Re: [regext] Re: draft-ietf-regext-epp-https-02 early Httpdir review

RFC 8484 DoH was prepared with careful attention to BCP 56, so I hope it won't be used as an argument for ignoring BCP 56.

As an example of why BCP 56 is important, the current EPP-over-HTTPS draft uses POST requests to signal "login" and "logout" commands, with the intervening POST requests being part of this session.  However, in typical large-scale HTTP gateways, requests issued on a single connection are commonly forwarded to distinct backend servers (i.e. "load balancing").  A naive implementation of this protocol would seem likely to fail in such a deployment, with the "login", "command", and "logout" requests all being forwarded to distinct servers.

I am not sure I understand the concern about HTTP CONNECT.  However, I do agree that the CONNECT method is not as widely supported as POST on HTTP CDNs.  If the goal is to benefit from the performance, monitoring, control, and defense capabilities of major HTTP CDNs, while minimizing changes to the EPP protocol, I think an EPP-over-WebSocket specification would likely be a better solution.

--Ben Schwartz

________________________________
From: Pawel Kowalik
Sent: Tuesday, February 3, 2026 11:39 AM
To: Gould, James; mnot@mnot.net
Cc: ietf-http-wg@w3.org; draft-ietf-regext-epp-https.all@ietf.org; regext@ietf.org
Subject: Re: [regext] Re: draft-ietf-regext-epp-https-02 early Httpdir review


Hi Jim,

I see it the same way as you do, that the use of http in EoH to "tunnel" EPP payloads is equivalent to the use of http in DoH RFC 8484.

HTTP CONNECT would fail to fulfil design objectives of this extension (more cloud friendly deployment).

Mark's proposals are reasonable and understandable, however we had this discussion in REGEXT already, that such radical change to map all EPP commands to http semantics would require a major rework to the protocol, which would not be RFC 5730 EPP anymore, but something else. This is where we started the work on RPP, as an approach fully leveraging on http and following recommendations of BCP56.

BCP56 in Section 2 is quite direct in saying that either you use http and BCP56 applies, or if not then define something else and don't call it http. It's quite a hard call.
On the flip side BCP56 contains few normative MUST/MUST NOTs and I think it is worth a review which of them, if any, are indeed violated and whether the draft could address them better.

Kind Regards,
Pawel

On 03.02.26 16:06, Gould, James wrote:

I'm following up to my prior response for the REGEXT working group to weigh in on this.  I believe that draft-ietf-regext-epp-https (EoH) does not apply to BCP56, since it's defining a transport for an existing application protocol, just like DNS over HTTP (DoH) in RFC 8484.  The goal of EoH is to provide a Cloud-friendly transport for the EPP application protocol that is compliant with section 2.1 of RFC 5730.  The definition of Cloud-friendly was provided in the prior message below.

Please review the draft and provide your feedback, since the draft is ready for WGLC using the current approach.

Thanks,


--

JG



James Gould
Fellow Engineer
jgould@Verisign.com<mailto:jgould@Verisign.com> <applewebdata://13890C55-AAE8-4BF3-A6CE-B4BA42740803/jgould@Verisign.com><mailto:applewebdata://13890C55-AAE8-4BF3-A6CE-B4BA42740803/jgould@Verisign.com>

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On 1/5/26, 1:10 PM, "Gould, James" <jgould@verisign.com<mailto:jgould@verisign.com> <mailto:jgould@verisign.com><mailto:jgould@verisign.com>> wrote:


Mark,


Thank you for your reply.


In reviewing Section 2 of BCP56, draft-ietf-regext-epp-https (EoH) is using HTTP, but EoH is not defining a new application protocol. I don't believe EoH is applicable to BCP56, since it's defining a HTTP transport for an existing application protocol of EPP. How would DNS over HTTP (DoH) in RFC 8484 apply to BCP56, since it defines an HTTP transport for an existing application protocol of DNS? I realize that DoH was defined prior to BCP56, but would you have the same recommendation of using the CONNECT HTTP method over GET and POST? If we did agree that BCP56 was applicable, can you provide a list of BCP56 violations with EoH?


Cloud-friendly means that an EoH can be deployed to a public cloud provider without the need to build a custom gateway, like is the case of the existing EoT in RFC 5734. The CONNECT method wouldn't work with a L7 load balancer, which would be the main advantage of using EoH in a cloud environment. EoH makes EPP sessions independent of TCP connections. Along with using a L7 load balancer, it makes an EPP server more flexible, scalable and fault tolerant.


