RFC 7483
JSON Responses for the Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP)
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) A. Newton Request for Comments: 7483 ARIN Category: Standards Track S. Hollenbeck ISSN: 2070-1721 Verisign Labs March 2015 JSON Responses for the Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP)Abstract
This document describes JSON data structures representing registration information maintained by Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) and Domain Name Registries (DNRs). These data structures are used to form Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP) query responses. Status of This Memo This is an Internet Standards Track document. 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). Further information on Internet Standards is available in 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/rfc7483. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2015 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.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.1. Terminology and Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.2. Data Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2. Use of JSON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2.1. Naming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3. Common Data Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 4. Common Data Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 4.1. RDAP Conformance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 4.2. Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 4.3. Notices and Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 4.4. Language Identifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 4.5. Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 4.6. Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 4.7. Port 43 WHOIS Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 4.8. Public IDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 4.9. Object Class Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 4.10. An Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 5. Object Classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 5.1. The Entity Object Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 5.2. The Nameserver Object Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 5.3. The Domain Object Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 5.4. The IP Network Object Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 5.5. Autonomous System Number Entity Object Class . . . . . . 42 6. Error Response Body . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 7. Responding to Help Queries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 8. Responding To Searches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 9. Indicating Truncated Responses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 10. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 10.1. RDAP JSON Media Type Registration . . . . . . . . . . . 52 10.2. JSON Values Registry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 10.2.1. Notice and Remark Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 10.2.2. Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 10.2.3. Event Actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 10.2.4. Roles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 10.2.5. Variant Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 11. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 12. Internationalization Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 12.1. Character Encoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 12.2. URIs and IRIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 12.3. Language Tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 12.4. Internationalized Domain Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 13. Privacy Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 14. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 14.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 14.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Appendix A. Suggested Data Modeling with the Entity Object Class 68 A.1. Registrants and Contacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 A.2. Registrars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Appendix B. Modeling Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Appendix C. Structured vs. Unstructured Addresses . . . . . . . 74 Appendix D. Secure DNS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 Appendix E. Motivations for Using JSON . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 781. Introduction
This document describes responses in the JSON [RFC7159] format for the queries as defined by the Registration Data Access Protocol Query Format [RFC7482]. A communication protocol for exchanging queries and responses is described in [RFC7480].1.1. Terminology and Definitions
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 [RFC2119] when specified in their uppercase forms. The following list describes terminology and definitions used throughout this document: DNR: Domain Name Registry LDH: letters, digits, hyphen member: data found within an object as defined by JSON [RFC7159]. object: a data structure as defined by JSON [RFC7159]. object class: the definition of members that may be found in JSON objects described in this document. object instance: an instantiation or specific instance of an object class. RDAP: Registration Data Access Protocol RIR: Regional Internet Registry
1.2. Data Model
The data model for JSON responses is specified in five sections: 1. simple data types conveyed in JSON strings 2. data structures specified as JSON arrays or objects that are used repeatedly when building up larger objects 3. object classes representing structured data corresponding to a lookup of a single object 4. arrays of objects representing structured data corresponding to a search for multiple objects 5. the response to an error The object classes represent responses for two major categories of data: responses returned by RIRs for registration data related to IP addresses, reverse DNS names, and Autonomous System numbers and responses returned by DNRs for registration data related to forward DNS names. The following object classes are returned by both RIRs and DNRs: 1. domains 2. nameservers 3. entities The information served by both RIRs and DNRs for these object classes overlap extensively and are given in this document as a unified model for both classes of service. In addition to the object classes listed above, RIRs also serve the following object classes: 1. IP networks 2. Autonomous System numbers Object classes defined in this document represent a minimal set of what a compliant client/server needs to understand to function correctly; however, some deployments may want to include additional object classes to suit individual needs. Anticipating this need for extension, Section 2.1 of this document defines a mechanism for extending the JSON objects that are described in this document.
Positive responses take two forms. A response to a lookup of a single object in the registration system yields a JSON object, which is the subject of the lookup. A response to a search for multiple objects yields a JSON object that contains an array of JSON objects that are the subject of the search. In each type of response, other data structures are present within the topmost JSON object.2. Use of JSON
2.1. Naming
Clients of these JSON responses SHOULD ignore unrecognized JSON members in responses. Servers can insert members into the JSON responses, which are not specified in this document, but that does not constitute an error in the response. Servers that insert such unspecified members into JSON responses SHOULD have member names prefixed with a short identifier followed by an underscore followed by a meaningful name. It has been observed that these short identifiers aid software implementers with identifying the specification of the JSON member, and failure to use one could cause an implementer to assume the server is erroneously using a name from this specification. This allowance does not apply to jCard [RFC7095] objects. The full JSON name (the prefix plus the underscore plus the meaningful name) SHOULD adhere to the character and name limitations of the prefix registry described in [RFC7480]. Failure to use these limitations could result in slower adoption as these limitations have been observed to aid some client programming models. Consider the following JSON response with JSON members, all of which are specified in this document. { "handle" : "ABC123", "remarks" : [ { "description" : [ "She sells sea shells down by the sea shore.", "Originally written by Terry Sullivan." ] } ] } Figure 1
If The Registry of the Moon desires to express information not found in this specification, it might select "lunarNic" as its identifying prefix and insert, as an example, the member named "lunarNic_beforeOneSmallStep" to signify registrations occurring before the first moon landing and the member named "lunarNic_harshMistressNotes" that contains other descriptive text. Consider the following JSON response with JSON names, some of which should be ignored by clients without knowledge of their meaning. { "handle" : "ABC123", "lunarNic_beforeOneSmallStep" : "TRUE THAT!", "remarks" : [ { "description" : [ "She sells sea shells down by the sea shore.", "Originally written by Terry Sullivan." ] } ], "lunarNic_harshMistressNotes" : [ "In space,", "nobody can hear you scream." ] } Figure 2 Insertion of unrecognized members ignored by clients may also be used for future revisions to this specification. Clients processing JSON responses need to be prepared for members representing registration data specified in this document to be absent from a response. In other words, servers are free to not include JSON members containing registration data based on their own policies. Finally, all JSON names specified in this document are case sensitive. Both servers and clients MUST transmit and process them using the specified character case.
