Uniform Resource Locators (URL) Tim Berners-Lee
draft-ietf-uri-url-03.{ps,txt} URI working Group
Expires 21 September 1994 21 March 1994
Uniform Resource Locators (URL)
A Syntax for the Expression of
Access Information of Objects on the Network
ABOUT THIS DOCUMENT
This document specifies a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), the
syntax and semantics of formalized information for location and
access of resources on the Internet.
This document was written by the URI working group of the Internet
Engineering Task Force. Comments may be addressed to the editor,
Tim Berners-Lee <[email protected]>, or to the URI-WG
<[email protected]>. Discussions of the group are archived at
This document is bound by the Requirements Specification in
preparation.
The work is derived from concepts introduced by the World-Wide Web
global information initiative, whose use of such objects dates
from 1990 and is described in "Universal Resource identifeirs for
the World-Wide Web", RFCXXX .
This document is available in hypertext form, with links to
background information, as:
.
STATUS OF THIS MEMO
This document is an Internet Draft. Internet Drafts are working
documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its Areas,
and its Working Groups. Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet Drafts.
Internet Drafts are working documents valid for a maximum of six
months. Internet Drafts may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by
other documents at any time. It is not appropriate to use Internet
Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as a
"working draft" or "work in progress".
Distribution of this document is unlimited.
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RFC XXXX Uniform Resource Locators (URL) March 21 1994
Distribution of this document is unlimited.
Recommendations
This section describes the syntax for "Uniform Resource Locators"
(URLs): that is, basically physical addresses of objects which are
retrievable using protocols already deployed on the net. The
generic syntax provides a framework for new schemes for names to be
resolved using as yet undefined protocols.
The syntax is described in two parts. Firstly, we give the syntax
rules of a completely specified name; secondly, we give the rules
under which parts of the name may be omitted in a well-defined
context.
URL SYNTAX
A complete URL consists of a naming scheme specifier followed by a
string whose format is a function of the naming scheme. For
locators of information on the internet, a common syntax is used
for the IP address part. A BNF description of the URL syntax is
given in an a later section. The components are as follows.
Fragment identifiers and partial URLs are not involved in the basic
URL definition.
PrePrefix
To be a Uniform Resource Locator as currently defined by the URI
working group, the whole string must start with a constant prefix
"URL:". Note that to save space in this document, some URLs may
have been quoted throughout without this preprefix.
Scheme
Within the URL of a object, the first element is the name of the
scheme, separated from the rest of the object by a colon. The rest
of the URL follows the colon in a format depending on the scheme.
Internet protocol parts
Those schemes which refer to internet protocols mostly have a
common syntax for the rest of the object name. This starts with a
double slash "//" to indicate its presence, and continues until the
following slash "/". Within that section are
An optional user name,
if required (as it is with a few FTP
servers). The password, is present, follows
the user name, separated from it by a colon;
the user name and optional password are
followed by a commercial at sign "@". The
user of user name and passwords which are
public is discouraged.
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RFC XXXX Uniform Resource Locators (URL) March 21 1994
The internet domain name
of the host in RFC1037 format (or,
optionally and less advisably, the IP address
as a set of four decimal digits)
The port number, if it is not the default number for the
protocol, is given in decimal notation after
a colon.
Path The rest of the locator is known as the
"path". It may define details of how the
client should communicate with the server,
including information to be passed
transparently to the server without any
processing by the client.
The path is interpreted in a manner dependent on the scheme being
used. Generally, the reserved slash "/" character (ASCII 2F hex)
denotes a level in a hierarchical structure, the higher level part
to the left of the slash.
ENCODING PROHIBITED CHARACTERS
When a system uses a local addressing scheme, it is useful to
provide a mapping from local addresses into URLs so that references
to objects within the addressing scheme may be referred to
globally, and possibly accessed through gateway servers.
Any mapping scheme may be defined provided it is unambiguous,
reversible, and provides valid URLs. It is recommended that where
hierarchical aspects to the local naming scheme exist, they be
mapped onto the hierarchical URL path syntax in order to allow the
partial form to be used.
The following encoding method shall be used for mapping WAIS, FTP,
Prospero and Gopher addresses onto URLs. Where the local naming
scheme uses octet values which are not allowed in the URL, these
shall be represented in the URL by a percent sign "%" followed by
two hexadecimal digits (0-9, A-F) giving the value for that octet.