Thanks,



--


JG






James Gould
Fellow Engineer
jgould@Verisign.com<mailto:jgould@Verisign.com> <mailto:jgould@Verisign.com><mailto:jgould@Verisign.com> <applewebdata://13890C55-AAE8-4BF3-A6CE-B4BA42740803/jgould@Verisign.com<mailto:applewebdata://13890C55-AAE8-4BF3-A6CE-B4BA42740803/jgould@Verisign.com> <mailto:jgould@Verisign.com><mailto:jgould@Verisign.com>>


703-948-3271
12061 Bluemont Way
Reston, VA 20190


Verisign.com <http://verisigninc.com/><http://verisigninc.com/> <http://verisigninc.com/&gt;><http://verisigninc.com/&gt;>








On 12/29/25, 7:57 PM, "Mark Nottingham" <mnot@mnot.net<mailto:mnot@mnot.net> <mailto:mnot@mnot.net><mailto:mnot@mnot.net> <mailto:mnot@mnot.net <mailto:mnot@mnot.net><mailto:mnot@mnot.net>>> wrote:




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Hi James,




Regarding whether you're building a protocol with HTTP, see Section 2 of BCP56. If you don't fit those criteria, it indeed isn't using HTTP, but your draft isn't clear about that.




The approach you've taken is to tunnel the protocol over POST. As I said, the safer, better approach if your intent is to tunnel would be to use HTTP's dedicated tunnelling method, CONNECT. HTTP is not a transport protocol, it's a representation transfer protocol. There are many benefits to using it well, including operability, scalability, and security improvements - ones that may not be apparent immediately but are likely to be appreciated in time (at least, that's our experience in deploying many HTTP-based protocols).




What does "cloud-friendly" mean?




Cheers,










On 2 Dec 2025, at 1:36 am, Gould, James <jgould@verisign.com<mailto:jgould@verisign.com> <mailto:jgould@verisign.com><mailto:jgould@verisign.com> <mailto:jgould@verisign.com <mailto:jgould@verisign.com><mailto:jgould@verisign.com>>> wrote:

Mark,

Thank you for reviewing draft-ietf-regext-epp-https. Can you provide a list of BCP56 violations with draft-ietf-regext-epp-https?

What's important to understand with EoH (draft-ietf-regext-epp-https) is that it's not building a protocol with HTTP but defining an application packet protocol transport based on an existing IETF standard protocol. The only HTTP actions needed as a packet protocol transport is to establish a stateful session and to push packets. Intermingling the application packet protocol semantics with the HTTP semantics by mapping the EPP command types to HTTP methods adds complexity with no defined benefit. Use of the CONNECT method doesn't match the intent of enabling EPP to be Cloud-friendly, since CONNECT is a specialized method that creates a pure tunnel (e.g., having EoT tunnel through HTTP).

Can you clarify the interoperability concerns?

Thanks,

--

JG



James Gould
Fellow Engineer
jgould@Verisign.com<mailto:jgould@Verisign.com> <mailto:jgould@Verisign.com><mailto:jgould@Verisign.com> <mailto:jgould@Verisign.com <mailto:jgould@Verisign.com><mailto:jgould@Verisign.com>> <applewebdata://13890C55-AAE8-4BF3-A6CE-B4BA42740803/jgould@Verisign.com<mailto:applewebdata://13890C55-AAE8-4BF3-A6CE-B4BA42740803/jgould@Verisign.com> <mailto:jgould@Verisign.com><mailto:jgould@Verisign.com> <mailto:jgould@Verisign.com <mailto:jgould@Verisign.com><mailto:jgould@Verisign.com>>>

703-948-3271
12061 Bluemont Way
Reston, VA 20190

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On 11/30/25, 5:41 PM, "Mark Nottingham via Datatracker" <noreply@ietf.org<mailto:noreply@ietf.org> <mailto:noreply@ietf.org><mailto:noreply@ietf.org> <mailto:noreply@ietf.org <mailto:noreply@ietf.org><mailto:noreply@ietf.org>> <mailto:noreply@ietf.org <mailto:noreply@ietf.org><mailto:noreply@ietf.org> <mailto:noreply@ietf.org <mailto:noreply@ietf.org><mailto:noreply@ietf.org>>>> wrote:


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Document: draft-ietf-regext-epp-https
Title: Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) Transport over HTTPS
Reviewer: Mark Nottingham
Review result: Not Ready


This draft violates many aspects of BCP56, and needs substantial revision to
address that.


That's because it's tunnelling a protocol over HTTP semantics (primarily POST).
Doing so prevents many benefits of using HTTP from being realised and may cause
deployment issues.


I would recommend mapping the semantics of EPP more faithfully to HTTP -- e.g.,
<create> to PUT, <delete> to DELETE. This would be a substantially new version
of EPP but would be much more integrated into the HTTP ecosystem. We can look
for volunteers from the HTTP community to help with this direction if there's
interest.


Failing that, if the authors wish to tunnel, they should do so using CONNECT
rather than over HTTP semantics (such as POST).


The draft has other issues (including interoperability concerns) that I won't
list here as the decision above needs to be made first.









