential uses for q-components.

The URN r-component has no syntactic equivalent in URIs. The r-component is indicated by a double question mark ("??") and terminated by a number sign ("#") character or by the end of the URI. The characters slash ("/") and question mark ("?") may represent data within the r-string. Note that characters outside the ASCII range MUST be percent-encoded using the method defined in Section 2.1 of the generic URI specification . As described under , the r-component SHALL NOT be taken into account when determining URN equivalence. The r-component is primarily intended to be used for passing information in requests to URN resolution services (not, as with the q-component, to the resources identified by a URN or to applications that manage such resources). Consider the hypothetical example of passing parameters to resolution service (say, an ISO alpha-2 country code in order to scope down the preferred country in which to search for a physical copy of a book). This could perhaps be accomplished by specifying the country code in the r-component, resulting in URNs such as "urn:example:0-395-36341-1??cc=uk". However, this primary purpose is not intended to forestall other potential uses for r-components. This document defines only the syntax of the r-component and reserves it for future use. The exact semantics of the r-component and its use in URN resolution protocols are a matter for potential standardization in separate specifications.

Although the URN f-component has the same syntax as the URI fragment component, the URN f-component need not be semantically equivalent to the URI fragment component and therefore is called by a different name in this specification to emphasize that the relationship is about syntax only (see also ). The f-component is indicated by the presence of a number sign ("#") character and terminated by the end of the URI. Note that characters outside the ASCII range MUST be percent-encoded using the method defined in Section 2.1 of the generic URI specification . As described under , the f-component SHALL NOT be taken into account when determining URN equivalence. The f-component is primarily intended to distinguish the integral parts of resources named by URNs in particular namespaces. Consider the hypothetical example of obtaining resources that are part of a larger entity (say, the chapters of a book). Each part could be specified in the f-component, resulting in URNs such as "urn:example:978-952-10-7060-0#chapter1". However, this primary purpose is not intended to forestall other potential uses for f-components.

For various purposes such as caching, often it is desirable to determine if two URNs are "the same". This is done by testing for equivalence (see Section 6.1 of ). The generic URI specification is very flexible about equality comparisons, putting the focus on allowing false negatives and avoiding false positives. If comparisons are made in a scheme-independent way, i.e., as URI comparisons only, URNs that this specification considers equal would be rejected. The discussion below applies when the URIs involved are known to be URNs. Two URNs are equivalent if their <assigned-name> portions are octet-by-octet equal after applying case normalization (as specified in Section 6.2.2.1 of ) to the following constructs: the URI scheme "urn", by conversion to lower case the NID, by conversion to lower case any percent-encoded characters in the NSS (that is, all character triplets that match the <pct-encoding> production found in Section 2.1 of the base URI specification ), by conversion to upper case for the digits A-F. Percent-encoded characters MUST NOT be decoded, i.e., percent-encoding normalization (as specified in Section 6.2.2.2 of ) MUST NOT be applied. If a q-component, r-component, or f-component (or any combination thereof) are included in a URN, they MUST be ignored for purposes of determining equivalence. URN namespace definitions MAY include additional rules for equivalence, such as case-insensitivity of the NSS (or parts thereof). Such rules MUST always have the effect of eliminating some of the false negatives obtained by the procedure above and MUST NOT result in treating two URNs as not equivalent if the procedure here says they are equivalent. For related considerations with regard to NID registration, see below.

This section shows a variety of URNs (using the "example" NID defined in ) that highlight the equivalence rules. First, because the scheme and NID are case-insensitive, the following URNs are equivalent to each other: urn:example:a123,z456 URN:example:a123,z456 urn:EXAMPLE:a123,z456 Second, because the q-component and f-component are not taken into account for purposes of testing equivalence, the following URNs are equivalent to the first three examples above: urn:example:a123,z456?abc urn:example:a123,z456#789 urn:example:a123,z456#abc Third, because the "/" character (and anything that follows it) in the NSS is taken into account for purposes of equivalence, the following URNs are not equivalent to each other or to the preceding URNs: urn:example:a123,z456/foo urn:example:a123,z456/bar urn:example:a123,z456/baz Fourth, because of percent-encoding, the following URNs are equivalent only to each other (although %2C is the percent-encoded transformation of "," from the previous examples, such sequences are not decoded for purposes of testing equivalence): urn:example:a123%2Cz456 URN:EXAMPLE:a123%2cz456 Fifth, because characters other than percent-encoded sequences in the NSS are treated in a case-sensitive manner (unless otherwise specified for the namespace in question), the following URNs are not equivalent to the first three URNs: urn:example:A123,z456 urn:example:a123,Z456 Sixth, on casual visual inspection of a URN presented in a human-oriented interface the following URN might appear the same as the first three URNs (since U+0430 CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER A can be confused with U+0061 LATIN SMALL LETTER A), but it is not equivalent: urn:example:%D0%B0123,z456

