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IETF RFC 6764
Last modified on Wednesday, February 20th, 2013
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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) C. Daboo
Request for Comments: 6764 Apple Inc.
Updates: 4791, 6352 February 2013
Category: Standards Track
ISSN: 2070-1721
Locating Services for Calendaring Extensions to
WebDAV (CalDAV) and vCard Extensions to WebDAV (CardDAV)
 Abstract
This specification describes how DNS SRV records, DNS TXT records,
and well-known URIs can be used together or separately to locate
CalDAV (Calendaring Extensions to Web Distributed Authoring and
Versioning (WebDAV)) or CardDAV (vCard Extensions to WebDAV)
services.
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/RFC 6764.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2013 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 6764 SRV for CalDAV & CardDAV February 2013
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................2
2. Conventions Used in This Document ...............................3
3. CalDAV SRV Service Labels .......................................3
4. CalDAV and CardDAV Service TXT Records ..........................4
5. CalDAV and CardDAV Service Well-Known URI .......................4
5.1. Example: Well-Known URI Redirects to Actual
"Context Path" .............................................5
6. Client "Bootstrapping" Procedures ...............................5
7. Guidance for Service Providers ..................................8
8. Security Considerations .........................................9
9. IANA Considerations .............................................9
9.1. Well-Known URI Registrations ...............................9
9.1.1. caldav Well-Known URI Registration .................10
9.1.2. carddav Well-Known URI Registration ................10
9.2. Service Name Registrations ................................10
9.2.1. caldav Service Name Registration ...................10
9.2.2. caldavs Service Name Registration ..................11
9.2.3. carddav Service Name Registration ..................11
9.2.4. carddavs Service Name Registration .................12
10. Acknowledgments ...............................................12
11. References ....................................................12
11.1. Normative References .....................................12
11.2. Informative References ...................................14
1. Introduction
[RFC 4791] defines the CalDAV calendar access protocol, based on HTTP
[RFC 2616], for accessing calendar data stored on a server. CalDAV
clients need to be able to discover appropriate CalDAV servers within
their local area network and at other domains, e.g., to minimize the
need for end users to know specific details such as the fully
qualified domain name (FQDN) and port number for their servers.
[RFC 6352] defines the CardDAV address book access protocol based on
HTTP [RFC 2616], for accessing contact data stored on a server. As
with CalDAV, clients also need to be able to discover CardDAV
servers.
[RFC 2782] defines a DNS-based service discovery protocol that has
been widely adopted as a means of locating particular services within
a local area network and beyond, using DNS SRV Resource Records
(RRs). This has been enhanced to provide additional service meta-
data by use of DNS TXT RRs as per [RFC 6763].
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RFC 6764 SRV for CalDAV & CardDAV February 2013
This specification defines new SRV service types for the CalDAV
protocol and gives an example of how clients can use this together
with other protocol features to enable simple client configuration.
SRV service types for CardDAV are already defined in Section 11 of
[RFC 6352].
Another issue with CalDAV or CardDAV service discovery is that the
service might not be located at the "root" URI of the HTTP server
hosting it. Thus, a client needs to be able to determine the
complete path component of the Request-URI to use in HTTP requests:
the "context path". For example, if CalDAV is implemented as a
"servlet" in a web server "container", the servlet "context path"
might be "/caldav/". So the URI for the CalDAV service would be,
e.g., "http://caldav.example.com/caldav/" rather than
"http://caldav.example.com/". SRV RRs by themselves only provide an
FQDN and port number for the service, not a path. Since the client
"bootstrapping" process requires initial access to the "context path"
of the service, there needs to be a simple way for clients to also
discover what that path is.
This specification makes use of the "well-known URI" feature
[RFC 5785] of HTTP servers to provide a well-known URI for CalDAV or
CardDAV services that clients can use. The well-known URI will point
to a resource on the server that is simply a "stub" resource that
provides a redirect to the actual "context path" resource
representing the service endpoint.
2. Conventions Used in This Document
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 [RFC 2119].
