Internet DRAFT - draft-finseth-eid-url-scheme
draft-finseth-eid-url-scheme
INTERNET-DRAFT C. Finseth
Expires in six months U.S. Satellite Broadcasting
2 November 1998
The "eid" URL Scheme
draft-finseth-eid-url-scheme-00.txt
Status of this Memo
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Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1998). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
This document defines a new URL scheme, "eid". This scheme provides
a mechanism by which the local application can reference data that
has been obtained by other, non-URL scheme means. The scheme is
intended to provide a general escape mechanism to allow access to
information for applications that are too specialized to justify
their own schemas.
Description
Some computer systems have more than one mechansim for obtaining
data. The data arrive at different times and use different methods
for labelling the information. The "eid" ("External ID") URL schema
provides a mechanism for a URL-aware application to specify the
identity of this external data.
The URLs are of the form:
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eid:<identifier>
The characters of the <identifier> must drawn from the standard URL
character set.
The <identifier> is interpreted in the application's environment and
is meaningful only in that environment. It follows that construction
of the <identifier> requires knowledge of the application's
environment.
This schema does not specify the mechanism used to acquire the data
referenced by the <identifier>. It assumes that either that data is
already available to the application or the <identifier> contains
enough information to allow the application to obtain the data.
In sufficiently rich application environments there may be more than
one conceptual address space. Such environments may wish to use
identifiers of the form:
<selector>/<sub-identifier>
although any form is acceptable.
Syntax
eidurl := "eid:" identifier
identifier := *urlchar
where "urlchar" is imported from [RFC2396].
Examples
One use of the eid schema would be to access data stored in
application memory. In this case, the <identifier> could specify a
memory address. For example, if there were three fixed buffers at
addresses 0x00001000, 0x00002000, and 0x00003000, they could be
accessed by:
eid:0x00001000
eid:0x00002000
eid:0x00003000
Another example might be an application that reads stock market
quotations and stores the current values in a mini-database indexed
by the ticker symbol. For example:
eid:EK for Eastman Kodak Company
eid:F for Ford Motor Company
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A third example might be a dialup application where the <identifier>
specifies a telephone number, login sequence, and remote command to
execute. It might look like:
eid:555-1212,sample_user,sample_password,sample_command
Security Considerations
The very nature of this schema is to provide an escape mechanism and
by definition there cannot be a generic implementation of such a
mechanism. Thus, many URL-aware applications will not implement this
schema and so have no increased exposure.
Those applications that do implement this schema will do so in
application-specific ways. Hence, there cannot be an "across-the-
board" exposure from this schema. However, each application that
does implement this schema will have to provide its own security.
References
[RFC2396] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter,
"Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax", RFC
2396, August 1998.
Author's Address
Craig A. Finseth
U.S. Satellite Broadcasting
3415 University Ave
St Paul MN 55114
Phone: +1 651-659-7162
EMail: craig@finseth.com
Full Copyright Statement
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1998). All Rights Reserved.
This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
or assist in its implmentation may be prepared, copied, published and
distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind,
provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this
document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of
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developing Internet standards in which case the procedures for
copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process must be
followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than
English.
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