Network Working Group J. Allen
Request for Comments: 2652 WebTV Networks, Inc.
Category: Standards Track M. Mealling
Network Solutions, Inc.
August 1999
MIME Object Definitions for the Common Indexing Protocol (CIP)
Status of this Memo
This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
The Common Indexing Protocol (CIP) is used to pass indexing
information from server to server in order to facilitate query
routing. The protocol is comprised of several MIME objects being
passed from server to server. This document describes the definitions
of those objects as well as the methods and requirements needed to
define a new index type.
1. Introduction
The Common Indexing Protocol (CIP) is used to pass indexes between
servers that combine multiple indexes and/or route queries based on
those indexes. The overall framework for the protocol is specified in
the CIP Framework document [FRAMEWORK]. This document should be read
within the context of that document as there are fundamental concepts
contained in the framework that are not fully explained here.
Since there are several different ways to index a given database
there will be multiple types of indexes to pass. These indexes may
have different transport requirements, different ways of specifying
parameters, and different referral rules. These different
requirements are handled by encapsulating the indexes within MIME
wrappers in order to have a standardized way to specify those
different parameters.
Allen & Mealling Standards Track [Page 1]
RFC 2652 MIME Definitions for CIP August 1999 Appendix A contains the actual MIME [RFC2046] registration templates sent to the IANA for registration [RFC2048]. This document uses language like SHOULD and SHALL that have special meaning as specified in "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels" [RFC2119]. 2.0 CIP Transactions Messages passed by CIP implementations over reliable transport mechanisms fall into three categories: requests, responses and results. All requests result in either a response or a result. A result sent in response to a request must be interpreted as a successful operation. Requests, responses and results are formatted as MIME [RFC2046] messages. The specific MIME types involved are defined below. As with all MIME objects, CIP messages may be wrapped in a security multipart package to provide authentication and privacy. The security policy with respect to all messages is implementation defined, when not explicitly discussed below. CIP implementors are strongly urged to allow server administrators maximum configurability to secure their servers against maliciously sent anonymous CIP messages. In general, operations which can permanently change the server's state in a harmful way should only take place upon receipt of a properly signed message from a trusted CIP peer or administrator. Implementors should provide appropriate auditing capabilities so that both successful and failed requests can be tracked by the server administrator. Since these MIME objects can and will be sent over several different protocols, body termination is specified by the transfer protocol. New protocols are encouraged to use SMTP [RFC821] style body termination. Finally, since MIME objects can specify their own encoding, the line-breaks contained within each body are defined by the encoding. Thus, instead of specifying them as carriage-return and/or linefeed, the identifier <linebreak> is used. Linebreaks in the headers and separating the body from the headers follow existing standards. Allen & Mealling Standards Track [Page 2]
RFC 2652 MIME Definitions for CIP August 1999 2.1 Common syntactic definitions There are certain syntactic elements common to all of the CIP transactions. These include type, DSI and the Base-URI. 2.1.1 The "application/index" MIME type tree Due to requirements in RFC2048 concerning objects that have the same type but different syntaxes, CIP objects will use the application/index tree but include "facets" [RFC2048] which extend it as other types have done with respect to global elements and vendor specific enhancements. Thus the tree is divided up into the following branches: application/index.cmd._command_ application/index.response application/index.obj._type_ application/index.vnd._xxx_ _command_ is a command as specified here. It contains commands and their arguments. _type_ identifies what type of CIP index object is contained within the body. It is unique among all other reserved types. Reserved types are those previously documented by other CIP index object specifications, according to standard IETF processes. _xxx_ is an identifier specified by a vendor for use by that vendor in operations specifically to do with indexes. All of the above identifiers follow the rules in RFC2048 for valid MIME types. In addition commands, responses and types are limited by this document to consist of from 1 to 20 characters from the set [a- zA-Z0-9-]; that is, all upper and lower case letters, all digits, and the ASCII minus character (decimal 45). Though type names may be specified case sensitively, they must be compared and otherwise processed case insensitively. Appendix A contains the registration template for the application/index tree. 2.1.2 DSI A dataset identifier is an identifier chosen from any part of the ISO/CCITT OID space. The DSI uniquely identifies a given dataset among all datasets indexed by CIP. Allen & Mealling Standards Track [Page 3]