3. CalDAV SRV Service Labels
This specification adds two SRV service labels for use with CalDAV:
_caldav: Identifies a CalDAV server that uses HTTP without
Transport Layer Security (TLS) [RFC 2818].
_caldavs: Identifies a CalDAV server that uses HTTP with TLS
[RFC 2818].
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RFC 6764 SRV for CalDAV & CardDAV February 2013
Clients MUST honor Priority and Weight values in the SRV RRs, as
described by [RFC 2782].
Example: service record for server without TLS
_caldav._tcp SRV 0 1 80 calendar.example.com.
Example: service record for server with TLS
_caldavs._tcp SRV 0 1 443 calendar.example.com.
4. CalDAV and CardDAV Service TXT Records
When SRV RRs are used to advertise CalDAV and CardDAV services, it is
also convenient to be able to specify a "context path" in the DNS to
be retrieved at the same time. To enable that, this specification
uses a TXT RR that follows the syntax defined in Section 6 of
[RFC 6763] and defines a "path" key for use in that record. The value
of the key MUST be the actual "context path" to the corresponding
service on the server.
A site might provide TXT records in addition to SRV records for each
service. When present, clients MUST use the "path" value as the
"context path" for the service in HTTP requests. When not present,
clients use the ".well-known" URI approach described next.
Example: text record for service with TLS
_caldavs._tcp TXT path=/caldav
5. CalDAV and CardDAV Service Well-Known URI
Two ".well-known" URIs are registered by this specification for
CalDAV and CardDAV services, "caldav" and "carddav" respectively (see
Section 9). These URIs point to a resource that the client can use
as the initial "context path" for the service they are trying to
connect to. The server MUST redirect HTTP requests for that resource
to the actual "context path" using one of the available mechanisms
provided by HTTP (e.g., using a 301, 303, or 307 response). Clients
MUST handle HTTP redirects on the ".well-known" URI. Servers MUST
NOT locate the actual CalDAV or CardDAV service endpoint at the
".well-known" URI as per Section 1.1 of [RFC 5785].
Servers SHOULD set an appropriate Cache-Control header value (as per
Section 14.9 of [RFC 2616]) in the redirect response to ensure caching
occurs or does not occur as needed or as required by the type of
response generated. For example, if it is anticipated that the
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RFC 6764 SRV for CalDAV & CardDAV February 2013
location of the redirect might change over time, then a "no-cache"
value would be used.
To facilitate "context paths" that might differ from user to user,
the server MAY require authentication when a client tries to access
the ".well-known" URI (i.e., the server would return a 401 status
response to the unauthenticated request from the client, then return
the redirect response only after a successful authentication by the
client).
5.1. Example: Well-Known URI Redirects to Actual "Context Path"
A CalDAV server has a "context path" that is "/servlet/caldav". The
client will use "/.well-known/caldav" as the path for its
"bootstrapping" process after it has first found the FQDN and port
number via an SRV lookup or via manual entry of information by the
user, from which the client can parse suitable information. When the
client makes an HTTP request against "/.well-known/caldav", the
server would issue an HTTP redirect response with a Location response
header using the path "/servlet/caldav". The client would then
"follow" this redirect to the new resource and continue making HTTP
requests there to complete its "bootstrapping" process.
6. Client "Bootstrapping" Procedures
This section describes a procedure that CalDAV or CardDAV clients
SHOULD use to do their initial configuration based on minimal user
input. The goal is to determine an http: or https: URI that
describes the full path to the user's principal-URL [RFC 3744].
1. Processing user input:
* For a CalDAV server:
+ Minimal input from a user would consist of a calendar user
address and a password. A calendar user address is defined
by iCalendar [RFC 5545] to be a URI [RFC 3986]. Provided a
user identifier and a domain name can be extracted from the
URI, this simple "bootstrapping" configuration can be done.
+ If the calendar user address is a "mailto:" [RFC 6068] URI,
the "mailbox" portion of the URI is examined, and the
"local-part" and "domain" portions are extracted.
