Network Working Group S.E. Hardcastle-Kille
Requests for Comments 1278 University College London
November 1991
A string encoding of Presentation Address
Status of this Memo
This memo provides information for the Internet community. It
does not specify an Internet standard. Distribution of this memo
is unlimited.
Abstract
There are a number of environments where a simple string encoding
of Presentation Address is desirable. This specification defines
such a representation.
RFC 1278 String encoded P-Address November 1991
1 Introduction
OSI Application Entities use presentation addresses to address other
Application Entities. The model for this is defined in [ISO87b].
Presentation addresses are stored in the OSI Directory using an ASN.1
representation defined by the OSI Directory [CCI88]. Logically, a
presentation address consists of:
o A presentation selector
o A session selector
o A transport selector
o A set of network addresses
The selectors are all octet strings, but often have IA5 character
representations. The format of network addresses is defined in
[ISO87a].
There is a need to represent presentation addresses as strings in a
number of different contexts. This Internet Draft defines a format
for use on the Internet. It is for display to human users, and its
use is recommended whenever this needs to be done. Typically, this
will be for system managers rather than for end users. It is not
intended for internal storage.
This Internet Draft was originally published as UCL Research Note
RN/89/14 [Kil89]. It was agreed as a unified syntax for the THORN and
ISODE projects. It is used throughout ISODE.
Christian Huitema of Inria and Marshall Rose of PSI Inc. gave much
useful input to this document.
2 Requirements
The main requirements are:
o Must be able to specify any legal value.
o Should be clean in the common case of the presentation address
containing network addresses and no selectors.
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o Must deal with selectors in the following encodings:
-- IA5
-- Decimal digits encoded as IA5 (this is the most common syntax
in Europe, as it is required by X.400(84) and should receive a
straightforward encoding)
-- Numeric encoded as a 16 bit unsigned integer (US GOSIP). This
is mapped onto two octets, with the first octet being the high
order byte of the integer.
-- General Hexadecimal
o Should give special encodings for the ad hoc encoding proposed in
``An interim approach to use of Network Addresses'' [HK91].
-- X.25(80) Networks
-- TCP/IP Networks
o Should be extensible for additional forms.
o Should provide a reasonably compact representation .
3 Format
The_BNF_is_given_in_figure_1.__________________________________________
<digit> ::= [0-9]
<other> ::= [0-9a-zA-Z+-.]
<domainchar> ::= [0-9a-zA-Z-.]
<hexdigit> ::= [0-9a-fA-F]
<hexoctet> ::= <hexdigit> <hexdigit>
<decimaloctet> ::= <digit> | <digit> <digit>
| <digit> <digit> <digit>
<digitstring> ::= <digit> <digitstring> 10
| <digit>
<otherstring> ::= <other> <otherstring>
| <other>
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<domainstring> ::= <domainchar> <otherstring>
| <domainchar>
<hexstring> ::= <hexoctet> <hexstring> | <hexoctet>
<dotstring> ::= <decimaloctet> "." <dotstring>
| <decimaloctet> "." <decimaloctet>
20
<dothexstring> ::= <dotstring> | <hexstring>
<presentation-address> ::=
[[[ <psel> "/" ] <ssel> "/" ] <tsel> "/" ]
<network-address-list>
<network-address-list> ::= <network-address> "_" <network-address-list>30
| <network-address>
<psel> ::= <selector>
<ssel> ::= <selector>
<tsel> ::= <selector>
<selector> ::= '"' <otherstring> '"' -- IA5
-- For chars not in this
-- string use hex
| "#" <digitstring> -- US GOSIP 40
| "'" <hexstring> "'H" -- Hex
| "" -- Empty but present
<network-address> ::= "NS" "+" <dothexstring>
-- Concrete Binary Representation
-- This is the compact encoding
| <afi> "+" <idi> [ "+" <dsp> ]
-- A user oriented form
| <idp> "+" <hexstring>
-- ISO 8348 Compatability 50
<idp> ::= <digitstring> -
<dsp> ::=
| "d" <digitstring> -- Abstract Decimal
| "x" <dothexstring> -- Abstract Binary