RFC 2652 MIME Definitions for CIP August 1999 As currently defined, OID's are an unbounded sequence of unbounded integers. While this creates an infinite numbering space, it presents problems for implementors dealing with machines with finite resources. To ease implementation, this document specifies an ASCII encoding of the OID, and specifies limits which make implementation easier. For the purposes of interchange in CIP messages, an OID must conform to the following rules: dsi = integer *( "." integer) integer = all-digits / (one-to-nine *all-digits) one-to-nine = "1" / "2" / "3" / "4" / "5" / "6" / "7" / "8" / "9" all-digits = "0" / one-to-nine Under no circumstances shall the total length of the resulting string exceed 255 characters. OID's which cannot, due to their length, conform to these rules must not be used as CIP dataset identifiers. An implementation must not attempt to parse the individual integers unless it is prepared to handle arbitrary-length integers. Treating the DSI as anything other than an opaque string of US-ASCII characters is not recommended. Two CIP DSI's are considered to match if both conform to the above rules and every number matches. 2.1.3. Base-URI CIP index objects carry base-URI's to facilitate referral generation based on the index object. The base-URI parameter carries a whitespace-delimited list of URL's. URL's are defined in RFC-1738. The exact rules are as follows: base-uri = genericurl *( 1*whitespace genericurl ) whitespace = "<space>" (decimal 32) / "<tab>" (decimal 9) / "<cr>" (decimal 13) / "<lf>" (decimal 10) genericurl = { as specified in RFC-1738, section 5 } 2.2 Response format All requests must be followed by a response code, except in the cases where a return path is unavailable. The definition for this MIME type is: Allen & Mealling Standards Track [Page 4]
RFC 2652 MIME Definitions for CIP August 1999 MIME type name: application MIME subtype name: index.response Required parameters: code Optional parameters: charset Security considerations: (See Section 4) The code parameter contains a 3 digit return code that denotes the status of the last command. The format of the body is such that the first line is interpreted as the comment corresponding to the code. As with most response codes this comment is intended for human consumption and may not exist and must not be depended on by the protocol. Subsequent lines in the body are reserved for each response to define. In the case where the comment is not given the first must be an empty line. body = comment linebreak payload comment = { any text } linebreak = (decimal 13) (decimal 10) payload = { any text } The charset parameter has its normal MIME meaning. Below are several examples: [begin MIME] Content-type: application/index.response; code=220 CIP Server v1.0 ready!<linebreak> [end MIME] [begin MIME] Content-type: application/index.response; code=500 MIME formatting problem<linebreak> [end MIME] [begin MIME] Content-type: application/index.response; code=520 <linebreak> [end MIME] While the responses described in this document do not utilize the rest of the lines in the body of a response implementors should take care to not disallow it in the future. A good example would be a message specifying that a poll request did not contain required attributes. This message might look like this: Allen & Mealling Standards Track [Page 5]
RFC 2652 MIME Definitions for CIP August 1999 [begin MIME] Content-type: application/index.response; code=502 Request is missing required CIP attributes Missing-Attribute: attribute1 Missing-Attribute: attribute2 Missing-Attribute: attribute3 [end MIME] The meaning of the various digits in the response codes is discussed in RFC-821, Appendix E. See Appendix B for a list of the valid response codes. 2.3 Command format A CIP command either initiates an index transfer, interrogates the state of the receiver-CIP (or the server's participation in the mesh), or changes the state of the server (or the server's place in the mesh). CIP commands are sent as a MIME message of type "application/index.cmd._command_". The definition for this MIME type tree follows: MIME type name: application MIME subtype name: index.cmd._command_ Optional parameters: type, dsi Security considerations: (See Section 4) The format of the body is defined by each command. A general attribute/value pair orientation is preserved throughout the following specified commands. Those developing future command should attempt to maintain that orientation but are not required to do so. In the following sections, the server's response for each possible value for "command" is defined. Note that the parameters listed as optional above are only optional with respect to the generic MIME form. The optional parameters are only optional with respect to MIME parsing. If one or more of the parameters needed to fulfill a command is missing, a response code of 502 is returned. Extra optional parameters which are unrecognized must be silently ignored. Allen & Mealling Standards Track [Page 6]
