Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)                         S. Weiler
Request for Comments: 5781                                  SPARTA, Inc.
Category: Informational                                          D. Ward
ISSN: 2070-1721                                                  Juniper
                                                             R. Housley
                                                         Vigil Security
                                                          February 2010


                         The rsync URI Scheme

Abstract

  This document specifies the rsync Uniform Resource Identifier (URI)
  scheme.

Status of This Memo

  This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
  published for informational purposes.

  This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
  (IETF).  It represents the consensus of the IETF community.  It has
  received public review and has been approved for publication by the
  Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG).  Not all documents
  approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of Internet
  Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 5741.

  Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
  and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
  http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5781.

Copyright Notice

  Copyright (c) 2010 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
  document authors.  All rights reserved.

  This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
  Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
  (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
  publication of this document.  Please review these documents
  carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
  to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
  include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
  the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
  described in the Simplified BSD License.





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RFC 5781                        rsync URI                  February 2010


1.  Introduction

  URIs were previously defined in RFC 2396, which was obsoleted by RFC
  3986 [RFC3986].  The procedures for registering new URI schemes are
  defined in RFC 4395 [RFC4395].  The rsync utility provides fast
  incremental file transfer [rsync].  This document defines a URI
  scheme for rsync.

2.  rsync URI registration

  This section contains the registration template for the rsync URI
  scheme in accordance with RFC 4395 [RFC4395].  This URI scheme is for
  the rsync protocol using TCP as the transport protocol.  Other
  transports, such as rsync over SSH, are not supported by this URI
  scheme.

  URI scheme name: rsync

  Status: provisional

  URI scheme syntax: An rsync URI describes a source or destination for
  the rsync application including a hostname, path, and optional user
  and port.  The generic form of the rsync URI is:

  rsync://[user@]host[:PORT]/Source

  The rsync URI follows the general syntax from RFC 3986 and is defined
  by the following ABNF [RFC5234]:

     rsyncuri        = "rsync:" hier-part
                       ; See RFC 3986 for the definition
                       ; of hier-part

  URI scheme semantics: An rsync URI may be used as either a source or
  destination for the rsync application.  If the port is not specified,
  it defaults to 873.

  Encoding considerations: Since the rsync URI is defined using
  standard elements from RFC 3986, no special encoding considerations
  are present.

  Applications/protocols that use this URI scheme name: The only
  application that uses rsync URIs is rsync.

  Interoperability considerations: Since only one application is
  expected to make use of rsync URIs, this URI scheme is expected to
  have few interoperability concerns.




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RFC 5781                        rsync URI                  February 2010


  Security considerations: Section 7 of RFC 3986 describes general
  security considerations for URI schemes.  The considerations about
  reliability and consistency, malicious construction, rare IP address
  formats, sensitive information, and semantic attacks all apply to
  rsync URIs.  The considerations about transcoding do not apply.
  Given how rsync is regularly used, it is expected that most
  applications will not be bothered by data accessed via a given rsync
  URI changing over time.

  Contact: Russ Housley <[email protected]>

  Author/Change controller: Russ Housley <[email protected]>

  References: see Section 5.

3.  IANA Considerations

  IANA has registered the rsync provisional URI scheme using the
  template in Section 2.

4.  Security Considerations

  Many security considerations for the usage of URIs are discussed in
  Section 7 of [RFC3986].  The considerations about reliability and
  consistency, malicious construction, rare IP address formats,
  sensitive information, and semantic attacks all apply to rsync URIs.
  The considerations about transcoding do not apply.  The rsync URI
  scheme has no particularly unique security considerations.

  The security considerations of the rsync protocol are not covered in
  this document.

5.  Normative References

  [RFC3986]  Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform
             Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66, RFC
             3986, January 2005.

  [RFC4395]  Hansen, T., Hardie, T., and L. Masinter, "Guidelines and
             Registration Procedures for New URI Schemes", BCP 35, RFC
             4395, February 2006.

  [RFC5234]  Crocker, D., Ed., and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for
             Syntax Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234, January
             2008.






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RFC 5781                        rsync URI                  February 2010


6.  Informative References

  [rsync]  http://rsync.samba.org/.

Authors' Addresses

  Samuel Weiler
  SPARTA, Inc.
  7110 Samuel Morse Drive
  Columbia, Maryland  21046
  US

  EMail: [email protected]


  Dave Ward
  Juniper Networks
  1194 North Mathilda Avenue
  Sunnyvale, California  94089-1206
  US

  EMail: [email protected]


  Russ Housley
  Vigil Security, LLC
  918 Spring Knoll Drive
  Herndon, Virginia  20170
  US

  EMail: [email protected]




















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