Because a URN is, syntactically, a URI under the "urn" scheme, in theory a URN can be placed in any protocol slot that allows for a URI (e.g., the 'href' and 'src' attributes in HTML, the <base/> element in HTML, the 'xml:base' attribute in XML , and the 'xmlns' attribute in XML for XML namespace names ). However, this does not imply that, semantically, it always makes sense in practice to place a URN in a given URI protocol slot; in particular, because a URN might not specify the location of a resource or even point indirectly to one, it might not be appropriate to place a URN in a URI protocol slot that points to a resource (e.g., the aforementioned 'href' and 'src' attributes). Ultimately, guidelines regarding when it is appropriate to use URIs under the "urn" scheme (or any other scheme) are the responsibility of specifications for individual URI protocol slots (e.g., the specification for the 'xml:base' attribute in XML might recommend that it is inappropriate to use URNs in that protocol slot). This specification cannot possibly anticipate all of the relevant cases, and it is not the place of this specification to require or restrict usage for individual protocol slots.

In part because of the separation of semantics from syntax , generic URI processors need to pay special attention to the parsing and analysis rules of RFC 3986 and, in particular, must treat the URI as opaque unless the scheme and its requirements are recognized, in which case they may be in a position to invoke scheme-appropriate processing such as by a URN resolver. The URN resolver can either be an external resolver that the URI resolver knows of, or it can be functionality built into the URI resolver. Note that this requirement might impose constraints on the contexts in which URNs are appropriately used; see .

Section 5.2 describes an algorithm for converting a URI reference that might be relative to a given base URI into "parsed components" of the target of that reference, which can then be recomposed per RFC 3986 Section 5.3 into a target URI. This algorithm cannot be applied directly to URNs because their syntax does not support the necessary path components. The notion of a URN as a "persistent", "permanent" identifier does not reconcile easily with relative referencing. However, resources named with URNs may contain relative references that do not apply to the URN itself. Therefore a relative reference SHOULD NOT be evaluated directly with respect to a URN. Instead, a relative reference SHOULD be evaluated indirectly with respect to one of the following: a base URI (other than a URN) declared by the resource itself; or a base URI (other than a URN) obtained through the URN resolution process; or the URL of the resource as obtained through the URN resolution process (Case 2 permits the resolution process to explicitly supply a base URI if the resource content is supplied directly by the resolution service rather than via an intermediate "location" URI.) If no such base URI exists, use of a relative reference with respect to a URN is an error and will yield results that might be unexpected or not useful. Resolution services SHOULD ensure that a base URI is supplied any time they provide resource content directly to a client.

When URNs are transported and exchanged, they MUST be represented in the format defined herein. Further, all URN-aware applications MUST offer the option of displaying URNs in this canonical form to allow for direct transcription (for example by cut and paste techniques). Such applications might support display of URNs in a more human-friendly form and might use a character set that includes characters that are not permitted in URN syntax as defined in this specification (e.g., when displaying URNs to humans, such applications might replace percent-encoded strings with characters from an extended character repertoire such as Unicode ). To minimize user confusion, a URI browser SHOULD display the complete URN (including the "urn" scheme and any components) to ensure that there is no confusion between URN namespace identifiers and URI scheme identifiers. For example, a URI beginning with "urn:xmpp:" is very different from a URI beginning with "xmpp:" . Similarly, a potential DOI URI scheme is different from, and possibly completely unrelated to, a possible DOI URN namespace.

As mentioned, the assignment of URNs is a managed process, as is the assignment of namespaces themselves. Although design of the URNs to be assigned within a given namespace is ceded by this specification to the namespace owner, doing so in a managed way avoids the problems inherent in unmanaged generation of URIs as described in the recommendations regarding URI design and ownership .

