RFC 2732 (rfc2732) - Page 3 of 5

Format for Literal IPv6 Addresses in URL's

RFC 2732            IPv6 Literal Addresses in URL's        December 1999


   The following changes to the syntax in RFC 2396 are made:
   (1) change the 'host' non-terminal to add an IPv6 option:

      host          = hostname | IPv4address | IPv6reference
      ipv6reference = "[" IPv6address "]"

   where IPv6address is defined as in RFC 2373 [ARCH].

   (2) Replace the definition of 'IPv4address' with that of RFC 2373, as
   it correctly defines an IPv4address as consisting of at most three
   decimal digits per segment.

   (3) Add "[" and "]" to the set of 'reserved' characters:

      reserved    = ";" | "/" | "?" | ":" | "@" | "&" | "=" | "+" |
                    "$" | "," | "[" | "]"

   and remove them from the 'unwise' set:

      unwise      = "{" | "}" | "|" | "\" | "^" | "`"

4. Security Considerations

   The use of this approach to represent literal IPv6 addresses in URL's
   does not introduce any known new security concerns.

5. IANA Considerations

   None.






















Hinden, et al.              Standards Track