rfc:rfc2935
Network Working Group D. Eastlake Request for Comments: 2935 Motorola Category: Standards Track C. Smith
Royal Bank of Canada
September 2000
Internet Open Trading Protocol (IOTP) HTTP Supplement
Status of this Memo
This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2000). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
Internet Open Trading Protocol (IOTP) messages will be carried as Extensible Markup Language (XML) documents. As such, the goal of mapping to the transport layer is to ensure that the underlying XML documents are carried successfully between the various parties.
This document describes that mapping for the Hyper Text Transport Protocol (HTTP), Versions 1.0 and 1.1.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction................................................... 2 2. HTTP Servers and Clients....................................... 2 3. HTTP Net Locations............................................. 2 4. Consumer Clients............................................... 2 4.1 Starting the IOTP Client and the Merchant IOTP Server.......... 3 4.2 Ongoing IOTP Messages.......................................... 3 4.3 Stopping an IOTP Transaction................................... 4 5. Starting the Payment handler and Deliverer IOTP Servers........ 5 6. Security Considerations........................................ 5 7. IANA Considerations............................................ 5 8. References..................................................... 6 9. Authors' Addresses............................................. 7 10. Full Copyright Statement....................................... 9
Eastlake & Smith Standards Track [Page 1] RFC 2935 IOTP HTTP Supplement September 2000
1. Introduction
Internet Open Trading Protocol (IOTP) [RFC2801] messages will be carried as XML [XML] documents. As such, the goal of mapping to the transport layer is to ensure that the underlying XML documents are carried successfully between the various parties.
This document describes that mapping for the Hyper Text Transport Protocol (HTTP), Versions 1.0 and 1.1 [RFCs 1945, 2616].
There may be future documents describing IOTP over email (SMTP), TCP, cable TV, or other transports.
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].
2. HTTP Servers and Clients
The structure of IOTP maps on to the structure of HTTP in the following way:
The merchant, payment handler, delivery handler, and customer care
roles are all represented by HTTP servers. Each may be
represented by a separate server, or they may be combined in any
combination.
The consumer role is represented by an HTTP client.
Note: A Merchant, may act in the role of a consumer, for example to deposit electronic cash. In this case the Merchant, as an organization rather than as a role, would need to be supported by an HTTP client.
3. HTTP Net Locations
The Net Locations contained within the IOTP specification are all URIs [RFC 2396]. If a secure connection is required or desired a secure channel that both the HTTP Server and Client support MUST be used. Examples of such channels are SSL version 3 or TLS [RFC 2246].
4. Consumer Clients
In most environments, the consumer agent will initially be an HTML browser. However, current browsers do not provide the needed capability to act as an agent for the consumer for an IOTP transaction. This leads to two requirements:
Eastlake & Smith Standards Track [Page 2] RFC 2935 IOTP HTTP Supplement September 2000
a method of starting and passing control to the IOTP client, and
a method of closing down the IOTP client cleanly and passing control back to the HTML browser once the IOTP Transaction has finished.
4.1 Starting the IOTP Client and the Merchant IOTP Server
At some point, the HTTP client at the consumer will send an HTTP request that is interpreted as an "IOTP Startup Request" by the Merchant HTTP server. This might, for example, be the result of clicking on a "pay" button. This message is a stand-in for a request message of some form and the Merchant Server will respond with the first IOTP Message in the form of an XML document.
The MIME type for all IOTP messages is: "APPLICATION/IOTP"; however "APPLICATION/X-IOTP" has been in use for experimentation and development and SHOULD also be recognized. See section 7 below for the MIME type registration template for APPLICATION/IOTP. Because HTTP is binary clean, no content-transfer-encoding is required. (See [RFC 2376] re the application/xml type which has some similar considerations.)
This HTTP response will be interpreted by the HTML browser as a request to start the application associated with MIME type "APPLICATION/IOTP", and to pass the content of this message to that application.
At this point, the IOTP client will be started and have the first message.
IOTP messages are short-lived. Therefore, the HTTP server SHOULD avoid having its responses cached. In HTTP V1.0, the "nocache" pragma can be used. This can be neglected on SSL/TLS secured connections which are not cached and on HTTP POST requests in HTTP v1.1 as in v1.1 POST responses are not cached.
4.2 Ongoing IOTP Messages
Data from earlier IOTP Messages in a transaction MUST be retained by the IOTP Client so that it may (1) be copied to make up part of later IOTP messages, (2) used in calculations to verify signatures in later IOTP message, (3) be resent in some cases where a request has timed out without response, (4) used as input to the Customer Care role in later versions of IOTP, etc. The way in which the data is copied depends on the IOTP Transaction. The data MUST be retained until the end of the transaction, whether by success, failure, or cancelation, and as long thereafter as it is desired for any of the parties to inquire into it.
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The IOTP messages contain Net Locations (e.g. the PayReqNetLocn) which for HTTP will contain the URIs to which the IOTP client MUST send IOTP messages.
Subsequent IOTP messages (XML documents) will be sent using the POST function of HTTP. The HTTP client MUST perform full HTTP POST requests.
The XML documents MUST be sent in a manner compatible with the external encodings allowed by the XML [XML] specification.
4.3 Stopping an IOTP Transaction
The following should be read in conjunction with [RFC 2801].
An IOTP Transaction is complete when
- - the IOTP client decides to fail the IOTP Transaction for some
reason either by canceling the transaction or as a result of
discovering an error in an IOTP message received, or
- - a "time out" occurs or a connection fails, e.g. a response to an
IOTP Message, has not been received after some user-defined period
of Time (including retransmissions).