This specification makes no assumptions or requirements about the
character sets, if any, referred to be the (decoded) octets a URL.
Character codes other than those allowed by the syntax shall not be
used unencoded in a URL.
The same encoding method may be used for encoding characters whose
use, although technically allowed in a URL, would be unwise due to
problems of corruption by imperfect gateways or misrepresentation
due to the use of variant character sets, or which would simply be
awkward in a given environment. Because a % sign always indicates
an encoded character, a URL may be made safer simply by encoding
any characters considered unsafe, while leaving already encoded
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characters still encoded. Similarly, in cases where a larger set
of characters is acceptable, % signs can be selectively and
reversibly expanded.
The reserved characters shall however never be arbitrarly encoded
and decoded.
Specific Schemes
The mapping for some existing standard and experimental protocols
is outlined in the BNF syntax definition . Notes on particular
protocols follow. The schemes covered are
http Hypertext Transfer Protocol
ftp File Transfer protocol
gopher The Gopher protocol
mailto Electronic mail address
mid Message identifiers for electronic mail
cid Content identifiers for MIME body part
news Usenet news
nntp Usenet news for local NNTP access only
prospero Access using the prospero protocols
telnet , rlogin and tn3270
Reference to interactive sessions
wais Wide Area Information Servers
Other schemes may be specified by future specifications
New schemes may be registered at a later time.
FTP
The ftp: prefix indicates that the FTP protocol is used, as defined
in RFC957 or any successor. The port number, if present, gives the
port of the FTP server if not the FTP default.
User name and password
The syntax allows for the inclusion of a user name and even a
password for those systems which do not use the anonymous FTP
convention. The default, however, if no user or password is
supplied, will be to use that convention, viz. that the user name
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RFC XXXX Uniform Resource Locators (URL) March 21 1994
is "anonymous" and the password the user's Internet-style mail
address .
Where possible, this mail address should correspond to a usable
mail address for the user, and preferably give a DNS host name
which resolves to the IP address of the client. Note that servers
currently vary in their treatment of the anonymous password.
Path
The FTP protocol allows for a sequence of CWD commands (change
working directory) and a TYPE command prior to service commands
such as RETR (retrieve) or NLIST (etc) which actually access a
file.
The arguments of any CWD commands are successive segment parts of
the URL delimited by slash, and the final segment is suitable as
the filename argument to the RETR command for retrieval or the
directory argument to NLIST.
For some file systems (Unix in particular), the "/" used to denote
the hierarchical structure of the URL corresponds to the delimiter
used to construct a file name hierarchy, and thus, the filename
will look the same as the URL path. This does NOT mean that the URL
is a Unix filename.
Note: Retrieving subsequent URLs from the same host
There is no common hierarchical model to the FTP protocol, so if a
directory change command has been given, it is impossible in
general to deduce what sequence should be given to navigate to
another directory for a second retrieval, if the paths are
different. The only reliable algorithm is to disconnect and
reestablish the control connection.
Data type
The data content type of a file can only, in the general FTP case,
be deduced from the name, normally the suffix of the name. This is
not standardized. An alternative is for it to be transferred in
information outside the URL. A suitable FTP transfer type (for
example binary "I" or text "A") must in turn be deduced from the
data content type. It is recommended that conventions for suffixes
of public archives be established, but it is outside the scope of
this standard.
An FTP URL may optionally specify the FTP data transfer type by
which an object is to be retrieved. Most of the methods correspond
to the FTP "Data Types" ASCII and IMAGE for the retrieval of a
document, as specified in FTP by the TYPE command . One method
indicates directory access.
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The data type is specified by a suffix to the URL. Possible
suffixes are:
;type = Use FTP type as given to perform data
transfer.
/ Use FTP directory list commands to read
directory
The type code is in the format defined in RFC959 except that THE
SPACE IS OMITTED FROM THE URL.
Transfer Mode
Stream Mode is always used.
HTTP
The HTTP protocol specifies that the path is handled transparently
by those who handle URLs, except for the servers which de-reference
them. The path is passed by the client to the server with any
request, but is not otherwise understood by the client.
The host details are not passed on to the client when the URL is an
http URL which refers to the server in question. In this case the
string sent starts with the slash which follows the host details.
