Re: Heads-up re: IPv6 addresses in URLs (from IPng-WG minutes)
Ted Hardie (hardie@orval.arc.nasa.gov)
Mon, 12 Jan 1998 12:43:59 -0800 (PST)
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
>