RFC 2652 (rfc2652) - Page 2 of 22
MIME Object Definitions for the Common Indexing Protocol (CIP)
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
RFC 2652 MIME Definitions for CIP August 1999
Appendix A contains the actual MIME [RFC 2046] registration templates
sent to the IANA for registration [RFC 2048].
This document uses language like SHOULD and SHALL that have special
meaning as specified in "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels" [RFC 2119].
2.0 CIP Transactions
Messages passed by CIP implementations over reliable transport
mechanisms fall into three categories: requests, responses and
results. All requests result in either a response or a result. A
result sent in response to a request must be interpreted as a
successful operation.
Requests, responses and results are formatted as MIME [RFC 2046]
messages. The specific MIME types involved are defined below.
As with all MIME objects, CIP messages may be wrapped in a security
multipart package to provide authentication and privacy. The security
policy with respect to all messages is implementation defined, when
not explicitly discussed below. CIP implementors are strongly urged
to allow server administrators maximum configurability to secure
their servers against maliciously sent anonymous CIP messages. In
general, operations which can permanently change the server's state
in a harmful way should only take place upon receipt of a properly
signed message from a trusted CIP peer or administrator. Implementors
should provide appropriate auditing capabilities so that both
successful and failed requests can be tracked by the server
administrator.
Since these MIME objects can and will be sent over several different
protocols, body termination is specified by the transfer protocol.
New protocols are encouraged to use SMTP [RFC 821] style body
termination.
Finally, since MIME objects can specify their own encoding, the
line-breaks contained within each body are defined by the encoding.
Thus, instead of specifying them as carriage-return and/or linefeed,
the identifier is used. Linebreaks in the headers and
separating the body from the headers follow existing standards.
Allen & Mealling Standards Track