Network Working Group J. Reschke Internet-Draft greenbytes Updates: 2616 (if approved) August 24, 2010 Intended status: Standards Track Expires: February 25, 2011 Use of the Content-Disposition Header Field in the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) draft-reschke-rfc2183-in-http-02 Abstract HTTP/1.1 defines the Content-Disposition response header field, but points out that it is not part of the HTTP/1.1 Standard. This specification takes over the definition and registration of Content- Disposition, as used in HTTP, and clarifies internationalization aspects. Editorial Note (To be removed by RFC Editor before publication) This specification is expected to replace the definition of Content- Disposition in the HTTP/1.1 specification, as currently revised by the IETF HTTPbis working group. See also . Distribution of this document is unlimited. Although this is not a work item of the HTTPbis Working Group, comments should be sent to the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) mailing list at ietf-http-wg@w3.org [1], which may be joined by sending a message with subject "subscribe" to ietf-http-wg-request@w3.org [2]. Discussions of the HTTPbis Working Group are archived at . XML versions, latest edits and the issues list for this document are available from . A collection of test cases is available at . Status of This Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute Reschke Expires February 25, 2011 [Page 1] Internet-Draft Content-Disposition in HTTP August 2010 working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. 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Reschke Expires February 25, 2011 [Page 2] Internet-Draft Content-Disposition in HTTP August 2010 Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2. Notational Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 3. Header Field Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 3.1. Grammar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 3.2. Disposition Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3.3. Disposition Parameter: 'Filename' . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3.4. Disposition Parameter: Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 4. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 5. Internationalization Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 6. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 7. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 7.1. Registry for Disposition Values and Parameter . . . . . . 7 7.2. Header Field Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 8. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 9. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 9.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 9.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Appendix A. Changes from the RFC 2616 Definition . . . . . . . . 9 Appendix B. Differences compared to RFC 2183 . . . . . . . . . . 9 Appendix C. Alternative Approaches to Internationalization . . . 9 C.1. RFC 2047 Encoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 C.2. Percent Encoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 C.3. Encoding Sniffing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 C.4. Implementations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Appendix D. Change Log (to be removed by RFC Editor before publication) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 D.1. Since draft-reschke-rfc2183-in-http-00 . . . . . . . . . . 11 D.2. Since draft-reschke-rfc2183-in-http-01 . . . . . . . . . . 11 Appendix E. Resolved issues (to be removed by RFC Editor before publication) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 E.1. nodep2183 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Appendix F. Open issues (to be removed by RFC Editor prior to publication) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 F.1. edit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 F.2. quoted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 F.3. asciivsiso . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 F.4. deplboth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 F.5. registry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Reschke Expires February 25, 2011 [Page 3] Internet-Draft Content-Disposition in HTTP August 2010 1. Introduction HTTP/1.1 defines the Content-Disposition response header field in Section 19.5.1 of [RFC2616], but points out that it is not part of the HTTP/1.1 Standard (Section 15.5): Content-Disposition is not part of the HTTP standard, but since it is widely implemented, we are documenting its use and risks for implementors. This specification takes over the definition and registration of Content-Disposition, as used in HTTP. Based on interoperability testing with existing User Agents, it fully defines a profile of the features defined in the MIME variant ([RFC2183]) of the header field, and also clarifies internationalization aspects. 