--
Mark Nottingham https://secure-web.cisco.com/1GIoLtqb3sFhOpgHUmBetlXn0_dCNquVEOjlzHhsHkwUuK_Mm1PHu3Qh-a4NP3z8LBKs92L6k7py3mE-yQoQnsqzfSyIRhcWCo4BwJCRWXKMErt6rSFq_vhjrljB1gWShCVbAGZHh2a7dmF58WckNp37FcRas-vQzGAgHkSeAvipWtl1DzLm_euZp79N5t6LdZ5rW2nyAwihaHsN3chtzDh1vBVodkpRMVaP2D0hkDHvXx6cT1rvpvHQ1QUo1woSOrMjJ-e6_tTB0JGUn0yhB5dJ_VgWpgptk8bifpxEYYEA/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mnot.net%2F <https://secure-web.cisco.com/1GIoLtqb3sFhOpgHUmBetlXn0_dCNquVEOjlzHhsHkwUuK_Mm1PHu3Qh-a4NP3z8LBKs92L6k7py3mE-yQoQnsqzfSyIRhcWCo4BwJCRWXKMErt6rSFq_vhjrljB1gWShCVbAGZHh2a7dmF58WckNp37FcRas-vQzGAgHkSeAvipWtl1DzLm_euZp79N5t6LdZ5rW2nyAwihaHsN3chtzDh1vBVodkpRMVaP2D0hkDHvXx6cT1rvpvHQ1QUo1woSOrMjJ-e6_tTB0JGUn0yhB5dJ_VgWpgptk8bifpxEYYEA/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mnot.net%2F><https://secure-web.cisco.com/1GIoLtqb3sFhOpgHUmBetlXn0_dCNquVEOjlzHhsHkwUuK_Mm1PHu3Qh-a4NP3z8LBKs92L6k7py3mE-yQoQnsqzfSyIRhcWCo4BwJCRWXKMErt6rSFq_vhjrljB1gWShCVbAGZHh2a7dmF58WckNp37FcRas-vQzGAgHkSeAvipWtl1DzLm_euZp79N5t6LdZ5rW2nyAwihaHsN3chtzDh1vBVodkpRMVaP2D0hkDHvXx6cT1rvpvHQ1QUo1woSOrMjJ-e6_tTB0JGUn0yhB5dJ_VgWpgptk8bifpxEYYEA/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mnot.net%2F> <https://secure-web.cisco.com/1GIoLtqb3sFhOpgHUmBetlXn0_dCNquVEOjlzHhsHkwUuK_Mm1PHu3Qh-a4NP3z8LBKs92L6k7py3mE-yQoQnsqzfSyIRhcWCo4BwJCRWXKMErt6rSFq_vhjrljB1gWShCVbAGZHh2a7dmF58WckNp37FcRas-vQzGAgHkSeAvipWtl1DzLm_euZp79N5t6LdZ5rW2nyAwihaHsN3chtzDh1vBVodkpRMVaP2D0hkDHvXx6cT1rvpvHQ1QUo1woSOrMjJ-e6_tTB0JGUn0yhB5dJ_VgWpgptk8bifpxEYYEA/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mnot.net%2F><https://secure-web.cisco.com/1GIoLtqb3sFhOpgHUmBetlXn0_dCNquVEOjlzHhsHkwUuK_Mm1PHu3Qh-a4NP3z8LBKs92L6k7py3mE-yQoQnsqzfSyIRhcWCo4BwJCRWXKMErt6rSFq_vhjrljB1gWShCVbAGZHh2a7dmF58WckNp37FcRas-vQzGAgHkSeAvipWtl1DzLm_euZp79N5t6LdZ5rW2nyAwihaHsN3chtzDh1vBVodkpRMVaP2D0hkDHvXx6cT1rvpvHQ1QUo1woSOrMjJ-e6_tTB0JGUn0yhB5dJ_VgWpgptk8bifpxEYYEA/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mnot.net%2F> <https://secure-web.cisco.com/1GIoLtqb3sFhOpgHUmBetlXn0_dCNquVEOjlzHhsHkwUuK_Mm1PHu3Qh-a4NP3z8LBKs92L6k7py3mE-yQoQnsqzfSyIRhcWCo4BwJCRWXKMErt6rSFq_vhjrljB1gWShCVbAGZHh2a7dmF58WckNp37FcRas-vQzGAgHkSeAvipWtl1DzLm_euZp79N5t6LdZ5rW2nyAwihaHsN3chtzDh1vBVodkpRMVaP2D0hkDHvXx6cT1rvpvHQ1QUo1woSOrMjJ-e6_tTB0JGUn0yhB5dJ_VgWpgptk8bifpxEYYEA/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mnot.net%2F&gt;><https://secure-web.cisco.com/1GIoLtqb3sFhOpgHUmBetlXn0_dCNquVEOjlzHhsHkwUuK_Mm1PHu3Qh-a4NP3z8LBKs92L6k7py3mE-yQoQnsqzfSyIRhcWCo4BwJCRWXKMErt6rSFq_vhjrljB1gWShCVbAGZHh2a7dmF58WckNp37FcRas-vQzGAgHkSeAvipWtl1DzLm_euZp79N5t6LdZ5rW2nyAwihaHsN3chtzDh1vBVodkpRMVaP2D0hkDHvXx6cT1rvpvHQ1QUo1woSOrMjJ-e6_tTB0JGUn0yhB5dJ_VgWpgptk8bifpxEYYEA/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mnot.net%2F&gt;>













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