Domain Name System Uniform Resource Identifiers

What Is This?

This page contain information about my attempts to standardize a URI for DNS data. An example will illustrate what that means:

dns:www.example.org?TYPE=A
dns://internal-ns.example.org/ssh.example.com?TYPE=A
      

If that is just gibberish to you, you are likely not the intended audience for this page.

This work was sponsored by Simon Josefsson Datakonsult. If you need commercial help with utilizing this technology, or have a related project that you want help with, please feel free to contact me. If you find my work in this area useful, also please consider making a donation. No amount is too small!

Background and Related Work

• W3C's page on URI/URLs
• Some information on DNS.
• MIME types for DNS data.

The Document

• rfc4501.txt
• draft-josefsson-dns-url-13.txt (latest published)
• draft-josefsson-dns-url.txt (fixes typos, fixed during RFC AUTH48)
• draft-josefsson-dns-url.xml
• Differences compared to -13
• Differences between live version and rfc4501

Open Issues

There may be other issues as well, but these are the things I'm aware of.

• The IETF I-D tracker for this document.
• IESG evaluation record.

Applications

• Java 1.3 JNDI
• Rebol URL support.
• TCL 'dns' package.

Timeline

This timeline was re-constructed in 2005, so major events may be lacking.

2006-04-27

Fixed some AUTH48 complaints.

2005-08-11

Prepared -14, to fix many typos.

2005-08-08

Version 13 published. Differences between -12 and -13. Mention the MIME types. Removed illustrative examples of X.509 and OpenPGP usage in the introduction section as requested by Sam Hartman.

2005-08-04

Went to Paris and resolved the remaining issue face-to-face. Wrote and submitted -13.

2005-07-14

Again asked for response to address the remaining IESG comment. Question acknowledged, but no response.

2005-06-23

Asked for response to my reply on the remaining IESG comment. No response.

2005-05-31

All IESG objections except one cleared.

2005-05-25

Version 12 published. Differences between -11 and -12. To address IESG comments.

2005-04-25

Discussed on IESG telechat.

2005-02-10

Version 11 published. Differences between -10 and -11

2005-02

Second IETF-wide last call.

2004-09-02

Version 10 published. Differences between -09 and -10

2003-10-26

Version 9 published.

2003-10

First IETF-wide last call.

2003-07-17

Discussed on W3C/IETF teleconference.

2003-07-08

Discussed on IAB teleconference. I have not found any output or followup of the discussion.

2001-08-13

Version 2 published.

2001-06-16

Version 1 published.

2000-11-24

Version 0 published.

Copying Conditions

The copying conditions for RFCs apply, of course. However, beyond that, the essential parts of the document is also available under the following, less restrictive, license.

   Copyright (c) 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 Simon Josefsson

   Regarding this entire document or any portion of it, the author makes
   no guarantees and is not responsible for any damage resulting from
   its use.  The author grants irrevocable permission to anyone to use,
   modify, and distribute it in any way that does not diminish the
   rights of anyone else to use, modify, and distribute it, provided
   that redistributed derivative works do not contain misleading author
   or version information.  Derivative works need not be licensed under
   similar terms.