However, when an http server is being used as a gateway (or
"proxy") then the entire URI, whether HTTP or some other scheme, is
passed on the HTTP command line.The search part, if present, is
sent as part of the HTTP command, and may in this respect be
treated as part of the path.No fragmentid part of a WWW URI (the
hash sign and following) is sent with the request. Spaces and
control characters in URLs must be escaped for transmission in
HTTP, as must other disallowed characters.
GOPHER
Gopher selector strings are, in general, interpreted as a sequence
of 8-bit bytes which may contain any characters other than tab,
return, or linefeed. It is necessary to encode any characters
disallowed in a URL, including spaces and other binary data not in
the allowed character set, using the standard convention of the "%"
character followed by two hexadecimal digits.
Note that slash "/" in gopher selector strings may not correspond
to a level in a hierarchical structure.
The format of a gopher URL is:
1. A single-character field to denote the Gopher type of the
resource to which the URL refers.
2. The gopher selector string. Note that some gopher selector
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strings begin with a copy of the gopher type character, in which
case that character will occur twice consecutively. Also note
that the gopher selector string may be an empty string since
this is how gopher clients refer to the top-level directory on
a gopher server.
If the URL does not refer to a Gopher+ item and if there is no
gopher search string then parts 3, 4, 5, and 6 of the URL are
optional
3. An encoded tab character (%09) to seperate the gopher
selector string from the optional search string (see 4 below).
4. The gopher search string. If the URL refers to a search to
be submitted to a gopher search engine, the search string is
required. Otherwise this is an empty string.
5. An encoded tab character (%09) to seperate the gopher search
string from the optional gopher+ string (see 6 below). Note
that if the URL refers to a gopher+ item and does not have a
gopher search string, there will be two encoded tab characters
in a row.
6. The Gopher+ string. Gopher+ strings consist of a one or more
characters and are used to represent information required for
retrieval of the Gopher+ item. Gopher+ items may have alternate
views, arbitrary sets of attributes, and may have electronic
forms associated with them. To accomodate the various Gopher+
objects, the Gopher+ string in the URL must accomodate a
mapping of the information a Gopher+ client sends to the server.
This makes this section a bit long since we basically cover the
entire Gopher+ protocol here.
When a Gopher server returns a directory listing to a client,
Gopher+ items are tagged with either a "+" (denoting gopher+ items)
or a "?" (denoting items which have a +ASK form associated with
them). A Gopher+ string which is only a "+" refers to the default
view (data representation) of the item. To retrieve this item a
gopher+ client should send
a_gopher_selector+
to the gopher+ server.
Note that items which have a +ASK asssociated with them (ie.
Gopher+ items tagged with a "?") require the client to fetch the
item's +ASK attribute to get the form definition, and then ask the
user to fill out the form and return the user's responces along
with the selector string to retrieve the item. Gopher+ clients
know how to do this but depend on the "?" tag in the gopher+ item
description to know when to handle this case. The "?" is used in
the Gopher+ string to be consistent with Gopher+ protocol's use of
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this symbol.
To refer to the Gopher+ attributes of an item, the Gopher+ string
shall consist of "!" or "$". "!" refers to the all of a gopher+
item's attributes. "$" refers to all the item attributes for all
items in a Gopher directory. To retrieve an item or directory's
attributes, a gopher client will send:
a_gopher_selector!
for items or
a_gopher_selector$
for directories to the gopher+ server.
To refer to specific attributes, the Gopher+ string is
"!attribute_name" or "$attribute_name". For example, to refer to
the attribute containing the abstract of an item, the Gopher+
string would be "!+ABSTRACT". To refer to several attributes,
clients send the server the attribute names seperated by spaces so
it is neccesary to seperate the attribute names with coded spaces.
To retrieve a collection of item attributes specified with a
gopher+ string of "!+ABSTRACT%20+SMELL" a gopher client would send
a_gopher_selector!+ABSTRACT +SMELL
to the gopher server.
Gopher+ allows for optional alternate data representations
(alternate views) of items. To retrieve a Gopher+ alternate view,
the gopher+ client sends the appropriate view and language
identifier (found in the item's +VIEW attribute). To refer to a
specific Gopher+ alternate view, the URL's Gopher+ string would be
in the form "+view_name%20language_name". For example, a gopher+
string of "+application/postscript%20Es_ES" refers to the spanish
language postscript alternate view of a gopher+ item. To retrieve
this alternate view the client would send
a_gopher_selector+application/postscript Es_ES
to the gopher server.
