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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) C. Bormann Request for Comments: 8307 Universitaet Bremen TZI Updates: 6455 January 2018 Category: Standards Track ISSN: 2070-1721

             Well-Known URIs for the WebSocket Protocol

Abstract

 RFC 5785 defines a path prefix, "/.well-known/", that can be used by
 well-known URIs.  It was specifically defined for the "http" and
 "https" URI schemes.  The present memo formally updates RFC 6455,
 which defines the URI schemes defined for the WebSocket Protocol, to
 extend the use of these well-known URIs to those URI schemes.

Status of This Memo

 This is an Internet Standards Track document.

 This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
 (IETF).  It represents the consensus of the IETF community.  It has
 received public review and has been approved for publication by the
 Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG).  Further information on
 Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of RFC 7841.

 Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
 and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
 https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8307.

Copyright Notice

 Copyright (c) 2018 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
 document authors.  All rights reserved.

 This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
 Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
 (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
 publication of this document.  Please review these documents
 carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
 to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
 include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
 the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
 described in the Simplified BSD License.

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Table of Contents

 1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
 2.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
 3.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
 4.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   4.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   4.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
 Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3

1. Introduction

 [RFC5785] defines a path prefix, "/.well-known", that can be used by
 well-known URIs.  It also contains an IANA registry for URI suffixes
 to be used with this path prefix for forming well-known URIs.

 In [RFC5785], this mechanism is specifically defined for the "http"
 and "https" URI schemes (now defined in [RFC7230]).  Other URI
 schemes such as "coap" and "coaps" [RFC7252] have since picked up
 this mechanism, sharing the registry of URI suffixes with that for
 HTTP(S).

 [RFC6455], which defines the URI schemes defined for the WebSocket
 Protocol, "ws" and "wss", does not define the use of well-known URIs
 for these URI schemes.

 The present memo formally updates [RFC6455] to extend the use of
 [RFC5785] well-known URIs to the URI schemes "ws" and "wss".

 Well-known URIs for "ws" and "wss" share the registry for URI
 suffixes established by [RFC5785]; no change is necessitated by the
 present memo in the registry or its IANA considerations.

2. IANA Considerations

 This document does not require any IANA actions.

3. Security Considerations

 The Security Considerations of [RFC5785] apply and need to be
 considered for all well-known URIs.

 It has always been possible to form "ws" and "wss" URIs in such a way
 that they map to well-known HTTP(S) URIs when using the procedure in
 Section 4 of [RFC6455]; no new security considerations are created by
 now formally making the well-known URI mechanism available for "ws"
 and "wss".

Bormann Standards Track [Page 2]  RFC 8307 Well-Known URIs for the WebSocket Protocol January 2018

 However, with well-known URIs becoming available for the WebSocket
 Protocol, applications that want to define well-known URI suffixes
 specifically for WebSocket use also need to consider whether the
 resources becoming available under the equivalent HTTP(S) URI formed
 by Section 4 of [RFC6455] pose any information disclosure or other
 security considerations.

4. References

4.1. Normative References

 [RFC5785]  Nottingham, M. and E. Hammer-Lahav, "Defining Well-Known
            Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs)", RFC 5785,
            DOI 10.17487/RFC5785, April 2010,
            <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5785>.

 [RFC6455]  Fette, I. and A. Melnikov, "The WebSocket Protocol",
            RFC 6455, DOI 10.17487/RFC6455, December 2011,
            <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6455>.

4.2. Informative References

 [RFC7230]  Fielding, R., Ed. and J. Reschke, Ed., "Hypertext Transfer
            Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Message Syntax and Routing",
            RFC 7230, DOI 10.17487/RFC7230, June 2014,
            <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7230>.

 [RFC7252]  Shelby, Z., Hartke, K., and C. Bormann, "The Constrained
            Application Protocol (CoAP)", RFC 7252,
            DOI 10.17487/RFC7252, June 2014,
            <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7252>.

Author's Address

 Carsten Bormann
 Universitaet Bremen TZI
 Postfach 330440
 Bremen  D-28359
 Germany

 Phone: +49-421-218-63921
 Email: cabo@tzi.org

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