2. Notational Conventions The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119]. This specification uses the augmented BNF notation defined in Section 2.1 of [RFC2616], including its rules for linear whitespace (LWS). 3. Header Field Definition The Content-Disposition response header field is used to convey additional information about how to process the response payload, and also can be used to attach additional metadata, such as the filename. 3.1. Grammar content-disposition = "Content-Disposition" ":" disposition-type *( ";" disposition-parm ) disposition-type = "inline" | "attachment" | disp-ext-type ; case-insensitive disp-ext-type = token disposition-parm = filename-parm | disp-ext-parm filename-parm = "filename" "=" value | "filename*" "=" ext-value disp-ext-parm = token "=" value | ext-token "=" ext-value ext-token = Reschke Expires February 25, 2011 [Page 4] Internet-Draft Content-Disposition in HTTP August 2010 Defined in [RFC2616]: token = value = Defined in [RFC5987]: ext-value = 3.2. Disposition Type If the disposition type matches "attachment" (case-insensitively), this indicates that the user agent should not display the response, but directly enter a "save as..." dialog. On the other hand, if it matches "inline" (case-insensitively), this implies default processing. Other disposition types SHOULD be handled the same way as "attachment" (see also [RFC2183], Section 2.8). 3.3. Disposition Parameter: 'Filename' The parameters "filename" and "filename*", to be matched case- insensitively, provide information on how to construct a filename for storing the message payload. Depending on the disposition type, this information might be used right away (in the "save as..." interaction caused for the "attachment" disposition type), or later on (for instance, when the user decides to save the contents of the current page being displayed). "filename" and "filename*" behave the same, except that "filename*" uses the encoding defined in [RFC5987], allowing the use of non-ASCII characters ([USASCII]). When both "filename" and "filename*" are present, a recipient SHOULD pick "filename*" and ignore "filename" - this will make it possible to send the same header value to clients that do not support "filename". It is essential that user agents treat the specified filename as advisory only, thus be very careful in extracting the desired information. In particular: o When the value contains path separator characters, all but the last segment SHOULD be ignored. This prevents unintentional overwriting of well-known file system location (such as "/etc/ passwd"). Reschke Expires February 25, 2011 [Page 5] Internet-Draft Content-Disposition in HTTP August 2010 o Many platforms do not use Internet Media Types ([RFC2046]) to hold type information in the file system, but rely on filename extensions instead. Trusting the server-provided file extension could introduce a privilege escalation when later on the file is opened locally (consider ".exe"). Thus, recipients need to ensure that a file extension is used that is safe, optimally matching the media type of the received payload. o Other aspects recipients need to be aware of are names that have a special meaning in the filesystem or in shell commands, such as "." and "..", "~", "|", and also device names. 3.4. Disposition Parameter: Extensions To enable future extensions, unknown parameters SHOULD be ignored (see also [RFC2183], Section 2.8). 4. Examples Direct UA to show "save as" dialog, with a filename of "foo.html": Content-Disposition: Attachment; filename=foo.html Direct UA to behave as if the Content-Disposition header field wasn't present, but to remember the filename "foo.html" for a subsequent save operation: Content-Disposition: INLINE; FILENAME= "foo.html" Direct UA to show "save as" dialog, with a filename of "an example": Content-Disposition: Attachment; Filename*=UTF-8'en'an%20example Note that this example uses the extended encoding defined in [RFC5987] to specify that the natural language of the filename is English, and also to encode the space character which is not allowed in the token production. Direct UA to show "save as" dialog, with a filename containing the Unicode character U+20AC (EURO SIGN): Content-Disposition: attachment; filename*= UTF-8''%e2%82%ac%20rates Here, the encoding defined in [RFC5987] is also used to encode the non-ASCII character. Reschke Expires February 25, 2011 [Page 6] Internet-Draft Content-Disposition in HTTP August 2010 5. Internationalization Considerations The "filename*" parameter (Section 3.3), using the encoding defined in [RFC5987], allows the server to transmit characters outside the ASCII character set. Future parameters might also require internationalization, in which case the same encoding can be used. 6. Security Considerations Using server-supplied information for constructing local filenames introduces many risks. These are summarized in Section 3.3. Furthermore, implementers also ought to be aware of the Security Considerations applying to HTTP (see Section 15 of [RFC2616]), and also the parameter encoding defined in [RFC5987] (see Section 5). 