RFC 3341 (rfc3341) - Page 2 of 26
The Application Exchange (APEX) Access Service
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
RFC 3341 The Application Exchange (APEX) Access Service July 2002
7. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
A. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Full Copyright Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
1. Introduction
This memo describes an access service that is built upon the APEX [1]
"relaying mesh". The APEX access service is used to control use of
both the relaying mesh and other APEX services.
APEX, at its core, provides a best-effort datagram service. Within
an administrative domain, all relays must be able to handle messages
for any endpoint within that domain. APEX services are logically
defined as endpoints but given their ubiquitous semantics they do not
necessarily need to be associated with a single physical endpoint.
As such, they may be provisioned co-resident with each relay within
an administrative domain, even though they are logically provided on
top of the relaying mesh, i.e.,
+----------+ +----------+ +----------+ +---------+
| APEX | | APEX | | APEX | | |
| access | | presence | | report | | ... |
| service | | service | | service | | |
+----------+ +----------+ +----------+ +---------+
| | | |
| | | |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| APEX core |
| |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
That is, applications communicate with an APEX service by exchanging
data with a "well-known endpoint" (WKE).
APEX applications communicate with the access service by exchanging
data with the well-known endpoint "apex=access" in the corresponding
administrative domain, e.g., "apex=" is the
endpoint associated with the access service in the "example.com"
administrative domain.
Note that within a single administrative domain, the relaying mesh
makes use of the APEX access service in order to determine if an
originator is allowed to transmit data to a recipient (c.f., Step 5.3
of Section 4.4.4.1 of [1]).
Rose, et. al. Standards Track