A URN namespace is a collection of identifiers that obey three constraints: each identifier is (1) unique, (2) assigned in a consistent way, and (3) assigned according to a common definition. The "uniqueness" constraint means that an identifier within the namespace is never assigned to more than one resource and never reassigned to a different resource, even if the identifier itself is deprecated or becomes obsolete. The "consistent assignment" constraint means that an identifier within the namespace is assigned by an organization or created in accordance with a process or algorithm that is always followed. The "common definition" constraint means that there are clear definitions for the syntax of identifiers within the namespace and for the process of assigning or creating them. A URN namespace is identified by a particular NID in order to ensure the global uniqueness of URNs and, optionally, to provide a cue regarding the structure of URNs assigned within a namespace. With regard to global uniqueness, using different NIDs for different collections of identifiers ensures that no two URNs will be the same for different resources, since each collection is required to uniquely assign each identifier. However, a single resource can have more than one URN assigned to it for different purposes (for example, if a book were published in a monograph series, it could have both an ISBN and an ISSN assigned to it, resulting in two URNs referring to the same book). Subject to other constraints, such as those imposed by the URI syntax , the rules of the URN scheme are intended to allow preserving the normal and natural form of identifiers specified elsewhere when they are treated as URN namespaces. With regard to the structure of URNs assigned within a namespace, the development of an identifier structure (and thereby a collection of identifiers) depends on the requirements of the community defining the identifiers, how the identifiers will be assigned and used, etc. These issues are beyond the scope of URN syntax and the general rules for URN namespaces, because they are specific to the community defining a namespace (e.g., the bibliographic and publishing communities in the case of the 'ISBN' and 'ISSN' namespaces, or the developers of extensions to the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol in the case of the 'XMPP' namespace). URN namespaces inherit certain rights and responsibilities by the nature of URNs, e.g.: They uphold the general principles of a well-managed URN namespace by providing persistent identification of resources and unique assignment of identifier strings in accordance with a common definition. Optionally, they can be registered in global registration services. There are two types of URN namespace: formal and informal. These are distinguished by the expected level of service, the information needed to define the namespace, and the procedures for registration. Because the majority of the namespaces registered so far have been formal, this document concentrates on formal namespaces. Note: defined a third type of "experimental namespaces", denoted by prefixing the namespace identifier with the string "X-". Consistent with general IETF conclusions about similar approaches , this specification removes the experimental category and syntax. Because experimental namespaces were never registered, removing the experimental category has no impact on the existing registries or future registration procedures. Because they are not registered, strings that refer to existing experimental namespaces are not valid URNs. Truly experimental usages can, of course, employ the 'example' namespace .

A formal namespace provides benefit to some subset of users on the Internet. In particular, it would not make sense for a formal namespace to be used only by a community or network that is not connected to the Internet. For example, it would be inappropriate for a NID to effectively force someone to use a proprietary network or service not open to the general Internet user. The intent is that, while the community of those who might actively use the names assigned within that NID might be small, the potential use of identifiers within that NID is open to any user on the Internet. Formal NIDs might be appropriate even when some aspects are not fully open. For example, a namespace might make use of a fee-based, privately managed, or proprietary registry for assignment of URNs in the namespace. However, it might still benefit some Internet users if the associated services have openly-published identifiers. An organization that will assign URNs within a formal namespace SHOULD meet the following criteria: Organizational stability and the ability to maintain the URN namespace for a long time; absent such evidence, it ought to be clear how the namespace can remain viable if the organization can no longer maintain the namespace. Competency in name assignment. This will improve the likelihood of persistence (e.g. to minimize the likelihood of conflicts). Commitment to not reassigning existing names and to allowing old names to continue to be valid (e.g., if the assignee of a name is no longer a member or customer of the assigning organization, if various information about the assignee or named entity happens to change, or even if the assignee or the named entity itself is no longer in existence; in all these cases, the name is still valid). A formal namespace establishes a particular NID, subject to the following constraints (above and beyond the syntax rules already specified): It MUST NOT be an already-registered NID. It MUST NOT start with "urn-" (which is reserved for informal namespaces). It MUST be more than two characters long. It MUST NOT start with "aa-", where "aa" is any combination of two ASCII letters and the hyphen is followed by something other than another hyphen. It MUST NOT start with the string "xn--" or any other string consisting of two letters followed by two hyphens. Those strings are reserved for potential representation of DNS A-labels and similar strings in the future . All two-letter strings, and all two-letter strings followed by "-" and any sequence of valid NID characters, are reserved for potential use as NIDs based on ISO alpha-2 country codes for eventual national registrations of URN namespaces. The definition and scoping of rules for allocation of responsibility for such country-code-based namespaces is beyond the scope of this document. Applicants and reviewers considering new NIDs should also be aware that they may be considered as names with semantic implications and hence a source of conflict. Particular attention should be paid to strings that might be construed as names of, or registered under the authority of, countries (including ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 codes) and to strings that might imply association with well-known trademarks. In line with traditional policies, disputes about "ownership" of particular strings are disagreements among the parties involved; neither IANA nor the IETF will become involved in such disputes except in response to orders from a court of competent jurisdiction.