| "l" <otherstring> -- IA5: local form only
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RFC 1278 String encoded P-Address November 1991
| "RFC-1006" "+" <prefix> "+" <ip>
[ "+" <port> [ "+" <tset> ]]
| "X.25(80)" "+" <prefix> "+" <dte> 60
[ "+" <cudf-or-pid> "+" <hexstring> ]
| "ECMA-117-Binary" "+" <hexstring> "+" <hexstring>
"+" <hexstring>
| "ECMA-117-Decimal" "+" <digitstring> "+"
<digitstring> "+" <digitstring>
<idi> ::= <digitstring>
<afi> ::= "X121" | "DCC" | "TELEX" | "PSTN" | "ISDN"
| "ICD" | "LOCAL"
70
<prefix> ::= <digit> <digit>
<ip> ::= <domainstring>
-- dotted decimal form (e.g., 10.0.0.6)
-- or domain (e.g., twg.com)
<port> ::= <digitstring>
<tset> ::= <digitstring>
<dte> ::= <digitstring>
<cudf-or-pid> ::= "CUDF" | "PID" 80
________________________Figure_1:__String_BNF__________________________
Four examples:
"256"/NS+a433bb93c1_NS+aa3106
#63/#41/#12/X121+234219200300
'3a'H/TELEX+00728722+X.25(80)+02+00002340555+CUDF+"892796"
TELEX+00728722+RFC-1006+03+10.0.0.6
Note that the RFC 1006 encoding permits use of either a DNS Domain
Name or an IP address. The former is primarily for ease of entry. If
this DNS Domain Name maps onto multiple IP addresses, then multiple
network addresses should be generated. The DNS Domain Name form is
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RFC 1278 String encoded P-Address November 1991
for convenient input. When mapping from an encoded address to string
form, the IP address form should always be used.
4 Encoding
Selectors are represented in a manner which can be easily encoded. In
the NS notation, the concrete binary form of network address is given.
Otherwise, this string notation provides a mechanism for representing
the Abstract Syntax of a Network Address. This must be encoded
according to Addendum 2 of ISO 8348 [ISO87a].
5 Macros
There are often common addresses, for which a cleaner representation
is desired. This is achieved by use of Macros. If a
<network-address> can be parsed as:
<otherstring> "=" *( any )
Then the leading string is taken as a Macro, which is substituted.
This may be applied recursively. When presenting Network Address to
humans, the longest available substitution should be used. For
example:
________________________
|_Macro_|Value__________ |
| UK.AC |DCC+826+d110000 |
|_Leeds_|UK.AC=120______ |
Then ``Leeds=22'' would be expanded to ``DCC+826+d11000012022''.
6 Standard Macros
No Macros should ever be relied on. However, the following are
suggested as standard.
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RFC 1278 String encoded P-Address November 1991
________________________________________________
|_Macro_____________|Value______________________ |
| Int-X25(80) |TELEX+00728722+X25(80)+01+ |
| Janet-X25(80) |TELEX+00728722+X25(80)+02+ |
| Internet-RFC-1006 |TELEX+00728722+RFC-1006+03+ |
|_IXI_______________|TELEX+00728722+RFC-1006+06+_|
7 References
References
[CCI88] The Directory --- overview of concepts, models and services,
December 1988. CCITT X.500 Series Recommendations.
[HK91] S.E. Hardcastle-Kille. Encoding network addresses to support
operation over non-osi lower layers. Request for Comments
RFC 1277, Department of Computer Science, University College
London, November 1991.
[ISO87a] Information processing systems - data communications -
network services definition: Addendum 2 - network layer
addressing, March 1987. ISO TC 97/SC 6.
[ISO87b] ISO DIS 7498-3 on naming and addressing, May 1987.
ISO/IEC/JTC-1/SC 21.
[Kil89] S.E. Kille. A string encoding of presentation address.
Research Note RN/89/14, Department of Computer Science,
University College London, February 1989.
8 Security Considerations
Security considerations are not discussed in this memo.
9 Author's Address
Steve Hardcastle-Kille
Department of Computer Science
University College London
Gower Street
WC1E 6BT
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RFC 1278 String encoded P-Address November 1991
England
Phone: +44-71-380-7294
EMail: S.Kille@CS.UCL.AC.UK
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