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

A quick check of our search engine software shows that most
of our spidering will also break with these URLs.  That's
not as big a deal as the "complete browsers" breaking, from
our perspective, but I do think it indicates that these
parsers are built into a lot more than they thought.  I
would bet, for example, that it would complete break some
of the firmware "browsers" being built into phones by the
pocketnet people.
		regards,
			Ted Hardie
			NASA NIC
			
> Our man Mogul writes:
>     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
>