Informal namespaces are full-fledged URN namespaces, with all the associated rights and responsibilities. Informal namespaces differ from formal namespaces in the process for assigning a NID: for an informal namespace, the registrant does not designate the NID; instead, IANA assigns a NID consisting of the string 'urn-' followed by one or more digits (e.g., "urn-7") where the digits consist of the next available number in the sequence of positive integers assigned to informal namespaces. Thus the syntax of an informal namespace is:

The only restrictions on <Number> are that it (1) consist strictly of ASCII digits, that it (2) not have leading zeros, and that it (3) not cause the NID to exceed the length limitations defined for the URN syntax.

Because the space of URN namespaces is itself managed, the definition of a namespace SHOULD pay particular attention to: The purpose of the namespace. The syntax of URNs assigned within the namespace, including whether q-components, r-components, or f-components are allowed. The process for assigning URNs within the namespace. The security implications of assigning URNs within the namespace and using the assigned URNs. Any potential interoperability issues with URNs assigned within the namespace. Optionally, the process for resolving URNs issued within the namespace. The section on completing the template () explains these matters in greater detail.

The basic registration policy for URN namespaces is Expert Review as defined in the "IANA Considerations" document . For namespaces or their definitions that are intended to become standards or normative components of standards, the output of the Expert Review process is intended to be a report, rather than instructions to IANA to take action (see below). The key steps are: Fill out the namespace registration template (see and ). This can be done as part of an Internet-Draft or a specification in another series, although that is not necessary. Send the completed template to the urn@ietf.org discussion list for review. If necessary to address comments received, repeat steps 1 and 2. If the designated experts approve the request and no standardization action is involved, the IANA will register the requested NID. If standardization is anticipated, the designated experts will prepare a report and forward it to the appropriate standards approval body (the IESG in the case of the IETF) and IANA will register the requested NID only after receiving directions from that body and a copy of the expert review report. A namespace registration can be revised by updating the registration template, following the same steps outlined above for new registrations. A revised registration MUST describe differences from prior versions and SHOULD make special note of any relevant changes in the underlying technologies or namespace management processes. Experience to date with namespace registration requests has shown that registrants sometimes do not initially understand some of the subtleties of URN namespaces, and that defining the namespace in the form of a specification enables the registrants to clearly formulate their "contract" with the intended user community. Therefore, although the registration policy for formal namespaces is Expert Review and a specification is not strictly required, it is RECOMMENDED for registrants to provide a stable specification documenting the namespace definition and expanding upon the issues described herein. Because naming can be difficult and contentious, namespace registrants and the designated experts are strongly encouraged to work together in a spirit of good faith and mutual understanding to achieve rough consensus (see ) on handling registration requests. They are also encouraged to bring additional expertise into the discussion if that would be helpful in providing perspective or otherwise resolving issues. Especially when iterations in the registration process are prolonged, designated experts are expected to take reasonable precautions to avoid race conditions on proposed NID names and, if such situations arise, to encourage applicants to work out any conflicts among themselves.

A template for defining and registering a URN namespace is provided in . This section describes considerations for completing the template.

The "Purpose" section of the template describes matters such as: The kinds of resources identified by URNs assigned within the namespace. Why it is preferable to use URNs rather than some other technology (e.g., separate URI schemes or URIs in existing schemes) and why no existing URN namespace is a good fit. The kinds of software applications that can use or resolve the assigned URNs (e.g., by differentiating among disparate namespaces, identifying resources in a persistent fashion, or meaningfully resolving and accessing services associated with the namespace). The scope of the namespace (public vs. private, global vs. local to a particular organization, nation, or industry). For example, a namespace claiming to deal in "national identification numbers" might be expected to have a global scope and address all identity number structures, whereas a URN scheme for a particular national identification number system would need to handle only the structure for that nation's identity numbers. How the intended community (and the Internet community at large) will benefit from using or resolving the assigned URNs. If the namespace or its definition are expected to become an integral and/or normative element of a standard being developed in the IETF or some other recognized standards body, that intention should be noted in this section.

The "Syntax" section of the template contains: A description of the structure of URNs within the namespace, in conformance with the fundamental URN syntax. The structure might be described in terms of a formal definition (e.g., using Augmented BNF for Syntax Specifications (ABNF) as specified in ), an algorithm for generating conformant URNs, or a regular expression for parsing the identifier into components; alternatively, the structure might be opaque. Any special character encoding rules for assigned URNs (e.g., which character ought to always be used for quotes). Rules for determining equivalence between two identifiers in the namespace. Such rules ought to always have the effect of eliminating false negatives that might otherwise result from comparison. If it is appropriate and helpful, reference can be made to specific equivalence rules defined in the URI specification . Examples of equivalence rules include equivalence between uppercase and lowercase characters in the Namespace Specific String, between hyphenated and non-hyphenated groupings in the identifier string, or between single-quotes and double-quotes. (Note that these are not normative statements for any kind of best practice related to handling of equivalences between characters in general; they are statements limited to one particular namespace only.) Any special considerations necessary for conforming with the URN syntax. This is particularly applicable in the case of existing naming systems that are used in the context of URNs. For example, if a namespace is used in contexts other than URNs, it might make use of characters that are reserved in the URN syntax. This section ought to note any such characters, and outline necessary mappings to conform to URN syntax. Normally, this will be handled by percent-encoding the character as specified in Section 2.1 of the URI specification .

