Heads-up re: IPv6 addresses in URLs (from IPng-WG minutes)

I was skimming the minutes of the IPng WG from the Washington, DC IETF
meeting, and found this:

[Start of excerpt]
    IPv6 Addresses in URL's / B. Carpenter
    --------------------------------------
    
    Design team meet in the bar a few nights ago.
    
    Need numeric address in URL's for emergency operations (or robotic apps).
    
    Colons break URL parsers "hostname" syntax
    
    Proposals:
    
      http://--ABCD-EF12-192.100.1.2.ipv6:80/
      http://[ABCD:EF12:192.100.1.2]:80/
    
    Issue:  Should IPng w.g. reopen the "colon" notation?
    
    Heated discussion.  Most comments that this is stupid, we should
    not reopen IPv6 text notation.  Long discussion.  Issue seems to be
    that many parsers that take URL's are very limited.

    No one was in favor of changing current text representation.
    Extremely strong consensus!

    It was noted that the issue is probably only relevant for complete
    web browsers (e.g., Netscape, Microsoft, etc.), not all other
    applications that use URL's.  If the complete web browsers can be
    changed it is very likely to be sufficient.  Recommend that the
    primary preferred syntax for IPv6 addresses in URL's be:
    
      http://[ABCD.EF01::2345:6789]:80/
    
    The IPv6 address should be enclosed in brackets.  URL parsers that
    can not support this notation can either support the proposed
    alternative syntax:
    
      http://--ABCD-EF12-192.100.1.2.ipv6:80/
    
    or not allow IPv6 addresses to be entered directly.

[End of excerpt]

I'm not sure if this is really an "issue" for HTTP/1.1, but I suspect
that the IESG will want to be sure that HTTP/1.1 syntax is compatible
with IPv6, and if there are conflicts, we should probably make sure
they are addressed.  Or make an explicit statement that we are not
going to address them in this version of the protocol (and why not).

-Jeff

Received on Monday, 12 January 1998 12:14:41 UTC