RFC 2652 MIME Definitions for CIP August 1999 2.3.1 No-operation Command Name: application/index.cmd.noop Required parameters: (none) A CIP command with the "command" parameter set to "noop" must be acknowledged with response type code 200 (command OK, no response forthcoming). This command must not require a signed MIME object. Implementations should accept commands which have been validly signed. Example: [begin MIME] Content-type: application/index.cmd.noop [end MIME] Note the lack of a body but how the <linebreak> pair is still preserved after the Content-type header. 2.3.2 Poll Request Name: application/index.cmd.poll Required parameters: type, dsi The "poll" command is used by a poller to request the transfer of an index object. It requires the following parameters: type: The index object type requested dsi: The dataset which the index should cover If there are no index objects available for a given DSI, or the receiver-CIP does not support a given index object type, the receiver-CIP must respond with response code 200, (successful, no response forthcoming). Otherwise, the response code must be 201 (successful, response is forthcoming). The security policy for polling commands is wholly implementation defined. Implementations may be configured to accept or reject anonymous poll commands. Example: [begin MIME] Content-type: application/index.cmd.poll; type="simple"; dsi= "1.3.5.7.9" Allen & Mealling Standards Track [Page 7]
RFC 2652 MIME Definitions for CIP August 1999 Template: contact name address phone<linebreak> Start-time: Fri May 30 14:25:30 EDT 1997<linebreak> End-time: Sat May 31 14:25:30 EDT 1997<linebreak> [end MIME] 2.3.3 DataChanged Request Name: application/index.cmd.datachanged Required parameters: type, dsi The "datachanged" command is used by a pollee to notify a poller that the data within an index has changed. It requires the following parameters: type: The index object type requested dsi: The dataset which the index should cover If there are no index objects available for a given DSI, or the receiver-CIP does not support a given index object type, the receiver-CIP must respond with response code 200, (successful, no response forthcoming). Otherwise, the response code must be 201 (successful, response is forthcoming). The body of a DataChanged command is formatted as a simple set of attribute value pairs following the rules of RFC822. The actual attributes and values allowed are defined by the index type specification. The security policy for DataChanged commands is wholly implementation defined. Implementations may be configured to accept or reject anonymous DataChanged commands. Example: [begin MIME] Content-type: application/index.cmd.datachanged; type="simple"; dsi= "1.3.5.7.9"<linebreak> Time-of-latest-change: Fri May 30 14:25:30 EDT 1997<linebreak> Time-of-message-generation: Fri May 30 14:25:30 EDT 1997<linebreak> Host-Name: cip.rwhois.net<linebreak> Host-Port: 4322<linebreak> Protocol: RWhois2.0<linebreak> [end MIME] Allen & Mealling Standards Track [Page 8]
RFC 2652 MIME Definitions for CIP August 1999 2.3.4 Additional Requests The requests specified above are those required to implement a simple mesh. It is expected that other requests will be developed to handle issues of mesh-management and statistics gathering requests. At this point this is an area of additional work. Specifically more work is needed in the area of mesh management as meshes will tend to be organized around the characteristics of their index type. 2.4. Index Object format In reply to the "poll" command, a server may choose to send one or more index objects. Regardless of the number of index objects returned, the response must take the form of a MIME multipart/mixed message. Each part must itself be a MIME object of type "application/index.obj._type_". The definition for this type follows: MIME type name: application MIME subtype name: index.obj._type_ Required parameters: dsi, base-uri Optional parameters: none Security considerations: (See Section 4) As previously described, each index object is of a particular type. This type is specified in the MIME subtype name since some types may have a different syntax. The required parameters are to be used as follows: DSI: The DSI is a string which globally uniquely identifies the dataset from which the index was created. base-URI: One or more URI's will form the base of any referrals created based upon this index object. 3. Index Type Definition Requirements Because of the need for application domain specific indices, CIP index objects are abstract; they must be defined by a separate specification. The basic protocols for moving index objects are widely applicable, but the specific design of the index, and the structure of the mesh of servers which pass a particular type of index is dependent on the application domain. While companion documents will describe index objects, there is a set of base requirements and questions those documents must address. This is to ensure that the base assumptions that the CIP protocol makes about its indexes are actually expressible within the index. Allen & Mealling Standards Track [Page 9]
