Network Working Group M. Rose
Request for Comments: 3349 Dover Beach Consulting, Inc.
BCP: 59 July 2002
Category: Best Current Practice
A Transient Prefix for Identifying Profiles under Development by the
Working Groups of the Internet Engineering Task Force
Status of this Memo
This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the
Internet Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2002). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
As a part of their deliverables, working groups of the IETF may
develop BEEP profiles. During the development process, it is
desirable to assign a transient identifier to each profile. If the
profile is subsequently published as an RFC, then a permanent
identifier is subsequently assigned by the IANA.
Rose Best Current Practice [Page 1]RFC 3349 Transient IDs for BEEP Profiles July 2002
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
A. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
B. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Full Copyright Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
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1. Introduction
Each BEEP profile [1] is identified by a URI [2]. The BEEP
specification uses URIs to identify a BEEP profile both:
o statically, when a profile is formally defined (RFC 3080's Section
5.1); and,
o dynamically, during channel management (RFC 3080's Section 2.3.1).
If the BEEP profile appears on the standards-track [3], then the IANA
is responsible for assigning the URI associated with the BEEP
profile. Otherwise, the entity specifying the BEEP profile is free
to assign a URI under its administration to the profile.
If a working group of the IETF is developing a BEEP profile, then,
during the development process, it is desirable to use a transient
identifier for the profile. Further, it is desirable that the
transient identifier be associated with the working group.
This memo defines the practice for making such an assignment. Note
that this practice does not apply to activities outside of working
groups -- anyone able to assign a URL is capable of defining a URI
for the purposes of identifying the BEEP profiles that they develop.
2. Practice
When a working group is formed, the IETF secretariat assigns a brief
mnemonic prefix to the working group, e.g., "provreg" or "sacred".
When a working group begins development of a document which specifies
a BEEP profile, the working group chair assigns a transient
identifier of the form "http://iana.org/beep/transient/XXX/YYY" where
"XXX" is the working group's mnemonic and "YYY" is a unique string.
Although the resulting URI must conform to the URI syntax, the "YYY"
portion is otherwise arbitrary. For example, it may contain a sub-
hierarchy (e.g., "epp/1.0").
For example,
http://iana.org/beep/transient/provreg/epp/1.0
http://iana.org/beep/transient/sacred/pdm
might be assigned by the chairs of the "provreg" and "sacred" working
groups, respectively.
Following this, the working group chair completes a BEEP profile
registration template, and submits this information to the IANA.
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Note that although the IETF hasn't established a practice with
respect to the use of capitalization in URLs employed for namespace
purposes, the W3C has a lowercase-only policy. Working group chairs
are encouraged to consider this when making assignments.
3. Security Considerations
This document describes an administrative convention and raises no
additional security considerations. Of course, each BEEP-based
protocol has its own set of security considerations, which should be
described in the relevant specification.
References
[1] Rose, M., "The Blocks Extensible Exchange Protocol Core", RFC
3080, March 2001.
[2] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R. and L. Masinter, "Uniform Resource
Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax", RFC 2396, August 1998.
[3] Hovey, R. and S. Bradner, "The Organizations Involved in the
IETF Standards Process", BCP 11, RFC 2028, October 1996.
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Appendix A. Acknowledgements
The author gratefully acknowledges the contributions of: Dan Kohn and
Bob Wyman.
Appendix B. IANA Considerations
The IANA maintains a registry of transient identifiers used for BEEP
profiles under development in the IETF, using the profile
registration template defined in Section 5.1 of [1].
Note that unlike the registration procedures defined in Appendix B of
[1], the working group chair (instead of the IESG) is responsible for
authorizing the registration.
Author's Address
Marshall T. Rose
Dover Beach Consulting, Inc.
POB 255268
Sacramento, CA 95865-5268
US
Phone: +1 916 483 8878
EMail: mrose@dbc.mtview.ca.us
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RFC 3349 Transient IDs for BEEP Profiles July 2002
Full Copyright Statement
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Acknowledgement
Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the
Internet Society.
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