3. Common Data Types
JSON [RFC7159] defines the data types of a number, character string, boolean, array, object, and null. This section describes the semantics and/or syntax reference for common, JSON character strings used in this document. handle: DNRs and RIRs have registry-unique identifiers that may be used to specifically reference an object instance. The semantics of this data type as found in this document are to be a registry-unique reference to the closest enclosing object where the value is found. The data type names "registryId", "roid", "nic-handle", "registrationNo", etc., are terms often synonymous with this data type. In this document, the term "handle" is used. The term exposed to users by clients is a presentation issue beyond the scope of this document. IPv4 addresses: The representation of IPv4 addresses in this document uses the dotted-decimal notation. An example of this textual representation is "192.0.2.0". IPv6 addresses: The representation of IPv6 addresses in this document follow the forms outlined in [RFC5952]. An example of this textual representation is "2001:db8::1:0:0:1". country codes: Where the identity of a geopolitical nation or country is needed, these identities are represented with the alpha-2 or two-character country code designation as defined in [ISO.3166.1988]. The alpha-2 representation is used because it is freely available, whereas the alpha-3 and numeric-3 standards are not. LDH names: Textual representations of DNS names where the labels of the domain are all "letters, digits, hyphen" labels as described by [RFC5890]. Trailing periods are optional. Unicode names: Textual representations of DNS names where one or more of the labels are U-labels as described by [RFC5890]. Trailing periods are optional. dates and times: The syntax for values denoting dates and times is defined in [RFC3339].
URIs: The syntax for values denoting a Uniform Resource
Identifier (URI) is defined by [RFC3986].
Contact information is defined using jCards as described in
[RFC7095].
4. Common Data Structures
This section defines common data structures used in responses and
object classes.
4.1. RDAP Conformance
The data structure named "rdapConformance" is an array of strings,
each providing a hint as to the specifications used in the
construction of the response. This data structure appears only in
the topmost JSON object of a response.
An example rdapConformance data structure:
"rdapConformance" :
[
"rdap_level_0"
]
Figure 3
The string literal "rdap_level_0" signifies conformance with this
specification. When custom JSON values are inserted into responses,
conformance to those custom specifications MUST use a string prefixed
with the appropriate identifier from the IANA RDAP Extensions
registry specified in [RFC7480]. For example, if the fictional
Registry of the Moon wants to signify that their JSON responses are
conformant with their registered extensions, the string used might be
"lunarNIC_level_0". These prefixes aid the identification of
specifications for software implementers, and failure to use them
could result in slower adoption of extensions.
Example rdapConformance structure with custom extensions noted:
"rdapConformance" :
[
"rdap_level_0",
"lunarNic_level_0"
]
Figure 4
4.2. Links
The "links" array is found in data structures to signify links to other resources on the Internet. The relationship of these links is defined by the IANA registry described by [RFC5988]. The following is an example of the link structure: { "value" : "http://example.com/context_uri", "rel" : "self", "href" : "http://example.com/target_uri", "hreflang" : [ "en", "ch" ], "title" : "title", "media" : "screen", "type" : "application/json" } Figure 5 The JSON name/values of "rel", "href", "hreflang", "title", "media", and "type" correspond to values found in Section 5 of [RFC5988]. The "value" JSON value is the context URI as described by [RFC5988]. The "href" JSON value MUST be specified. All other JSON values are OPTIONAL. This is an example of the "links" array as it might be found in an object class: "links" : [ { "value" : "http://example.com/ip/2001:db8::123", "rel" : "self", "href" : "http://example.com/ip/2001:db8::123", "type" : "application/rdap+json" }, { "value" : "http://example.com/ip/2001:db8::123", "rel" : "up", "href" : "http://example.com/ip/2001:db8::/48", "type" : "application/rdap+json" } ] Figure 6
4.3. Notices and Remarks
The "notices" and "remarks" data structures take the same form. The notices structure denotes information about the service providing RDAP information and/or information about the entire response, whereas the remarks structure denotes information about the object class that contains it (see Section 5 regarding object classes). Both are arrays of objects. Each object contains an optional "title" string representing the title of the object, an optional "type" string denoting a registered type of remark or notice (see Section 10.2.1), an array of strings named "description" for the purposes of conveying any descriptive text, and an optional "links" array as described in Section 4.2. An example of the notices data structure: "notices" : [ { "title" : "Terms of Use", "description" : [ "Service subject to The Registry of the Moon's TOS.", "Copyright (c) 2020 LunarNIC" ], "links" : [ { "value" : "http://example.net/entity/XXXX", "rel" : "alternate", "type" : "text/html", "href" : "http://www.example.com/terms_of_use.html" } ] } ] Figure 7 It is the job of the clients to determine line breaks, spacing, and display issues for sentences within the character strings of the "description" array. Each string in the "description" array contains a single complete division of human-readable text indicating to clients where there are semantic breaks.