The "Assignment" section of the template describes matters such as: Mechanisms or authorities for assigning URNs to resources. It ought to make clear whether assignment is completely open (e.g., following a particular procedure such as first-come, first-served (FCFS)), completely closed (e.g., for a private organization), or limited in various ways (e.g., delegated to authorities recognized by a particular organization); if limited, it ought to explain how to become an assigner of identifiers or how to request assignment of identifiers from existing assignment authorities. Methods for ensuring that URNs within the namespace are unique. For example, identifiers might be assigned sequentially or in accordance with some well-defined process by a single authority, assignment might be partitioned among delegated authorities that are individually responsible for respecting uniqueness rules, or URNs might be created independently following an algorithm that itself guarantees uniqueness.

The "Security and Privacy" section of the template describes any potential issues related to security and privacy with regard to assignment, use, and resolution of identifiers within the namespace. Examples of such issues include: The consequences of producing false negatives and false positives during comparison for equivalence (see "Issues in Identifier Comparison for Security Purposes" ) Leakage of private information when identifiers are communicated on the public Internet The potential for directory harvesting Various issues discussed in the guidelines for security considerations in RFCs and the privacy considerations for Internet protocols .

The "Interoperability" section MUST specify any potential issues related to interoperability. Examples include possible confusion with other URN namespaces or naming systems because of syntax (e.g., percent-encoding of certain characters) or scope (e.g., overlapping areas of interest). If at all possible, concerns that arise during the registration of a URN namespace (e.g., due to the syntax or scope of an identifier system) SHOULD be resolved as part of the registration process.

The "Resolution" section MUST specify whether resolution mechanisms are intended or anticipated for URNs assigned within the namespace (e.g., URNs within some namespaces are intended to act as abstract designators and thus are not intended to be resolved). If resolution is intended, then this section SHOULD specify whether the organization that assigns URNs within the namespace intends to operate or recommend any resolution services for URNs within that namespace. In addition, if the assigning organization intends to implement registration for publicly advertised resolution services (for example using a system based on principles similar to those described in and ), then this section SHOULD list or reference the requirements for being publicly advertised by the assigning organization.

This section updates the registration of the 'urn' URI scheme in the Permanent URI Registry . [Note to RFC Editor: please replace "[ &ThisDoc; ]" with "RFC" and the number assigned to this document upon publication.] urn permanent See of [ &ThisDoc; ]. The 'urn' scheme identifies Uniform Resource Names, which are persistent, location-independent resource identifiers. See of [ &ThisDoc; ]. Uniform Resource Names are used in a wide variety of applications, including bibliographic reference systems and as names for Extensible Markup Language (XML) namespaces. See of [ &ThisDoc; ]. See and of [ &ThisDoc; ]. URNBIS WG [mailto:urn@ietf.org] This scheme is registered under the IETF tree. As such, the IETF maintains change control. None.

This document outlines the processes for registering URN namespaces, and has implications for the IANA in terms of registries to be maintained (see especially ). In all cases, the IANA ought to assign the appropriate NID (formal or informal) once the procedures outlined in this document have been completed.

The definition of a URN namespace needs to account for potential security and privacy issues related to assignment, use, and resolution of identifiers within the namespace (e.g., some namespace resolvers might assign special meaning to certain characters in the Namespace Specific String); see for further discussion. In most cases, URN namespaces provide a way to declare public information. Nominally, these declarations will have a relatively low security profile, however there is always the danger of "spoofing" and providing misinformation. Information in these declarations ought to be taken as advisory.

University California Los Angeles (UCLA) For concreteness, we suggest the use of standard 7-bit ASCII embedded in an 8 bit byte whose high order bit is always 0. Harvard University

1350 Mass. Ave. Cambridge MA 02138 - +1 617 495 3864 sob@harvard.edu

General keyword In many standards track documents several words are used to signify the requirements in the specification. These words are often capitalized. This document defines these words as they should be interpreted in IETF documents. Authors who follow these guidelines should incorporate this phrase near the beginning of their document: The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119. Note that the force of these words is modified by the requirement level of the document in which they are used. World Wide Web Consortium

Massachusetts Institute of Technology 77 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge MA 02139 USA +1-617-253-5702 +1-617-258-5999 timbl@w3.org http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/