An IOTP Client which processes an IOTP Transaction which:
- - completes successfully (i.e. it has not received an Error Block
with a HardError or a Cancel Block) MUST direct the browser to the
Net Location specified in SuccessNetLocn in the Protocol Options
Component, i.e., cause it to do an HTTP GET with that URL.
- - does not complete successfully, because it has received some Error
Trading Block, MUST display the information in the Error Message,
stop the transaction, and pass control to the browser so that it
will do a GET on the Error Net Location specified for the role
from which the error was received.
- - is cancelled since a Cancel Block has been received, MUST stop the
IOTP Transaction and hand control to the browser so that it will
do a GET on the on the Cancel Net Location specified for the role
from which the Cancel Block was received.
- - is in error because an IOTP Message does not conform to this
specification, MUST send an IOTP Message containing a Error
Trading Block to role from which the erroneous message was
received and the ErrorLogNetLoc specified for that role, stop the
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IOTP Transaction, and hand control to the browser so that it will
do a GET from the Error Net Location specified for the role from
which the bad message was received.
- - has a "time out", MUST display a message describing the time out.
May give the user the option of cancelling or retrying and/or may
automatically retry. On failure due to time out, treat as an
error above.
Each implementation of an IOTP client may decide whether or not to terminate the IOTP Client application immediately upon completing an IOTP Transaction or whether to wait until it is closed down as a result of, for example, user shut down or browser shut down.
5. Starting the Payment handler and Deliverer IOTP Servers
Payment Handler and Deliverer IOTP Servers are started by receiving an IOTP Message which contains:
- - for a Payment handler, a Payment Request Block, and
- - for a Delivery Handler, a Delivery Request Block
6. Security Considerations
Security of Internet Open Trade Protocol messages is primarily dependent on signatures within IOTP as described in [RFC 2801] and [RFC 2802]. Privacy protection for IOTP interactions can be obtained by using a secure channel for IOTP messages, such as SSL/TLS [RFC 2246].
Note that the security of payment protocols transported by IOTP is the responsibility of those payment protocols, NOT of IOTP.
7. IANA Considerations
This specification defines the APPLICATION/IOTP MIME type. The registration template is as follows [RFC 2048]:
To: ietf-types@iana.org
Subject: Registration of MIME media type APPLICATION/IOTP
MIME media type name: APPLICATION
MIME subtype name: IOTP
Required parameters: (none)
Eastlake & Smith Standards Track [Page 5] RFC 2935 IOTP HTTP Supplement September 2000
Optional parameters: charset - see RFC 2376
Encoding considerations: Content is XML and may in some cases
require quoted printable or base64 encoding. However, no encoding
is required for HTTP transport which is expected to be common.
Security considerations: IOTP includes provisions for digital
authentication but for confidentiality, other mechanisms such as
TLS should be used. See RFC 2801 and RFC 2802.
Interoperability considerations: See RFC 2801.
Published specification: See RFC 2801 and RFC 2802.
Applications which use this media type: Internet Open Trading
Protocol applications.
Additional information: (none)
Person & email address to contact for further information:
Name: Donald E. Eastlake 3rd
Email: Donald.Eastlake@motorola.com
Intended usage: COMMON
Author/Change controller: IETF
8. References
[RFC 1945] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R. and H. Frystyk, "Hypertext
Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.0", RFC 1945, May 1996.
[RFC 2048] Freed, N., Klensin, J. and J. Postel, "Multipurpose
Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) Part Four: Registration
Procedure", RFC 2048, November 1996.
[RFC 2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC 2246] Dierks, T. and C. Allen, "The TLS Protocol Version 1.0",
RFC 2246, January 1999.
[RFC 2376] Whitehead, E. and M. Murata, "XML Media Types", RFC 2376,
July 1998.
[RFC 2396] Berners-Lee, T., Rielding, R. and L. Masinter, "Uniform
Resource Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax", RFC 2396,
August 1998.
Eastlake & Smith Standards Track [Page 6] RFC 2935 IOTP HTTP Supplement September 2000
[RFC 2616] Fielding, R., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Frystyk, H.,
Masinter, L., Leach, P. and T. Berners-Lee, "Hypertext
Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1", RFC 2616, June 1999.
[RFC 2801] Burdett, D., "Internet Open Trading Protocol - IOTP
Version 1.0", RFC 2801, April 2000.
[RFC 2802] Davidson, K. and Y. Kawatsura, "Digital Signatures for the
v1.0 Internet Open Trading Protocol (IOTP)", RFC 2802,
April 2000
[XML] Bray, T., Paoli, J. and C. Sperberg-McQueen, "Extensible
Markup Language (XML) 1.0" <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml>,
February 1998.
9. Authors' Addresses
Donald E. Eastlake 3rd Motorola 140 Forest Avenue Hudson, MA 01749 USA
Phone: +1 978-562-2827(h)
+1 508-261-5434(w)
Fax: +1 508-261-4447(w)
EMail: Donald.Eastlake@motorola.com
Chris J. Smith Royal Bank of Canada 277 Front Street West Toronto, Ontario M5V 3A4 CANADA
Phone: +1 416-348-6090 Fax: +1 416-348-2210 EMail: chris.smith@royalbank.com
Eastlake & Smith Standards Track [Page 7] RFC 2935 IOTP HTTP Supplement September 2000
10. Full Copyright Statement
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2000). All Rights Reserved.
This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than English.
The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.
This document and the information contained herein is provided on an "AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Acknowledgement
Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the Internet Society.
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