The gopher+ string for a URL that refers to an item referenced by
an ASK form filled out with specific values is essentially a coded
version of what the client sends to the server. The gopher+ string
will be of the form
+%091%0D%0A+-1%0D%0Aask_item1_value%0D%0Aask_item2_value%0D%0A.%0D%0
A
To retrieve this item, the gopher client sends:
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RFC XXXX Uniform Resource Locators (URL) March 21 1994
a_gopher_selector+1
+-1
ask_item1_value
ask_item2_value
.
to the gopher server.
For a really complex example, consider a URL that refers to an
alternate view of an item that is referenced with a filled-out
Gopher +ASK form. The gopher+ string will be of the form:
+view_name%20language_name%091%0D%0A+-1%0D%0Aask_item1_value%0D%0A
ask_item2_value%0D%0A.%0D%0A
To retrieve this item, the gopher client sends:
a_gopher_selector+view_name language_name1
+-1
ask_item1_value
ask_item2_value
.
to the gopher server.
Summary: gopher+ string part of Gopher URL
To refer to an item which has an ASK form associated with it where
the intent is to allow the user to enter values into the form as
part of the retrieval process:
%3F
To refer to all or specific attributes of a gopher item:
![attribute_name][%20attribute_name][%20attribute_name]...
To refer to all or specific attributes of a gopher directory:
$[attribute_name][%20attribute_name][%20attribute_name]...
To refer to the content of a gopher+ item (including an item
referred to by specific values in a filled-out ASK form):
+[view_name[%20language_name]]
[%091%0D%0A+-1%0D%0Aask_item1_value%0D%0Aask_item2_value...%0D%0A.
%0D%0A]
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Overall summary and examples
The general format of a Gopher URL path refering to a gopher type
"T" item is:
gopher://host [port]/T[gopher_selector]%09[search_string]%09[gopher+
_string]
Examples:
An example of a URL pointing to a gopher type 0 item (a document)
is:
gopher://host [port]/0a_gopher_selector
An example of a URL pointing to a gopher type 7 item (a search
engine) where the string foobar is to be submitted to the search
engine is:
gopher://host [port]/7a_gopher_selector%09foobar
An example of a URL pointing to a Gopher+ type 0 item (a document)
is:
gopher://host [port]/0a_gopher_selector%09%09some_gplus_stuff
An example of a URL pointing to a Gopher+ type 0 (document) item's
attribute information is:
gopher://host [port]/0a_gopher_selector%09%09!
An example of a URL pointing to a Gopher+ document's spanish
postscript representation is:
gopher://host [port]/0a_gopher_selector%09%09+application/postscript
%20Es_ES
.
MAILTO
This allows a URL to specify an RFC822 addr-spec mail address.
Note that use of % , for example as used in forming a gatewayed
mail address, requires conversion to %25 in a URL.
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RFC XXXX Uniform Resource Locators (URL) March 21 1994
NEWS
The news locators refer to either news group names or article
message identifiers which must conform to the rules for a
Message-Idof RFC 1036 (Horton 1987). A message identifier may be
distinguished from a news group name by the presence of the
commercial at "@" character. These rules imply that within an
article, a reference to a news group or to another article will be
a valid URL (in the partial form).
A news URL may be dereferenced using NNTP (RFC977, Kantor 86) (The
ARTICLE by message-id command ) or using any other protocol for the
conveyance of usenet news articles, or by reference to a body of
news articles already received.
Note1:
Among URLs the "news" URLs are anomalous in that they are
location-independent. They are unsuitable as URN candidates because
the NNTP architecture relies on the expiry of articles and
therefore a small number of articles being available at any time.
When a news: URL is quoted, the assumption is that the reader will
fetch the article or group from his or her local news host. News
host names are NOT part of news URLs.
Note 2:
An outstanding problem is that the message identifier is
insufficient to allow the retrieval of an expired article, as no
algorithm exists for deriving an archive site and file name. The
addition of the date and news group set to the article's URL would
allow this if a directory existed of archive sites by news group.
Suggested subject of study in conjunction with NNTP working group.
