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Run idnits with the --verbose option for more detailed information about the items above. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Internet Draft Patrik Faltstrom 2 draft-ietf-idn-idna-02.txt Cisco 3 June 16, 2001 Paul Hoffman 4 Expires in six months IMC & VPNC 6 Internationalizing Host Names In Applications (IDNA) 8 Status of this Memo 10 This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with all 11 provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026. 13 Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task 14 Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups 15 may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. 17 Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months 18 and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any 19 time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material 20 or to cite them other than as "work in progress." 22 The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at 23 http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt 25 The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at 26 http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. 28 Abstract 30 The current DNS infrastructure does not provide a way to use 31 internationalized host names (IDN). This document describes a mechanism 32 that requires no changes to any DNS server or resolver that will allow 33 internationalized host names to be used by end users with changes only 34 to applications. It allows flexibility for user input and display, and 35 assures that host names that have non-ASCII characters are not sent to 36 DNS servers or resolvers. 38 1. Introduction 40 In the discussion of IDN solutions, a great deal of discussion has 41 focused on transition issues and how IDN will work in a world where not 42 all of the components have been updated. Earlier proposed solutions 43 require that user applications, resolvers, and DNS servers to be updated 44 in order for a user to use an internationalized host name. Instead of 45 this requirement for widespread updating of all components, the current 46 proposal is that only user applications be updated; no changes are 47 needed to the DNS protocol or any DNS servers or the resolvers on user's 48 computers. 50 This document is being discussed on the ietf-idna@mail.apps.ietf.org 51 mailing list. To subscribe, send a message to 52 ietf-idna-request@mail.apps.ietf.org with the single word "subscribe" in 53 the body of the message. 55 1.1 Design philosophy 57 Many proposals for IDN protocols have required that DNS servers be 58 updated to handle internationalized host names. Because of this, the 59 person who wanted to use an internationalized host name had to be sure 60 that their request went to a DNS server that was updated for IDN. 61 Further, that server could only send queries to other servers that had 62 been updated for IDN because the queries contain new protocol elements 63 to differentiate IDN name parts from current host parts. In addition, 64 these proposals require that resolvers must be updated to use the new 65 protocols, and in most cases the applications would need to be updated 66 as well. 68 These proposals would require that the application protocols that use 69 host names as protocol elements to change. This is due to the 70 assumptions and requirements made in those protocols about the 71 characters that have always been used for host names, and the encoding 72 of those characters. Other proposals for IDN protocols do not require 73 changes to DNS servers but still require changes to most application 74 protocols to handle the new names. 76 Updating all (or even a significant percentage) of the existing servers 77 in the world will be difficult, to say the least. Updating applications, 78 application gateways, and clients to handle changes to the application 79 protocols is also daunting. Because of this, we have designed a protocol 80 that requires no updating of any name servers. IDNA still requires the 81 updating of applications, but only for input and display of names, not 82 for changes to the protocols. Once a user has updated these, she or he 83 could immediately start using internationalized host names. The cost of 84 implementing IDN may thus be much lower, and the speed of implementation 85 could be much higher. 87 1.2 Terminology 89 The key words "MUST", "SHALL", "REQUIRED", "SHOULD", "RECOMMENDED", and 90 "MAY" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 91 [RFC2119]. 93 2. Structural Overview 95 In IDNA, users' applications are updated to perform the processing 96 needed to input internationalized host names from users, display 97 internationalized host names that are returned from the DNS to users, 98 and process the inputs and outputs from the DNS. 100 2.1 Interfaces between DNS components in IDNA 102 The interfaces in IDNA can be represented pictorially as: 104 +------+ 105 | User | 106 +------+ 107 ^ 108 |Input and display: local interface methods 109 |(pen, keyboard, glowing phosphorus, ...) 