An example of the remarks data structure: "remarks" : [ { "description" : [ "She sells sea shells down by the sea shore.", "Originally written by Terry Sullivan." ] } ] Figure 8 Note that objects in the "remarks" array may also have a "links" array. While the "title" and "description" fields are intended primarily for human consumption, the "type" string contains a well-known value to be registered with IANA (see Section 10.2.1) for programmatic use. An example of the remarks data structure: "remarks" : [ { "type" : "object truncated due to authorization", "description" : [ "Some registration data may not have been given.", "Use proper authorization credentials to see all of it." ] } ] Figure 9 While the "remarks" array will appear in many object classes in a response, the "notices" array appears only in the topmost object of a response.
4.4. Language Identifier
This data structure consists solely of a name/value pair, where the name is "lang" and the value is a string containing a language identifier as described in [RFC5646]. "lang" : "mn-Cyrl-MN" Figure 10 The "lang" attribute may appear anywhere in an object class or data structure except for in jCard objects.4.5. Events
This data structure represents events that have occurred on an instance of an object class (see Section 5 regarding object classes). This is an example of an "events" array. "events" : [ { "eventAction" : "registration", "eventActor" : "SOMEID-LUNARNIC", "eventDate" : "1990-12-31T23:59:59Z" }, { "eventAction" : "last changed", "eventActor" : "OTHERID-LUNARNIC", "eventDate" : "1991-12-31T23:59:59Z" } ] Figure 11 The "events" array consists of objects, each with the following members: o "eventAction" -- a string denoting the reason for the event o "eventActor" -- an optional identifier denoting the actor responsible for the event o "eventDate" -- a string containing the time and date the event occurred. o "links" -- see Section 4.2
Events can be future dated. One use case for future dating of events is to denote when an object expires from a registry. The "links" array in this data structure is provided for references to the event actor. In order to reference an RDAP entity, a "rel" of "related" and a "type" of "application/rdap+json" is used in the link reference. See Section 10.2.3 for a list of values for the "eventAction" string. See Appendix B regarding the various ways events can be modeled.4.6. Status
This data structure, named "status", is an array of strings indicating the state of a registered object (see Section 10.2.2 for a list of values).4.7. Port 43 WHOIS Server
This data structure, a member named "port43", is a simple string containing the fully qualified host name or IP address of the WHOIS [RFC3912] server where the containing object instance may be found. Note that this is not a URI, as there is no WHOIS URI scheme.4.8. Public IDs
This data structure maps a public identifier to an object class. It is named "publicIds" and is an array of objects, with each object containing the following members: o type -- a string denoting the type of public identifier o identifier -- a public identifier of the type denoted by "type" The following is an example of a publicIds structure. "publicIds": [ { "type":"IANA Registrar ID", "identifier":"1" } ] Figure 12
4.9. Object Class Name
This data structure, a member named "objectClassName", gives the object class name of a particular object as a string. This identifies the type of object being processed. An objectClassName is REQUIRED in all RDAP response objects so that the type of the object can be interpreted.4.10. An Example
This is an example response with both rdapConformance and notices embedded: { "rdapConformance" : [ "rdap_level_0" ], "notices" : [ { "title" : "Content Removed", "description" : [ "Without full authorization, content has been removed.", "Sorry, dude!" ], "links" : [ { "value" : "http://example.net/ip/192.0.2.0/24", "rel" : "alternate", "type" : "text/html", "href" : "http://www.example.com/redaction_policy.html" } ] } ], "lang" : "en", "objectClassName" : "ip network", "startAddress" : "192.0.2.0", "endAddress" : "192.0.2.255", "handle" : "XXXX-RIR", "ipVersion" : "v4", "name": "NET-RTR-1", "parentHandle" : "YYYY-RIR", "remarks" : [
{ "description" : [ "She sells sea shells down by the sea shore.", "Originally written by Terry Sullivan." ] } ] } Figure 13
(page 15 continued on part 2)