7. IANA Considerations 7.1. Registry for Disposition Values and Parameter This specification does not introduce any changes to the registration procedures for disposition values and parameters that are defined in Section 9 of [RFC2183]. 7.2. Header Field Registration This document updates the definition of the Content-Disposition HTTP header field in the permanent HTTP header field registry (see [RFC3864]). Header field name: Content-Disposition Applicable protocol: http Status: standard Author/Change controller: IETF Specification document: this specification (Section 3) 8. Acknowledgements Thanks to Rolf Eike Beer, Alfred Hoenes, and Roar Lauritzsen for their valuable feedback. 9. References Reschke Expires February 25, 2011 [Page 7] Internet-Draft Content-Disposition in HTTP August 2010 9.1. Normative References [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. [RFC2616] Fielding, R., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Frystyk, H., Masinter, L., Leach, P., and T. Berners-Lee, "Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1", RFC 2616, June 1999. [RFC5987] Reschke, J., "Applicability of RFC 2231 Encoding to Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Headers", RFC 5987, August 2010. 9.2. Informative References [ISO-8859-1] International Organization for Standardization, "Information technology -- 8-bit single-byte coded graphic character sets -- Part 1: Latin alphabet No. 1", ISO/IEC 8859-1:1998, 1998. [RFC2046] Freed, N. and N. Borenstein, "Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) Part Two: Media Types", RFC 2046, November 1996. [RFC2047] Moore, K., "MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) Part Three: Message Header Extensions for Non-ASCII Text", RFC 2047, November 1996. [RFC2183] Troost, R., Dorner, S., and K. Moore, "Communicating Presentation Information in Internet Messages: The Content-Disposition Header Field", RFC 2183, August 1997. [RFC2231] Freed, N. and K. Moore, "MIME Parameter Value and Encoded Word Extensions: Character Sets, Languages, and Continuations", RFC 2231, November 1997. [RFC3629] Yergeau, F., "UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO 10646", RFC 3629, STD 63, November 2003. [RFC3864] Klyne, G., Nottingham, M., and J. Mogul, "Registration Procedures for Message Header Fields", BCP 90, RFC 3864, September 2004. [RFC3986] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", RFC 3986, STD 66, January 2005. Reschke Expires February 25, 2011 [Page 8] Internet-Draft Content-Disposition in HTTP August 2010 [USASCII] American National Standards Institute, "Coded Character Set -- 7-bit American Standard Code for Information Interchange", ANSI X3.4, 1986. URIs [1] [2] Appendix A. Changes from the RFC 2616 Definition Compared to Section 19.5.1 of [RFC2616], the following normative changes reflecting actual implementations have been made: o According to RFC 2616, the disposition type "attachment" only applies to content of type "application/octet-stream". This restriction has been removed, because user agents in practice do not check the content type, and it also discourages properly declaring the media type. o The definition for the disposition type "inline" ([RFC2183], Section 2.1) has been re-added with a suggestion for its processing. o This specification requires support for the extended parameter encoding defined in [RFC5987]. Appendix B. Differences compared to RFC 2183 Section 2 of [RFC2183] defines several additional disposition parameters: "creation-date", "modification-date", "quoted-date-time", and "size". These do not appear to be implemented by any user agent, thus have been omitted from this specification. Appendix C. Alternative Approaches to Internationalization By default, HTTP header field parameters cannot carry characters outside the ISO-8859-1 ([ISO-8859-1]) character encoding (see [RFC2616], Section 2.2). For the "filename" parameter, this of course is an unacceptable restriction. Unfortunately, user agent implementers have not managed to come up with an interoperable approach, although the IETF Standards Track specifies exactly one solution ([RFC2231], clarified and profiled for HTTP in [RFC5987]). For completeness, the sections below describe the various approaches Reschke Expires February 25, 2011 [Page 