Further extension possible may be to allow the naming of subject
threads as addressable objects.
NNTP
This is an alternative form of reference for news articles,
specifically to be used with NNTP servers, and particularly those
incomplete server implementations which do not allow retrieval by
message identifier. In all other cases the "news" scheme should be
used.
The news server name, newsgroup name, and index number of an
article within the newsgroup on that particular server are given.
The NNTP protocol must be used.
Note1.
This form of URL is not of global accessability, as typically NNTP
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RFC XXXX Uniform Resource Locators (URL) March 21 1994
servers only allow access from local clients. Note that the
article numbers within groups vary from server to server.
This form or URL should not be quoted outside this local area. It
should not be used within news articles for wider circulation than
the one server. This is a local identifier for a resource which is
often available globally, and so is not recommended except in the
case in which incomplete NNTP implementations on the local server
force its adoption.
PROSPERO
The Prospero (Neuman, 1991) directory service is used to resolve
the URL yielding an access method for the object (which can then
itself be represented as a URL if translated). The host part
contains a host name or internet address. The port part is
optional.
The path part contains a host specific object name and an optional
version number. If present, the version number is separated from
the host specific object name by the characters "%00" (percent
zero zero), this being an escaped string terminator (null).
External Prospero links are represented as URLs of the underlying
access method and are not represented as Prospero URLs.
TELNET, RLOGIN, TN3270
The use of URLs to represent interactive sessions is a convenient
extension to their uses for objects. This allows access to
information systems which only provide an interactive service, and
no information server. As information within the service cannot be
addressed individually or, in general, automatically retrieved,
this is a less desirable, though currently common, solution.
WAIS
The current WAIS implementation public domain requires that a
client know the "type" of a object prior to retrieval. This value
is returned along with the internal object identifier in the search
response. It has been encoded into the path part of the URL in
order to make the URL sufficient for the retrieval of the object.
Within the WAIS world, names do not of course need to be prefixed
by "wais:" (by the partial form rules).
The wpath of a WAIS URL consists of encoded fields of the WAIS
identifier, in the same order as inthe WAIS identifier. For each
field, the identifier field number is the digits before the equals
sign, and the field contents follow, encoded in the conventional
encoding, terminated by ";".
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RFC XXXX Uniform Resource Locators (URL) March 21 1994
REGISTRATION OF NAMING SCHEMES
A new naming scheme may be introduced by defining a mapping onto a
conforming URL syntax, using a new prefix. Experimental prefixes
may be used by mutual agreement between parties, and must start
with the characters "x-". The scheme name "urn:" is reserved for
the work in progress on a scheme for more persistent names.
It is proposed that the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)
perform the function of registration of new schemes. Any submission
of a new URI scheme must include a definition of an algorithm for
the retrieval of any object within that scheme. The algorithm must
take the URI and produce either a set of URL(s) which will lead to
the desired object, or the object itself, in a well-defined or
determinable format.
It is recommended that those proposing a new scheme demonstrate its
utility and operability by the provision of a gateway which will
provide images of objects in the new scheme for clients using an
existing protocol. If the new scheme is not a locator scheme, then
the properties of names in the new space should be clearly defined.
It is likewise recommended that, where a protocol allows for
retrieval by URL, that the client software have provision for being
configured to use specific gateway locators for indirect access
through new naming schemes.
BNF for specific URL schemes
This is a BNF-like description of the Uniform Resource Locator
syntax. A vertical line "|" indicates alternatives, and
[brackets] indicate optional parts. Spaces are represented by the
word "space", and the vertical line character by "vline". Single
letters stand for single letters. All words of more than one letter
below are entities described somewhere in this description.
The current IETF URI working group preference is for the
prefixedurl production. (Nov 1993. July 93: url).
The "national" and "punctuation" characters do not appear in any
productions and therefore may not appear in URLs.
