RFC 2483 (rfc2483) - Page 1 of 16

URI Resolution Services Necessary for URN Resolution

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Network Working Group                                      M. Mealling
Request for Comments: 2483                     Network Solutions, Inc.
Category: Experimental                                  R. Daniel, Jr.
                                        Los Alamos National Laboratory
                                                          January 1999


                        URI Resolution Services
                      Necessary for URN Resolution

Status of this Memo

   This memo defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet
   community.  It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind.
   Discussion and suggestions for improvement are requested.
   Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999).  All Rights Reserved.

Abstract

   Retrieving the resource identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier
   (URI) [1] is only one of the operations that can be performed on a
   URI.  One might also ask for and get a list of other identifiers that
   are aliases for the original URI or a bibliographic description of
   the resource the URI denotes, for example. This applies to both
   Uniform Resource Names (URNs) and Uniform Resource Locators (URLs).
   Uniform Resource Characteristics (URCs) are discussed in this
   document but only as descriptions of resources rather than
   identifiers.

   A service in the network providing access to a resource may provide
   one or some of these options, but it need not provide all of them.
   This memo specifies an initial set of these operations that can be
   used to describe the interactions provided by a given access service.
   It also suggests guidelines that should be adhered to when those
   operations are encoded in a protocol.

1. Introduction

   In the course of formulating current proposals [2] regarding URNs
   [3], it became apparent that requiring servers to manage all of the
   desired functions or requiring clients to process varied information
   returned by a server was unrealistic and a barrier to adoption. There
   needed to be some way for a client to be able to identify a server
   that specialized in the complex and another that specialized in the



Mealling & Daniel             Experimental
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