RFC 2652 MIME Definitions for CIP August 1999 Since each type is a MIME type all its own, registration of new types follows the standard registration policies specified in RFC2048. 3.1 Type specific requests Any index type definition must address the type specific bodies of the Poll and DataChanged requests. All parameters included in the body must be specified. 3.2 The index.obj parameters 3.2.1 Type See the above definitions for allowed values for type. A new name must be assigned when any changes to the document describing the index object type are not completely backwards compatible. 3.2.2 DSI Another attribute is the "DSI", or Dataset Identifier, which uniquely identifies the dataset from which the index was created. The index specification should define the policies for how the DSI is generated. This includes the concept of what a data-set means for the given index. 3.2.3. Base-URI An attribute of the index object which is crucial for generating referrals is the "Base-URI". The URI (or URI's) contained in this attribute form the basis of any referrals generated based on this index block. The URI is also used as input during the index aggregation process to constrain the possible types of aggregation. This use of the Base-URI is used to deal with meshes that support multiple protocols. Thus, an index specification should define how the Base-URI applies to the underlying index and how it is changed during the aggregation process. Allen & Mealling Standards Track [Page 10]
RFC 2652 MIME Definitions for CIP August 1999 3.3 Aggregation All index object specifications must address the issue of aggregation. This is the method by which an index server takes two or more indexes and combines them into one index to be passed on. It is not required that a given index-type aggregate. If it does not it must explicitly address the reasons why and what affect that has on scalability. If a given index does aggregate, the algorithm for that aggregation must be given. It must also address how that algorithm affects mesh organization and scalability. Index object document authors should remember that any kind of aggregation should be performed without compromising the ability to correctly route queries while avoiding excessive numbers of missed results. The acceptable likelihood of false negatives must be established on a per-application-domain basis, and is controlled by the granularity of the index and the aggregation rules defined for it by the particular specification. Nothing in these documents specifically disallows aggregation rules that deal with different index object types. This type of heterogeneous mesh is difficult to formulate at best and thus is not covered by these documents. If document authors wish to attempt such a mesh they should be aware that it is considered an ill understood concept that contains many pitfalls for the mesh builder. 3.4 Referral Generation Semantics Since the method by which a client navigates the mesh is by referrals, the document must address how a given access protocol generates a referral from the index. Authors should pay particular attention to the case where an index is accessed by different protocols and the interaction between them. For example, an index that supports referrals being generated for both RWhois and LDAP must understand that one uses a Distinguished Name while the other doesn't. The impacts of these differences on the referral should be clear. 3.5 Matching Semantics In order to generate a referral the decision of whether or not to do so must be handled by the access protocol. The semantics surrounding this decision have a large impact on the efficiency of searches as well as the requirements on aggregation. Thus, index specification authors must be very clear about how a match is determined. Allen & Mealling Standards Track [Page 11]
RFC 2652 MIME Definitions for CIP August 1999 3.6 Security Considerations As is customary with Internet protocol documentation, a brief review of security implications of the proposed object must be included. This section may need to do little more than echo the considerations expressed in this document's Security Considerations section. 3.7 Optional Coverage Because indexing algorithms, stop-lists, and data reduction technologies are considered by some index object designers to be proprietary, it is not necessary to discuss the process used to derive indexing information from a body of source material. When proprietary indexing technologies are used in a public mesh, all CIP servers in the mesh should be able to parse the index object (and perform aggregation operations, if necessary), though not all of them need to be able to create these proprietary indices from source data. Thus, index object designers may choose to remain silent on the algorithms used for the generation of indices, as long as they adequately document how to participate in a mesh of servers passing these proprietary indices. Designers should also seriously consider including useful examples of source data, the generated index, and the expected results from example matches. When the aggregation algorithm is complex, it is recommended that a table showing two indices and the resultant aggregate index be included. 