RFC 3617 (rfc3617) - Page 2 of 7
Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) Scheme and Applicability Statement for the Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP)
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
RFC 3617 URI Scheme for TFTP October 2003
2. Syntax of a TFTP URI
A TFTP URI has the following ABNF syntax [2]:
tftpURI = "tftp://" host "/" file [ mode ]
mode = ";" "mode=" ( "netascii" / "octet" )
file = *( unreserved / escaped )
host = RFC 2732 [3]>
unreserved = RFC 2396 [4]>
escaped = RFC 2396>
A TFTP URI specifies a file that is to be found or placed on a TFTP
server. The "mode" option is an option indicating how the file is to
be transferred. If left unspecified, the mode is assumed to be
"octet". A third "mail" mode was deprecated at the time RFC 1350 was
adopted, and is not specified.
2.1. Encoding Rules
Aside from syntax as described above, the TFTP protocol does not
specify length limits to either file names or file sizes. In the
case of file names, they may contain any character so long as those
characters are properly escaped as described above.
3. Semantics and Operations
As previously stated the TFTP URI is a reference to a file. The
allowed operations on a TFTP URI are read and write. When a TFTP URI
is read the underlying mechanisms retrieve the named file via the
TFTP protocol from the specified host with the optionally specified
mode. When a TFTP URI is written the underlying mechanisms transmit
a file via TFTP to a specified server to either the specified file
using the optionally specified mode. No other operations are
supported.
Note that it is not possible to retrieve file size information prior
to retrieval, nor is it possible to determine file existence or
permissions prior to transfer. Files transferred may or may not
arrive intact, as there is no guarantee of reliability or even
completeness. See the TFTP standard for more details. For more
robust file transfer, consider using either FTP or HTTP [5, 6].
Lear Informational