Link-local connectivity in Web browsers

Hi HTTP enthusiasts,

[I'm creating a separate thread from [1] to avoid further cross-posting.]

Some of you might have seen various discussions around the use of IPv6
link-local addresses (such as fe80::1234%eth0) in Web browsers. In
particular, RFC 6874 had added a way to represent these addresses in URIs.
I wasn't involved back then but the published RFC ended up being something
that was quite complex to implement safely in browsers, so it didn't get
wide support. More recently, draft-ietf-6man-rfc6874bis attempted to create
a new URI format for such addresses. Oddly, I didn't see it ever discussed
on this list. That draft had other issues in terms of how it handled the
Web security model, and ultimately there hasn't been consensus to publish
it.

I think it would be great for us to obsolete RFC 6874 and instead recommend
a solution that already works with every browser today: mDNS. So I wrote a
draft that does that:

https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-schinazi-httpbis-link-local-uri-bcp/

I'd love to get your thoughts on it!

Thanks,
David


[1] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/ietf-http-wg/2024JanMar/0111.html