4. Security Considerations Security considerations come into play in at least the following two scenarios. Indexing information can leak undesirable amounts of proprietary information, unless carefully controlled. At a more fundamental level, the CIP protocol itself requires external security services to operate in a safe manner. Both topics are covered below. 4.1 Secure Indexing CIP is designed to index all kinds of data. Some of this data might be considered valuable, proprietary, or even highly sensitive by the data maintainer. Take, for example, a human resources database. Certain bits of data, in moderation, can be very helpful for a company to make public. However, the database in its entirety is a very valuable asset, which the company must protect. Much experience has been gained in the directory service community over the years as to how best to walk this fine line between completely revealing the database and making useful pieces of it available. Allen & Mealling Standards Track [Page 12]
RFC 2652 MIME Definitions for CIP August 1999 Another example where security becomes a problem is for a data publisher who would like to participate in a CIP mesh. The data that publisher creates and manages is the prime asset of the company. There is a financial incentive to participate in a CIP mesh, since exporting indices of the data will make it more likely that people will search your database. (Making profit off of the search activity is left as an exercise to the entrepreneur.) Once again, the index must be designed carefully to protect the database while providing a useful synopsis of the data. One of the basic premises of CIP is that data providers will be willing to provide indices of their data to peer indexing servers. Unless they are carefully constructed, these indices could constitute a threat to the security of the database. Thus, security of the data must be a prime consideration when developing a new index object type. The risk of reverse engineering a database based only on the index exported from it must be kept to a level consistent with the value of the data and the need for fine-grained indexing. Since CIP is encoded as MIME objects, MIME security solutions should be used whenever possible. Specifically when dealing with security between index servers. 4.2 Protocol Security CIP protocol exchanges, taking the form of MIME messages, can be secured using any technology available for securing MIME objects. In particular, use of RFC-1847's Security Multiparts are recommended. A solid application of RFC-1847 using widely available encryption software is PGP/MIME, RFC-2016. Implementors are encouraged to support PGP/MIME, as it is the first viable application of the MIME Security Multiparts architecture. As other technologies become available, they may be incorporated into the CIP mesh. If an incoming request does not have a valid signature, it must be considered anonymous for the purposes of access control. Servers may choose to allow certain requests from anonymous peers, especially when the request cannot cause permanent damage to the local server. In particular, answering anonymous poll requests encourages index builders to poll a server, making the server's resources better known. The explicit security policy with respect to incoming requests is outside the scope of this specification. Implementors are free to accept or reject any request based on the security attributes of the incoming message. When a request is rejected due to authentication reasons, a response code from the 530 series must be issued. Allen & Mealling Standards Track [Page 13]
RFC 2652 MIME Definitions for CIP August 1999 Acknowledgments Thanks to the many helpful members of the FIND working group for discussions leading to this specification. Specific acknowledgment is given to Jeff Allen formerly of Bunyip Information Systems. His original version of these documents helped enormously in crystallizing the debate and consensus. Most of the actual text in this document was originally authored by Jeff. Authors' Addresses Jeff R. Allen 246 Hawthorne St. Palo Alto, CA 94301 EMail: jeff.allen@acm.org Michael Mealling Network Solutions, Inc. 505 Huntmar Park Drive Herndon, VA 22070 Phone: +1-703-742-0400 EMail: michael.mealling@RWhois.net References [FRAMEWORK] Allen, J. and M. Mealling, "The Architecture of the Common Indexing Protocol (CIP)", RFC 2651, August 1999. [RFC2046] Freed, N. and N. Borenstein, "Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) Part Two: Media Types", RFC 2046, January 1996. [RFC2048] Freed, N., Klensin, J. and J. Postel, "Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) Part Four: MIME Registration Procedures", RFC 2048, January 1996. [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. [RFC821] Postel, J., "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol", STD 10, RFC 821, August 1992. Allen & Mealling Standards Track [Page 14]