The "afsaddress" is left in as historical note, but is not a url
production
prefixedurl u r l : url
ur l httpaddress | ftpaddress | newsaddress |
nntpaddress | prosperoaddress | telnetaddress
| gopheraddress | waisaddress |
mailtoaddress | midaddress | cidaddress
scheme ialpha
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RFC XXXX Uniform Resource Locators (URL) March 21 1994
httpaddress h t t p : / / hostport [ / path ] [ ?
search ]
ftpaddress f t p : / / login / path [ ftptype ]
afsaddress a f s : / / cellname / path
newsaddress n e w s : groupart
nntpaddress n n t p : group / digits
midaddress m i d : addr-spec
cidaddress c i d : content-identifier
mailtoaddress m a i l t o : : xalphas @ hostname
waisaddress waisindex | waisdoc
waisindex w a i s : / / hostport / database [ ? search
]
waisdoc w a i s : / / hostport / database / wtype /
wpath
wpath digits = path ; [ wpath ]
groupart * | group | article
group ialpha [ . group ]
article xalphas @ host
database xalphas
wtype xalphas
prosperoaddress prosperolink
prosperolink p r o s p e r o : / / hostport / hsoname [ %
0 0 version [ attributes ] ]
hsoname path
version digits
attributes attribute [ attributes ]
attribute alphanums
telnetaddress t e l n e t : / / login
gopheraddress g o p h e r : / / hostport [/ gtype [
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RFC XXXX Uniform Resource Locators (URL) March 21 1994
gcommand ] ]
login [ user [ : password ] @ ] hostport
hostport host [ : port ]
host hostname | hostnumber
ftptype A formcode | E formcode | I | L digits
formcode N | T | C
cellname hostname
hostname ialpha [ . hostname ]
hostnumber digits . digits . digits . digits
port digits
gcommand path
path void | segment [ / path ]
segment xpalphas
search xalphas [ + search ]
user alphanum2 [ user ]
password alphanum2 [ password ]
fragmentid xalphas
gtype xalpha
alphanum2 alpha | digit | - | _ | . | +
xalpha alpha | digit | safe | extra | escape
xalphas xalpha [ xalphas ]
xpalpha xalpha | +
xpalphas xpalpha [ xpalphas ]
ialpha alpha [ xalphas ]
alpha a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | i | j | k |
l | m | n | o | p | q | r | s | t | u | v |
w | x | y | z | A | B | C | D | E | F | G |
H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R |
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RFC XXXX Uniform Resource Locators (URL) March 21 1994
S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z
digit 0 |1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9
safe $ | - | _ | @ | . | & | + | -
extra ! | * | " | ' | ( | ) | ,
reserved = | ; | / | # | ? | : | space
escape % hex hex
hex digit | a | b | c | d | e | f | A | B | C |
D | E | F
national { | } | vline | [ | ] | \ | ^ | ~
punctuation < | >
digits digit [ digits ]
alphanum alpha | digit
alphanums alphanum [ alphanums ]
void
(end of URL BNF)
Security considerations
The URL scheme does not in itself pose a security threat. Users
should beware that there is no general guarantee that a URL which
at one time points to a given object continues to do so, and does
not even at some later time point to a different object due to the
movement of objects on servers.
A URL-related security threat is that it is sometimes possible to
construct a URL such that an attempt to perform a harmless
idempotent operation such as the retrieval of the object will in
fact cause a possibly damaging remote operation to occur. The
unsafe URL is typically constructed by specifying a port number
other than that reserved for the network protocol in question. The
client unwittingly contacts a server which is in fact running a
different protocol. The content of the URL contains instructions
which when interpreted according to this other protocol cause an
unexpected operation. (An example has been the use of gopher URLs
to cause a rude message to be sent via a SMTP server). It is
potentially harmful for client software use any URL which specifies
a port number other than the default for the protocol, especially
when it is a number within the reserved space.
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RFC XXXX Uniform Resource Locators (URL) March 21 1994
Care should be taken when URLs contain embedded encoded delimiters
for a given protocol (for example, CR and LF characters for telnet
protocols) that these are not unencoded before transmission. This
misimplementation of the specification would could violate the
protocol but could without violating the protocol be used to
simulate an extra operation or parameter, again causing an
unexpected and possible harmful remote operation to be performed.
The use of URLs containing passwords is clearly unwise.
Acknowledgements
This paper builds on the basic W3 design and much discussion of
these issues by many people on the network. The discussion was
particularly stimulated by articles by Clifford Lynch (1991),
Brewster Kahle (1991) and Wengyik Yeong (1991b). Contributions from
John Curran (NEARnet), Clifford Neuman (ISI) Ed Vielmetti (MSEN)
and later the IETF URL BOF and URI working group have been
incorporated into this issue of this paper.