Day Software

5251 California Ave., Suite 110 Irvine CA 92617 USA +1-949-679-2960 +1-949-679-2972 fielding@gbiv.com http://roy.gbiv.com/

Adobe Systems Incorporated

345 Park Ave San Jose CA 95110 USA +1-408-536-3024 LMM@acm.org http://larry.masinter.net/

Applications uniform resource identifier URI URL URN WWW resource A Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) is a compact sequence of characters that identifies an abstract or physical resource. This specification defines the generic URI syntax and a process for resolving URI references that might be in relative form, along with guidelines and security considerations for the use of URIs on the Internet. The URI syntax defines a grammar that is a superset of all valid URIs, allowing an implementation to parse the common components of a URI reference without knowing the scheme-specific requirements of every possible identifier. This specification does not define a generative grammar for URIs; that task is performed by the individual specifications of each URI scheme. Many protocols make use of identifiers consisting of constants and other well-known values. Even after a protocol has been defined and deployment has begun, new values may need to be assigned (e.g., for a new option type in DHCP, or a new encryption or authentication transform for IPsec). To ensure that such quantities have consistent values and interpretations across all implementations, their assignment must be administered by a central authority. For IETF protocols, that role is provided by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).</t><t> In order for IANA to manage a given namespace prudently, it needs guidelines describing the conditions under which new values can be assigned or when modifications to existing values can be made. If IANA is expected to play a role in the management of a namespace, IANA must be given clear and concise instructions describing that role. This document discusses issues that should be considered in formulating a policy for assigning values to a namespace and provides guidelines for authors on the specific text that must be included in documents that place demands on IANA.</t><t> This document obsoletes RFC 2434. This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the Internet Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. Internet technical specifications often need to define a formal syntax. Over the years, a modified version of Backus-Naur Form (BNF), called Augmented BNF (ABNF), has been popular among many Internet specifications. The current specification documents ABNF. It balances compactness and simplicity with reasonable representational power. The differences between standard BNF and ABNF involve naming rules, repetition, alternatives, order-independence, and value ranges. This specification also supplies additional rule definitions and encoding for a core lexical analyzer of the type common to several Internet specifications. [STANDARDS-TRACK] Experience has shown that identifiers associated with persistent names have properties and requirements that may be somewhat different from identifiers associated with the locations of objects. This is especially true when such names are expected to be stable for a very long time or when they identify large and complex entities. In order to allow Uniform Resource Names (URNs) to evolve to meet the needs of the Library, Museum, Publisher, and Informational Sciences communities and other users, this specification separates URNs from the semantic constraints that many people believe are part of the specification for Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) specified in RFC 3986, updating that document accordingly. The syntax of URNs is still constrained to that of RFC 3986, so generic URI parsers are unaffected by this change. ISO IANA MIT Laboratory for Computer Science

545 Technology Square Cambridge MA 02139 US +1 617 253 2673 sollins@lcs.mit.edu

Xerox Palo Alto Research Center

3333 Coyote Hill Road Palo Alto CA 94304 US +1 415 812 4365 +1 415 812 4333 masinter@parc.xerox.com

AT&T

15621 Drexel Circle Omaha NE 68135-2358 USA +1 402 894-9456 jayhawk@ds.internic.net

Applications URN uniform resource Uniform Resource Names (URNs) are intended to serve as persistent, location-independent, resource identifiers. This document sets forward the canonical syntax for URNs. A discussion of both existing legacy and new namespaces and requirements for URN presentation and transmission are presented. Finally, there is a discussion of URN equivalence and how to determine it. MIT Laboratory for Computer Science

545 Technology Sq. Cambridge MA 02139 +1 617 253 6006 sollins@lcs.mit.edu

Applications security uniform resource This document addresses the issues of the discovery of URN (Uniform Resource Name) resolver services that in turn will directly translate URNs into URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) and URCs (Uniform Resource Characteristics). The document falls into three major parts, the assumptions underlying the work, the guidelines in order to be a viable Resolver Discovery Service or RDS, and a framework for designing RDSs. The guidelines fall into three principle areas: evolvability, usability, and security and privacy. An RDS that is compliant with the framework will not necessarily be compliant with the guidelines. Compliance with the guidelines will need to be validated separately. Network Solutions