RFC 2652 MIME Definitions for CIP August 1999 Appendix A: Media Type Registration Templates The following templates have been registered with the IANA: Index tree To: ietf-types@iana.org Subject: Registration of MIME media type tree application/index MIME media type name: application MIME subtype name: index Required parameters: none Optional parameters: none Encoding considerations: none Security considerations: Security considerations come into play in at least the following two scenarios. Indexing information can leak undesirable amounts of proprietary information, unless carefully controlled. At a more fundamental level, the CIP protocol itself requires external security services to operate in a safe manner. Both topics are covered below. Interoperability considerations: Published specification: RFC 2652 Applications which use this media type: This media type is used to contain information about indices and how they inter-operate to form meshes of index servers. Additional information: This media type is not a standalone type. It is the top level of a tree similar to the vnd or prs trees specified in Section 2.1 of RFC2048. There are four specified branches to this tree: application/index.cmd application/index.response application/index.obj application/index.vnd Allen & Mealling Standards Track [Page 15]
RFC 2652 MIME Definitions for CIP August 1999 Each of these branches is a tree in its own right with types registered below them. See those registrations for more information on the types allowed below those branches. Person & email address to contact for further information: Intended usage: LIMITED USE Author/Change controller: Command tree To: ietf-types@iana.org Subject: Registration of MIME media type application/index.cmd MIME media type name: application MIME subtype name: index.cmd Required parameters: none Optional parameters: none Encoding considerations: none Security considerations: Security considerations come into play in at least the following two scenarios. Indexing information can leak undesirable amounts of proprietary information, unless carefully controlled. At a more fundamental level, the CIP protocol itself requires external security services to operate in a safe manner. Both topics are covered below. Interoperability considerations: Implementors should handle unknown commands gracefully. Published specification: RFC 2652 Allen & Mealling Standards Track [Page 16]
RFC 2652 MIME Definitions for CIP August 1999 Applications which use this media type: This media type is the top of a tree of media types that express commands between hosts that exchange indices for the purpose of routing referrals. Additional information: This media type is not a standalone type. It is the top of a tree similar to the vnd and prs trees specified in Section 2.1 of RFC2048. Types registered within this tree are limited to being commands as specified in the document(s) referenced in the "Published specifications" section. Person & email address to contact for further information: Intended usage: LIMITED USE Author/Change controller: Response tree To: ietf-types@iana.org Subject: Registration of MIME media type application/index.response MIME media type name: application MIME subtype name: index.response Required parameters: code Optional parameters: none Encoding considerations: none Security considerations: Security considerations come into play in at least the following two scenarios. Indexing information can leak undesirable amounts of proprietary information, unless carefully controlled. At a more fundamental level, the CIP protocol itself requires external security services to operate in a safe manner. Both topics are covered below. Interoperability considerations: Implementors should handle unknown responses gracefully. Allen & Mealling Standards Track [Page 17]
RFC 2652 MIME Definitions for CIP August 1999 Published specification: RFC 2652 Applications which use this media type: This media type is used to encode responses to CIP commands passed between hosts that exchange indices for the purpose of routing referrals. Additional information: This media type _is_ a standalone type. The code parameter contains the specific response code as specified by Appendix B of the specification document. Person & email address to contact for further information: Intended usage: LIMITED USE Author/Change controller: Index Object tree To: ietf-types@iana.org Subject: Registration of MIME media type application/index.obj MIME media type name: application MIME subtype name: index.obj Required parameters: type, dsi, base-uri Optional parameters: none Encoding considerations: none Security considerations: Security considerations come into play in at least the following two scenarios. Indexing information can leak undesirable amounts of proprietary information, unless carefully controlled. At a more fundamental level, the CIP protocol itself requires external security services to operate in a safe manner. Both topics are covered below. Allen & Mealling Standards Track [Page 18]