The draft url4 (Internet Draft 00) was generated from url3
following discussion and overall approval of the URL working group
on 29 March 1993. The paper url3 had been generated from udi2 in
the light of discussion at the UDI BOF meeting at the Boston IETF
in July 1992. Draft url4 was Internet Draft 00. Draft url5
incorporated changes suggested by Clifford Neuman, and draft url6
(ID 01) incorporated character group changes and a few other fixes
defined by the IETF URI WG in submitting it as a proposed standard.
URL7 (Internet Draft 02) incorporated changes introduced at the
Amsterdam IETF and refined in net discussion.
The draft 03 includes changes made at Houston in Nov 93, and on the
net before Seattle March 1994.
APPENDICES
The following are not formally part of this document.
Wrappers for URIs in plain text
This section does not formally form part of the URL specification .
URIs, including URLs, will ideally be transmitted though protocols
which accept them and data formats which define a context for them.
However, in practice nowadays there are many occasions when URLs
are included in plain ASCII non-marked-up text such as electronic
mail and usenet news messages.
In this case, it is convenient to have a separate wrapper syntax to
define delimiters which will enable the human or automated reader
to recognize that the URI is a URI.
The recommendation is that the angle brackets (less than and
Berners-Lee 17
RFC XXXX Uniform Resource Locators (URL) March 21 1994
greater than signs) of the ASCII set be used for this purpose.
These wrappers do not form part of the URL, are not mandatory, and
should not be used in contexts (such as SGML parameters, HTTP
requests, etc) in which delimiters are already specified.
Example
Yes, Jim, I found it under but
you can probably pick it up from .
REFERENCES
Alberti, R., et.al. (1991)
"Notes on the Internet Gopher Protocol"
University of Minnesota, December 1991,
. See also
Berners-Lee, T ., (1991)
"Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)" , CERN,
December 1991, as updated from time to time,
Crocker "Standard for ARPA Internet Text Messages" .
David H. Crocker, RFC822,
Davis, F, et al., (1990)
"WAIS Interface Protocol: Prototype
Functional Specification", Thinking Machines
Corporation, April 23, 1990
International Standards Organization, (1991)
Information and Documentation - Search and
Retrieve Application Protocol Specification
for open Systems Interconnection, ISO-10163
Horton (1987) M. Horton, R. Adams, "Standard for
interchange of USENET messages", Internet RFC
1036 , 12/01/1987.
Huitema, C., (1991) "Naming: strategies and techniques",
Computer Networks and ISDN Systems 23 (1991)
107-110.
Berners-Lee 18
RFC XXXX Uniform Resource Locators (URL) March 21 1994
Kahle, Brewster, (1991)
"Document Identifiers, or International
Standard Book Numbers for the Electronic
Age",
Kantor, B., and Lapsley, P., (1986)
"A proposed standard for the stream-based
transmission of news" , Internet RFC-977,
February 1986.
Kunze, 1994 J. Kunze, Requirements for URLs, to be
published.
Lynch, C., Coallition for Networked Information: (1991)
"Workshop on ID and Reference Structures for
Networked Information", November 1991. See
Mockapetris, P., (1987)
"Domain names + concepts and facilities",
RFC-1034, USC-ISI, November 1987,
Neuman, B. Clifford, (1992)
"Prospero: A Tool for Organizing Internet
Resources", Electronic Networking: Research,
Applications and Policy, Vol 1 No 2, Meckler
Westport CT USA. See also
Postel, J. and Reynolds, J. (1985)
"File Transfer Protocol (FTP)", Internet
RFC-959, October 1985.
Sollins 1994 K. Sollins and L. Masinter, Requiremnets for
URNs, to be published.
Yeong, W., (1991a) "Towards Networked Information Retrieval",
Technical report 91-06-25-01, June 1991,
Performance Systems International, Inc.
Yeong, W., (1991b), "Representing Public Archives in the
Directory", Internet Draft, November 1991,
now expired.
.
Berners-Lee 19
RFC XXXX Uniform Resource Locators (URL) March 21 1994
EDITOR'S ADDRESS
Tim Berners-Lee
Address: World-Wide Web project
CERN,
1211 Geneva 23,
Switzerland
Telephone: +41 (22)767 3755
Fax: +41 (22)767 7155
Email: [email protected]
Berners-Lee 20