110 +-----------------|------------------------------+ 111 | v | 112 | +--------------------------+ | 113 | | Application | | 114 | +--------------------------+ | 115 | ^ ^ | 116 | Call to resolver:| |Application-specific | 117 | nameprepped ACE| |protocol: | 118 | v |predefined by the | End system 119 | +----------+ |protocol or defaults | 120 | | Resolver | |to nameprepped ACE | 121 | +----------+ | | 122 | ^ | | 123 +---------------|----------|---------------------+ 124 DNS protocol:| | 125 nameprepped ACE| | 126 v v 127 +-------------+ +---------------------+ 128 | DNS servers | | Application servers | 129 +-------------+ +---------------------+ 131 This document uses the generic term "ACE" for an ASCII-compatible 132 encoding. After the IDN Working Group has chosen a specific ACE, this 133 document will be updated to refer to just that single ACE. Until that 134 time, an implementor creating experimental software must choose an ACE 135 to use, such as RACE or LACE or DUDE. 137 2.1.1 Entry and display in applications 139 Applications can accept host names using any character set or sets 140 desired by the application developer, and can display host names in any 141 charset. That is, this protocol does not affect the interface between 142 users and applications. 144 An IDNA-aware application can accept and display internationalized host 145 names in two formats: the internationalized character set(s) supported 146 by the application, and in an ACE. Applications MAY allow ACE input and 147 output, but are not encouraged to do so except as an interface for 148 advanced users, possibly for debugging. ACE encoding is opaque and ugly, 149 and should thus only be exposed to users who absolutely need it. The 150 optional use, especially during a transition period, of ACE encodings in 151 the user interface is described in section 3. Since ACE can be rendered 152 either as the encoded ASCII glyphs or the proper decoded character 153 glyphs, the rendering engine for an application SHOULD have an option 154 for the user to select the preferred display; if it does, rendering the 155 ACE SHOULD NOT be the default. 157 Host names are often stored and transported in many places. For example, 158 they are part of documents such as mail messages and web pages. They are 159 transported in the many parts of many protocols, such as both the 160 control commands and the RFC 2822 body parts of SMTP, and the headers 161 and the body content in HTTP. 163 In protocols and document formats that define how to handle 164 specification or negotiation of charsets, IDN host name parts can be 165 given in any charset allowed by the protocol or document format. If a 166 protocol or document format only allows one charset, IDN host name parts 167 must be given in that charset. 169 All protocols that have host names as protocol elements already have the 170 capacity for handling host names in the ASCII charset. Thus, IDN host 171 name parts can be specified in those protocols in the ACE charset, which 172 is a superset of the ASCII charset that uses the same set of octets. 174 2.1.2 Applications and resolvers 176 Applications communicate with resolver libraries through a programming 177 interface (API). Typically, the IETF does not standardize APIs, although 178 there are non-standard APIs specified for IPv6. This protocol does not 179 specify a specific API, but instead specifies only the input and output 180 formats of the host names to the resolver library. 182 Before converting the name parts into ACE, the application MUST prepare 183 each name part as specified in [NAMEPREP]. The application MUST use ACE 184 for the name parts that are sent to the resolver, and will always get 185 name parts encoded in ACE from the resolver. 187 IDNA-aware applications MUST be able to work with both 188 non-internationalized host name parts (those that conform to [STD13] and 189 [STD3]) and internationalized host name parts. An IDNA-aware application 190 that is resolving a non-internationalized host name parts MUST NOT do 191 any preparation or conversion to ACE on any non-internationalized name 192 part. 194 2.1.3 Resolvers and DNS servers 196 An operating system might have a set of libraries for converting host 197 names to nameprepped ACE. The input to such a library might be in one or 198 more charsets that are used in applications (UTF-8 and UTF-16 are likely 199 candidates for almost any operating system, and script-specific charsets 200 are likely for localized operating systems). The output would be either 201 the unchanged name part (if the input already conforms to [STD13] and 202 [STD3]), or the nameprepped, ACE-encoded name part. 204 DNS servers MUST use the ACE format for internationalized host name 205 parts. 207 If a signalling system which makes negotiation possible between old and 208 new DNS clients and servers is standardized in the future, the encoding 209 of the query in the DNS protocol itself can be changed from ACE to 210 something else, such as UTF-8. The question whether or not this should 211 be used is, however, a separate problem and is not discussed in this 212 memo. 214 2.1.4 Avoiding exposing users to the raw ACE encoding 216 All applications that might show the user a host name that was received 217 from a gethostbyaddr or other such lookup SHOULD update as soon as 218 possible in order to prevent users from seeing the ACE. However, this is 219 not considered a big problem because so few applications show this type 220 of resolution to users. 222 If an application decodes an ACE name but cannot show all of the 223 characters in the decoded name, such as if the name contains characters 224 that the output system cannot display, the application SHOULD show the 225 name in ACE format instead of displaying the name with the replacement 226 character (U+FFFD). This is to make it easier for the user to transfer 227 the name correctly to other programs using copy-and-paste techniques. 