9] Internet-Draft Content-Disposition in HTTP August 2010 that have been tried, and explains how they are inferior to the RFC 5987 encoding used in this specification. C.1. RFC 2047 Encoding RFC 2047 defines an encoding mechanism for header fields, but this encoding is not supposed to be used for header field parameters - see Section 5 of [RFC2047]: An 'encoded-word' MUST-NOT appear within a 'quoted-string'. ... An 'encoded-word' MUST NOT be used in parameter of a MIME Content- Type or Content-Disposition field, or in any structured field body except within a 'comment' or 'phrase'. In practice, some user agents implement the encoding, some do not (exposing the encoded string to the user), and some get confused by it. C.2. Percent Encoding Some user agents accept percent encoded ([RFC3986], Section 2.1) sequences of characters encoded using the UTF-8 ([RFC3629]) character encoding. In practice, this is hard to use because those user agents that do not support it will display the escaped character sequence to the user. Furthermore, the first user agent to implement this did choose the encoding based on local settings; thus making it very hard to use in multi-lingual environments. C.3. Encoding Sniffing Some user agents inspect the value (which defaults to ISO-8859-1) and switch to UTF-8 when it seems to be more likely to be the correct interpretation. As with the approaches above, this is not interoperable and furthermore risks misinterpreting the actual value. C.4. Implementations The table below shows the various encoding approaches and for them in released user agent versions as of August 2010, based on the test Reschke Expires February 25, 2011 [Page 10] Internet-Draft Content-Disposition in HTTP August 2010 cases published at . +---------------+------------+--------+--------------+--------------+ | User Agent | RFC | RFC | Percent | Encoding | | | 2231/5987 | 2047 | Encoding | Sniffing | +---------------+------------+--------+--------------+--------------+ | Chrome | no | yes | yes | yes | | Firefox | yes | yes | no | yes | | Internet | no | no | yes | no | | Explorer | | | | | | Konqueror | yes | no | no | no | | Opera | yes | no | no | no | | Safari | no | no | no | yes | +---------------+------------+--------+--------------+--------------+ Appendix D. Change Log (to be removed by RFC Editor before publication) D.1. Since draft-reschke-rfc2183-in-http-00 Adjust terminology ("header" -> "header field"). Update rfc2231-in- http reference. D.2. Since draft-reschke-rfc2183-in-http-01 Update rfc2231-in-http reference. Actually define the "filename" parameter. Add internationalization considerations. Add examples using the RFC 5987 encoding. Add overview over other approaches, plus a table reporting implementation status. Add and resolve issue "nodep2183". Add issues "asciivsiso", "deplboth", "quoted", and "registry". Appendix E. Resolved issues (to be removed by RFC Editor before publication) Issues that were either rejected or resolved in this version of this document. E.1. nodep2183 Type: change julian.reschke@greenbytes.de (2010-08-23): Make sure we do not have a normative dependency on RFC 2183. Resolution (2010-08-23): Done. Reschke Expires February 25, 2011 [Page 11] Internet-Draft Content-Disposition in HTTP August 2010 Appendix F. Open issues (to be removed by RFC Editor prior to publication) F.1. edit Type: edit julian.reschke@greenbytes.de (2009-10-16): Umbrella issue for editorial fixes/enhancements. F.2. quoted In Section 3.1: Type: change julian.reschke@greenbytes.de (2010-08-23): Can value be quoted-pair as well? It is "value" only in RFC 2183, but "quoted-string" only in 2616. UAs seem to handle quoted-strings, although some have trouble unescaping backslashes. F.3. asciivsiso In Section 3.3: Type: change julian.reschke@greenbytes.de (2010-08-24): We should be consistent about what RFC 2616 defaults to (ASCII vs ISO-8859-1). F.4. deplboth In Section 4: Type: change julian.reschke@greenbytes.de (2010-08-24): Add an example that uses both "filename" and "filename*" and mention current UA behavior. F.5. registry In Section 7.1: Type: change julian.reschke@greenbytes.de (2010-08-23): The registry technically is for the MIME header, but has been used for C-D in other protocols already. What's missing are instructions that new registrations Reschke Expires February 25, 2011 [Page 12] Internet-Draft Content-Disposition in HTTP August 2010 should state which protocol they're for. Do we want to attempt to modify the registry? Index C Content-Disposition header 4 H Headers Content-Disposition 4 Author's Address Julian F. Reschke greenbytes GmbH Hafenweg 16 Muenster, NW 48155 Germany EMail: julian.reschke@greenbytes.de URI: http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/ Reschke Expires February 25, 2011 [Page 13]