505 Huntmar Park Drive Herndon VA 22070 USA +1 703 742 0400 +1 703 742 9552 michaelm@rwhois.net

Los Alamos National Laboratory, ,Advanced Computing Lab

MS B287 Los Alamos NM 87545 USA +1 505 665 0597 +1 505 665 4939 rdaniel@lanl.gov

Applications uniform resource identifier URI Retrieving the resource identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) is only one of the operations that can be performed on a URI. One might also ask for and get a list of other identifiers that are aliases for the original URI or a bibliographic description of the resource the URI denotes, for example. This applies to both Uniform Resource Names (URNs) and Uniform Resource Locators (URLs). Uniform Resource Characteristics (URCs) are discussed in this document but only as descriptions of resources rather than identifiers. A service in the network providing access to a resource may provide one or some of these options, but it need not provide all of them. This memo specifies an initial set of these operations that can be used to describe the interactions provided by a given access service. It also suggests guidelines that should be adhered to when those operations are encoded in a protocol. This document presents how the ISSN - International Standard Serial Number - which is a persistent number for unique identification of serials widely recognised and used in the bibliographic world, can be supported within the Uniform Resource Name (URN) framework as a specific URN namespace identifier. This memo provides information for the Internet community. This document discusses how International Standard Book Numbers (ISBN) can be supported within the URN (Uniform Resource Names) framework and the syntax for URNs defined in RFC 2141. Much of the discussion below is based on the ideas expressed in RFC 2288. This memo provides information for the Internet community. This document lays out general definitions of and mechanisms for establishing Uniform Resource Names (URN) "namespaces". The URN WG has defined a syntax for URNs in RFC 2141, as well as some proposed mechanisms for their resolution and use in Internet applications in RFC 3401 and RFC 3405. The whole rests on the concept of individual "namespaces" within the URN structure. Apart from proof-of-concept namespaces, the use of existing identifiers in URNs has been discussed in RFC 2288. This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the Internet Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. All RFCs are required to have a Security Considerations section. Historically, such sections have been relatively weak. This document provides guidelines to RFC authors on how to write a good Security Considerations section. This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the Internet Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. XMPP Standards Foundation

P.O. Box 1641 Denver CO 80201 USA stpeter@jabber.org xmpp:stpeter@jabber.org

Applications Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol XMPP Jabber Instant Messaging Presence Uniform Resource Name URN This document describes a Uniform Resource Name (URN) namespace for uniquely identifying Extensible Markup Language (XML) formats and protocols that provide extensions to the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) and are defined in specifications published by the XMPP Standards Foundation (XSF). This document defines fifteen metadata elements for resource description in a cross-disciplinary information environment. This memo provides information for the Internet community. This document defines the use of Internationalized Resource Identifiers (IRIs) and Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) in identifying or interacting with entities that can communicate via the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP). [STANDARDS-TRACK] This document is one of a collection that, together, describe the protocol and usage context for a revision of Internationalized Domain Names for Applications (IDNA), superseding the earlier version. It describes the document collection and provides definitions and other material that are common to the set. [STANDARDS-TRACK] Historically, designers and implementers of application protocols have often distinguished between standardized and unstandardized parameters by prefixing the names of unstandardized parameters with the string "X-" or similar constructs. In practice, that convention causes more problems than it solves. Therefore, this document deprecates the convention for newly defined parameters with textual (as opposed to numerical) names in application protocols. This memo documents an Internet Best Current Practice. Identifiers such as hostnames, URIs, IP addresses, and email addresses are often used in security contexts to identify security principals and resources. In such contexts, an identifier presented via some protocol is often compared using some policy to make security decisions such as whether the security principal may access the resource, what level of authentication or encryption is required, etc. If the parties involved in a security decision use different algorithms to compare identifiers, then failure scenarios ranging from denial of service to elevation of privilege can result. This document provides a discussion of these issues that designers should consider when defining identifiers and protocols, and when constructing architectures that use multiple protocols. This document defines a Uniform Resource Name (URN) namespace identifier enabling the generation of URNs that are appropriate for use in documentation and in URN-related testing and experimentation. This document offers guidance for developing privacy considerations for inclusion in protocol specifications. It aims to make designers, implementers, and users of Internet protocols aware of privacy-related design choices. It suggests that whether any individual RFC warrants a specific privacy considerations section will depend on the document's content. The IETF has had a long tradition of doing its technical work through a consensus process, taking into account the different views among IETF participants and coming to (at least rough) consensus on technical matters. In particular, the IETF is supposed not to be run by a "majority rule" philosophy. This is why we engage in rituals like "humming" instead of voting. However, more and more of our actions are now indistinguishable from voting, and quite often we are letting the majority win the day without consideration of minority concerns. This document explains some features of rough consensus, what is not rough consensus, how we have gotten away from it, how we might think about it differently, and the things we can do in order to really achieve rough consensus.</t><t> Note: This document is quite consciously being put forward as Informational. It does not propose to change any IETF processes and is therefore not a BCP. It is simply a collection of principles, hopefully around which the IETF can come to (at least rough) consensus. Section 1.1.1 of RFC 3986 defines URI syntax as "a federated and extensible naming system wherein each scheme's specification may further restrict the syntax and semantics of identifiers using that scheme." In other words, the structure of a URI is defined by its scheme. While it is common for schemes to further delegate their substructure to the URI's owner, publishing independent standards that mandate particular forms of URI substructure is inappropriate, because that essentially usurps ownership. This document further describes this problematic practice and provides some acceptable alternatives for use in standards. The Unicode Consortium

Requested of IANA (formal) or assigned by IANA (informal).

