Message-Id: <199410121407.PAA19429@lust.mrrl.lut.ac.uk>
To: mitra@path.net (Mitra)
Subject: Re: Uniform Resource Names - almost draft
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 11 Oct 1994 12:28:20 EDT."
<aabf78de070210046df8@[192.190.111.98]>
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 1994 15:07:41 +0100
From: Martin Hamilton <martin@mrrl.lut.ac.uk>
Mitra writes:
| This also doesnt require the client to always use this resolution service,
| it is anticipated that gateways would exist from each of the major
| protocols to the resolution service, and also that some sites will want to
| run proxy servers which all local clients ask first for the URLs.
| insert limited whois++ stuff here
| Chris, I need your help here, to define the MINIMUM whois++ required to
| submit a URN and get back either a list of URLs or URCs, no languages, no
| constraints, etc. It does need redirection.
Perhaps it would be a good idea to make a distinction between
URN lookups and searches involving URNs ? The whois++ handle
mechanism, or something like it (another char instead of "!" ?)
could be used for bare bones URN lookups (return the full URC
associated with this URN), and the
template=URN;URN=<rhubarb>
syntax used for everything else. This would make it a bit
easier for server authors to optimise for URN lookups, and URN
servers could be deployed which only needed to understand
!<rhubarb>
e.g.
% 220-whois++ server cuppat, LUT mini_whois++ 1.0
% 220-only understands handle and urn lookups!!
% 220 your mileage may vary
!urn:iana:rfc:822
% 200 command ok
# FULL 1
# URN cuppat:rfc822
URN:IANA:rfc:822
URL:ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc822.txt
URL:ftp://nis.nsf.net/internet/documents/rfc/rfc822.txt
URL:ftp://nisc.jvnc.net/RFC822.TXT.1
URL:ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc822.txt
URL:ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/info/rfc/rfc822.txt.Z
URL:ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/rfc/rfc822.txt.Z
URL:ftp://ftp.concert.net/rfc/rfc822.txt
URL:ftp://ftp.sesqui.net/pub/rfc/rfc822.txt
# END
% 226 transfer complete
% 203 toodle pip
Just a thought!
Martin