RFC 2652 MIME Definitions for CIP August 1999 Interoperability considerations: Implementors should handle unknown index objects according to rules specified in the published specification. Published specification: RFC 2652 Applications which use this media type: This media type is the top of a tree of media types that express indexes that are exchanged between hosts that operate within a referral mesh. Additional information: This media type is not a standalone type. It is the top of a tree similar to the vnd and prs trees specified in Section 2.1 of RFC2048. Types registered within this tree are limited to being representations of indexes that contain some summary of the data found in some database and is used to generate referrals as specified in the above specified publication. Person & email address to contact for further information: Intended usage: LIMITED USE Author/Change controller: Vendor tree To: ietf-types@iana.org Subject: Registration of MIME media type application/index.vnd MIME media type name: application MIME subtype name: index.vnd Required parameters: none Optional parameters: none Encoding considerations: none Allen & Mealling Standards Track [Page 19]
RFC 2652 MIME Definitions for CIP August 1999 Security considerations: Security considerations come into play in at least the following two scenarios. Indexing information can leak undesirable amounts of proprietary information, unless carefully controlled. At a more fundamental level, the CIP protocol itself requires external security services to operate in a safe manner. Both topics are covered below. Interoperability considerations: Implementors should handle unknown objects gracefully. Published specification: RFC 2652 Applications which use this media type: This media type is the top of a tree of media types that express vendor specific extensions to the framework specified in the published specifications. Additional information: This media type is not a standalone type. It is the top of a tree similar to the vnd and prs trees specified in Section 2.1 of RFC2048. Types registered within this tree are limited to being vendor specific extensions to the CIP framework as specified in the publications. Any registrations within this tree are still limited to dealing with indexes, meshes and referrals. Person & email address to contact for further information: Intended usage: LIMITED USE Appendix B: Response Codes The meaning of the various digits in the response codes is discussed in RFC-821, Appendix E. The following response codes are defined for use by CIPv3 servers. Implementors must use these exact codes; undefined codes should be interpreted by CIP servers as fatal protocol errors. Instead of defining new codes for unforeseen situations, implementors must adapt one of the given codes. The implementation should attach a useful alternative comment to the reused response code. Allen & Mealling Standards Track [Page 20]
RFC 2652 MIME Definitions for CIP August 1999 Code Suggested description text Sender-CIP action -------------------------------------------------------- 220 Initial server banner message 300 Requested CIP version accepted Continue with CIP transaction, in the specified version. 222 Connection closing (in response to sender-CIP close) Done with transaction. 200 MIME request received and processed Expect no output, continue session (or close) 201 MIME request received and processed, output follows Read a response, delimited by SMTP-style message delimiter. 400 Temporarily unable to process request Retry at a later time. May be used to indicate that the server does not currently have the resources available to accept an index. 500 Bad MIME message format Retry with correctly formatted MIME request. 501 Unknown or missing request in application/index.cmd Retry with correct CIP command. 502 Request is missing required CIP attributes Retry with correct CIP attributes. 520 Aborting connection for some unexpected reason Retry and/or alert local administrator. 530 Request requires valid signature Sign the request, if possible, and retry. Otherwise, report problem to the administrator. 531 Request has invalid signature Report problem to the administrator. 532 Cannot check signature Alert local administrator, who should cooperate with remote administrator to diagnose and resolve the problem. (Probably missing a public key.) Allen & Mealling Standards Track [Page 21]
RFC 2652 MIME Definitions for CIP August 1999 5. Full Copyright Statement Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999). 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 implementation 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 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. The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns. This document and the information contained herein is provided on an "AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Acknowledgement Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the Internet Society. Allen & Mealling Standards Track [Page 22]
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