The version of the registration, starting with 1 and incrementing by 1 with each new version.

The date when the registration is requested of IANA, using the format YYYY-MM-DD.

The person or organization that has registered the NID, including the following information: The name and address of the registering organization. The name and contact information (email, phone number, and/or postal address) of the designated contact person.

Described under of this document.

Described under of this document. Unless the registration explicitly says otherwise, use of p-, q-, and/or f-components is not allowed for this namespace.

Described under of this document.

Described under of this document.

Described under of this document.

Described under of this document.

A pointer to an RFC, a specification published by another standards development organization, or another stable document that provides further information about the namespace.

(Applicable only when earlier registrations have been revised.) Description of changes from prior version(s).

This document makes the following substantive changes from : Formally registers 'urn' as a URI scheme. Disallows "-" at the end of a NID. Allows the "/", "~", and "&" characters in the namespace-specific string (NSS). Allows q-components, r-components, and f-components.

This document makes the following substantive changes from : Relaxes the registration policy for formal namespaces from "IETF Review" to "Expert Review" as discussed in . Removes the category of experimental namespaces, consistent with . Simplifies the registration template. In addition, some of the text has been updated to be consistent with the definition of Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) and the processes for registering information with the IANA , as well as more modern guidance with regard to security and privacy issues and identifier comparison .

RFC 2141, which provided the basis for the syntax portion of this document, was authored by Ryan Moats. RFC 3406, which provided the basis for the namespace portion of this document, was authored by Leslie Daigle, Dirk-Willem van Gulik, Renato Iannella, and Patrik Faltstrom. Their work is gratefully acknowledged.

Many thanks to Marc Blanchet, Leslie Daigle, Martin Duerst, Juha Hakala, Ted Hardie, Alfred Hoenes, Paul Jones, Barry Leiba, Sean Leonard, Larry Masinter, Keith Moore, Mark Nottingham, Julian Reschke, Lars Svensson, Henry S. Thompson, Dale Worley, and other participants in the URNBIS WG for their input. Alfred Hoenes in particular edited an earlier version of this document and served as co-chair of the URNBIS WG. Juha Hakala deserves special recognition for his dedication to successfully completing this work, as do Andrew Newton and Melinda Shore in their roles as working group co-chairs and Barry Leiba in his role as area director.

[[RFC Editor: please remove this appendix before publication.]]

Altered the text in to reflect list discussions about the earlier phrasing. Also added DOI example and citation to that section. Clarified the naming rules for formal namespaces and their relationship to ISO 3166, IDNA, etc., reserved strings. Added an explicit statement about use of URNs in various protocols and contexts to . Clarified that experimental namespace NIDs, which were explicitly not registered, are not valid URNs (in . Transformed the partial production in into valid ABNF. Added more text about p-/q-/f-components and recommendations about use. Added clarifying note about "?" within q-components and f-components. Added explicit requirement that revisions of existing registrations document the changes and added a slot for that description to the template. Many small editorial changes and adjustments including adding additional references and cross-references for clarification. Inserted a placeholder for additional examples.

Several clarifying editorial changes, most suggested by Ted Hardie and Henry S. Thompson (some of them off-list). Added a large number of placeholders that identify issues that require WG consideration and resolution (or WG delegation to the editors).

Removed most of the placeholders added in -10. Supplied new text as required or suggested by on-list discussion of those issues. Replaced the conformance examples with a more complete collection and discussion. Revised and consolidated the registration procedure, and added provisions for NIDs that are the subject of standards and for avoiding race conditions about NID strings. In response to independent comments from Ted Hardie and Henry S. Thompson, called attention to the possibility of conflicts between NID strings and various claims of national, corporate, and other perogatives. Changed the production for assigned-name as suggested by Lars Svensson. Several clarifying editorial changes including correcting a glitch in instructions to the RFC Editor.

Removed p-components as a standalone construct, and instead folded them into the NSS. Defined syntax for r-components as a way to pass information to resolvers, but left the semantics for future standardization efforts. Further tuned the discussion of interoperability and related registration issues. Made a number of editorial corrections and reorganized the syntax material in somewhat to make it internally consistent and keep the relationship to RFC 3986 clear.