Network Working GroupM. Nottingham
Internet-DraftFebruary 25, 2009
Updates: 4287 (if approved)
Intended status: Standards Track
Expires: August 29, 2009

Link Relations and HTTP Header Linking

Status of this Memo

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Abstract

This document specifies relation types for Web links, and defines a registry for them. It also defines how to send such links in HTTP headers with the Link header-field.


1. Introduction

A means of indicating the relationships between resources on the Web, as well as indicating the type of those relationships, has been available for some time in HTML [W3C.REC-html401-19991224], and more recently in Atom [RFC4287]. These mechanisms, although conceptually similar, are separately specified. However, links between resources need not be format-specific; it can be useful to have typed links that are independent of the format, especially when a resource has representations in multiple formats.

To this end, this document defines a framework for typed links that isn't specific to a particular serialisation or context of use. It does so by re-defining the link relation registry established by Atom to have a broader scope, and adding to it the relations that are defined by HTML.

Furthermore, an HTTP header-field for conveying typed links was defined in [RFC2068], but removed from [RFC2616], due to a lack of implementation experience. Since then, it has been implemented in some User-Agents (e.g., for stylesheets), and several additional use cases have surfaced. Because it was removed, the status of the Link header is unclear, leading some to consider minting new application-specific HTTP headers instead of reusing it. This document addresses this by re-specifying the Link header with updated but backwards-compatible syntax.

[[ Feedback is welcome on the ietf-http-wg@w3.org mailing list, although this is NOT a work item of the HTTPBIS WG. ]]

2. Notational Conventions

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14, [RFC2119], as scoped to those conformance targets.

This document uses the Augmented Backus-Naur Form (ABNF) notation of [RFC2616], and explicitly includes the following rules from it: quoted-string, token, SP (space). Additionally, the following rules are included from [RFC3986]: URI and URI-Reference, and from [RFC4288]: type-name.

6. IANA Considerations

7. Security Considerations

The content of the Link header-field is not secure, private or integrity-guaranteed, and due caution should be exercised when using it.

Applications that take advantage of typed links should consider the attack vectors opened by automatically following, trusting, or otherwise using links gathered from HTTP headers. In particular, Link headers that use the "anchor" parameter to associate a link's context with another resource should be treated with due caution.

8. Internationalisation Considerations

Target IRIs may need to be converted to URIs in order to serialise them in applications that do not support IRIs. This includes the Link HTTP header.

Similarly, the anchor parameter of the Link header does not support IRIs, and therefore IRIs must be converted to URIs before inclusion there.

Relation types are defined as URIs, not IRIs, to aid in their comparison. It is not expected that they will be displayed to end users.

9. References

9.2. Informative References

[RFC2068]
Fielding, R., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Nielsen, H., and T. Berners-Lee, “Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1”, RFC 2068, January 1997.
[RFC4287]
Nottingham, M. and R. Sayre, “The Atom Syndication Format”, RFC 4287, December 2005.
[RFC4685]
Snell, J., “Atom Threading Extensions”, RFC 4685, September 2006.
[RFC4946]
Snell, J., “Atom License Extension”, RFC 4946, July 2007.
[RFC5005]
Nottingham, M., “Feed Paging and Archiving”, RFC 5005, September 2007.
[RFC5023]
Gregorio, J. and B. de hOra, “The Atom Publishing Protocol”, RFC 5023, October 2007.
[W3C.REC-html401-19991224]
Jacobs, I., Raggett, D., and A. Hors, “HTML 4.01 Specification”, World Wide Web Consortium Recommendation REC-html401-19991224, December 1999, <http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224>.

Appendix C. Acknowledgements

This specification lifts the idea and definition for the Link header from RFC2068; credit for it belongs entirely to the authors of and contributors to that document. The link relation registrations themselves are sourced from several documents; see the applicable references.

The author would like to thank the many people who commented upon, encouraged and gave feedback to this draft, especially including Frank Ellermann, Roy Fielding and Julian Reschke.

Appendix D. Document history

[[ to be removed by the RFC editor before publication as an RFC. ]]

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Author's Address

Mark Nottingham
EMail: mnot@mnot.net
URI: http://www.mnot.net/