228 Programs that by default show the ACE form when they cannot show all the 229 characters in a name part SHOULD also have a mechanism to show the name 230 with as many characters as possible and replacement characters in the 231 positions where characters cannot be displayed. 233 2.1.5 Automatic detection of ACE 235 An application which receives a host name SHOULD verify whether or not 236 the host name is in ACE. This is possible by verifying the prefix in 237 each of the labels, and seeing whether or not the label is in ACE. This 238 MUST be done regardless of whether or not the communication channel used 239 (such as keyboard input, cut and paste, application protocol, 240 application payload, and so on) has negotiated ACE. 242 The reason for this requirement is that many applications are not 243 ACE-aware. Applications that are not ACE-aware will send host names in 244 ACE but mark the charset as being US-ASCII or some other charset which 245 has the characters that are valid in [STD13] as a subset. 247 2.1.6 Bidirectional text 249 In IDNA, bidirectional text is entered and displayed exactly as it is 250 specified in ISO/IEC 10646. Both ISO/IEC 10646 and the Unicode standard 251 have extensive discussion of how to deal with bidirectional text. Any 252 input mechanism and display mechanism that handles characters from 253 bidirectional scripts should already conform to those specifications. 254 Note that the formatting characters that manually change the direction 255 of display are prohibited by nameprep, thus making the task for input 256 and display mechanisms easier. 258 3. Name Server Considerations 260 It is imperative that there be only one encoding for a particular host 261 name. ACE is an encoding for host name parts that use characters outside 262 those allowed for host names [STD13]. Thus, a primary master name server 263 MUST NOT contain an ACE-encoded name that decodes to a host name that is 264 allowed in [STD13] and [STD3]. 266 Name servers MUST NOT have any records with host names that contain 267 internationalized name parts unless those name parts have be prepared 268 according to [NAMEPREP]. If names that are not legal in [NAMEPREP] are 269 passed to an application, it will result in an error being passed to the 270 application with no error being reported to the name server. Further, no 271 application will ever ask for a name that is not legal in [NAMEPREP] 272 because requests always go through [NAMEPREP] before getting to the DNS. 273 Note that [NAMEPREP] describes how to handle versioning of unallocated 274 codepoints. 276 The host name data in zone files (as specified by section 5 of RFC 1035) 277 MUST be both nameprepped and ACE encoded. 279 4. Root Server Considerations 281 Because there are no changes to the DNS protocols, adopting this 282 protocol has no effect on the DNS root servers. 284 5. Security Considerations 286 Much of the security of the Internet relies on the DNS. Thus, any change 287 to the characteristics of the DNS can change the security of much of the 288 Internet. 290 This memo describes an algorithm which encodes characters that are not 291 valid according to STD3 and STD13 into octet values that are valid. No 292 security issues such as string length increases or new allowed values 293 are introduced by the encoding process or the use of these encoded 294 values, apart from those introduced by the ACE encoding itself. 296 When detecting an ACE-encoded host name, and decoding the ACE, care must 297 be taken that the resulting value(s) are valid characters which can be 298 handled by the application. This is described in more detail in section 299 2.1.4. 301 Host names are used by users to connect to Internet servers. The 302 security of the Internet would be compromised if a user entering a 303 single internationalized name could be connected to different servers 304 based on different interpretations of the internationalized host name. 306 Because this document normatively refers to [NAMEPREP], it includes the 307 security considerations from that document as well. 309 6. References 311 [NAMEPREP] Paul Hoffman & Marc Blanchet, "Preparation of 312 Internationalized Host Names", draft-ietf-idn-nameprep. 314 [RFC2119] Scott Bradner, "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate 315 Requirement Levels", March 1997, RFC 2119. 317 [STD3] Bob Braden, "Requirements for Internet Hosts -- Communication 318 Layers" (RFC 1122) and "Requirements for Internet Hosts -- Application 319 and Support" (RFC 1123), STD 3, October 1989. 321 [STD13] Paul Mockapetris, "Domain names - concepts and facilities" (RFC 322 1034) and "Domain names - implementation and specification" (RFC 1035, 323 STD 13, November 1987. 325 B. Changes from the -01 draft 327 1.1: Revised whole section to deal with more proposals. 329 2.1: Clarified the ASCII art 331 2.1.1: Changed the section title. Added the last three paragraphs. 333 2.1.4: Added the second paragraph. 335 2.1.6: Added this section. 337 2.1.5: Added this section. 339 3: Added note in the last sentence of second paragraph. 341 5: Added second and third paragraphs. 343 C. Authors' Addresses 345 Patrik Faltstrom 346 Cisco Systems 347 Arstaangsvagen 31 J 348 S-117 43 Stockholm 349 Sweden 350 paf@cisco.com 352 Paul Hoffman 353 Internet Mail Consortium and VPN Consortium 354 127 Segre Place 355 Santa Cruz, CA 95060 USA 356 phoffman@imc.org