2.1.7 HTTP State Management Mechanism (httpstate)

NOTE: This charter is a snapshot of the 77th IETF Meeting in Anaheim, California USA. It may now be out-of-date.

Last Modified: 2010-04-21

Chair(s):

Jeff Hodges <Jeff.Hodges@kingsmountain.com>

Applications Area Director(s):

Alexey Melnikov <alexey.melnikov@isode.com>
Peter Saint-Andre <stpeter@stpeter.im>

Applications Area Advisor:

Peter Saint-Andre <stpeter@stpeter.im>

Mailing Lists:

General Discussion: http-state@ietf.org
To Subscribe: https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/http-state
Archive: http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/http-state/current/maillist.html

Description of Working Group:

The HTTP State Management Mechanism (aka Cookies) was originally
created by Netscape Communications in their informal Netscape cookie
specification ("cookie_spec.html"), from which formal specifications
RFC 2109 and RFC 2965 evolved. The formal specifications, however,
were never fully implemented in practice; RFC 2109, in addition to
cookie_spec.html, more closely resemble real-world implementations
than RFC 2965, even though RFC 2965 officially obsoletes the former.
Compounding the problem are undocumented features (such as HTTPOnly),
and varying behaviors among real-world implementations.

The working group will create a new RFC that:
* obsoletes RFC 2109,
* updates RFC 2965 to the extent it overlaps or voids RFC 2109, and
* specifies Cookies as they are actually used in existing
  implementations and deployments.

Where commonalities exist in the most widely used implementations, the
working group will specify the common behavior. Where differences exist
among the most widely used implementations, the working group will
document the variations and seek consensus to reduce variation by
selecting among the most widely used variations.

The working group must not introduce any new syntax or new semantics
not already in common use.

The working group's specific deliverables are:
* A standards-track document that is suitable to supersede RFC 2109
  (likely based on draft-abarth-cookie)
* An informational document cataloguing the differences between major
  implementations

In doing so, the working group should consider:

* cookie_spec.html - Netscape Cookie Specification
 
http://web.archive.org/web/20070805052634/http://wp.netscape.com/newsref/std/cookie_spec.html
* RFC 2109 - HTTP State Management Mechanism (Obsoleted by RFC 2965)
  http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2109
* RFC 2964 - Use of HTTP State Management
  http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2964
* RFC 2965 - HTTP State Management Mechanism (Obsoletes RFC 2109)
  http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2965
* I-D - HTTP State Management Mechanism v2
  http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-pettersen-cookie-v2
* I-D - Cookie-based HTTP Authentication
  http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-broyer-http-cookie-auth
* Widely Implemented - HTTPOnly
  http://www.owasp.org/index.php/HTTPOnly
* Browser Security Handbook - Cookies
 
http://code.google.com/p/browsersec/wiki/Part2#Same-origin_policy_for_cookies
* HTTP Cookies: Standards, Privacy, and Politics by David M. Kristol
  http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/cs/pdf/0105/0105018v1.pdf

Goals and Milestones:

Mar 2010  Feature-complete Internet-Draft of Cookie specification
May 2010  Feature-complete test suite of Cookie specification
Jun 2010  Feature-complete draft of deviation description
Jul 2010  First fully conforming implementation in a major browser
Sep 2010  Last Call for Cookie specification
Oct 2010  Last Call for deviation description
Dec 2010  Second fully conforming implementation in a major browser
Jan 2011  Submit Cookie specification to IESG for consideration as a Draft Standard
Jan 2011  Submit deviation description to IESG for consideration as Informationa
Mar 2011  Close or recharter

Internet-Drafts:

  • draft-ietf-httpstate-cookie-09.txt

    No Request For Comments

    Meeting Minutes


    Slides

    None received.