+ If the calendar user address is an "http:" [RFC 2616] or
"https:" [RFC 2818] URI, the "userinfo" and "host" portion
of the URI [RFC 3986] is extracted.
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RFC 6764 SRV for CalDAV & CardDAV February 2013
* For a CardDAV server:
+ Minimal input from a user would consist of their email
address [RFC 5322] for the domain where the CardDAV service
is hosted, and a password. The "mailbox" portion of the
email address is examined, and the "local-part" and
"domain" portions are extracted.
2. Determination of service FQDN and port number:
* An SRV lookup for _caldavs._tcp (for CalDAV) or _carddavs._tcp
(for CardDAV) is done with the extracted "domain" as the
service domain.
* If no result is found, the client can try _caldav._tcp (for
CalDAV) or _carddav._tcp (for CardDAV) provided non-TLS
connections are appropriate.
* If an SRV record is returned, the client extracts the target
FQDN and port number. If multiple SRV records are returned,
the client MUST use the Priority and Weight fields in the
record to determine which one to pick (as per [RFC 2782]).
* If an SRV record is not found, the client will need to prompt
the user to enter the FQDN and port number information
directly or use some other heuristic, for example, using the
extracted "domain" as the FQDN and default HTTPS or HTTP port
numbers. In this situation, clients MUST first attempt an
HTTP connection with TLS.
3. Determination of initial "context path":
* When an SRV lookup is done and a valid SRV record returned,
the client MUST also query for a corresponding TXT record and
check for the presence of a "path" key in its response. If
present, the value of the "path" key is used for the initial
"context path".
* When an initial "context path" has not been determined from a
TXT record, the initial "context path" is taken to be
"/.well-known/caldav" (for CalDAV) or "/.well-known/carddav"
(for CardDAV).
* If the initial "context path" derived from a TXT record
generates HTTP errors when targeted by requests, the client
SHOULD repeat its "bootstrapping" procedure using the
appropriate ".well-known" URI instead.
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RFC 6764 SRV for CalDAV & CardDAV February 2013
4. Determination of user identifier:
* The client will need to make authenticated HTTP requests to
the service. Typically, a "user identifier" is required for
some form of user/password authentication. When a user
identifier is required, clients MUST first use the "mailbox"
portion of the calendar user address provided by the user in
the case of a "mailto:" address and, if that results in an
authentication failure, SHOULD fall back to using the "local-
part" extracted from the "mailto:" address. For an "http:" or
"https:" calendar user address, the "userinfo" portion is used
as the user identifier for authentication. This is in line
with the guidance outlined in Section 7. If these user
identifiers result in authentication failure, the client
SHOULD prompt the user for a valid identifier.
5. Connecting to the service:
* Subsequent to configuration, the client will make HTTP
requests to the service. When using "_caldavs" or "_carddavs"
services, a TLS negotiation is done immediately upon
connection. The client MUST do certificate verification using
the procedure outlined in Section 6 of [RFC 6125] in regard to
verification with an SRV RR as the starting point.
* The client does a "PROPFIND" [RFC 4918] request with the
request URI set to the initial "context path". The body of
the request SHOULD include the DAV:current-user-principal
[RFC 5397] property as one of the properties to return. Note
that clients MUST properly handle HTTP redirect responses for
the request. The server will use the HTTP authentication
procedure outlined in [RFC 2617] or use some other appropriate
authentication schemes to authenticate the user.
* If the server returns a 404 ("Not Found") HTTP status response
to the request on the initial "context path", clients MAY try
repeating the request on the "root" URI "/" or prompt the user
for a suitable path.
* If the DAV:current-user-principal property is returned on the
request, the client uses that value for the principal-URL of
the authenticated user. With that, it can execute a
"PROPFIND" request on the principal-URL and discover
additional properties for configuration (e.g., calendar or
address book "home" collections).
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RFC 6764 SRV for CalDAV & CardDAV February 2013
* If the DAV:current-user-principal property is not returned,
then the client will need to request the principal-URL path
from the user in order to continue with configuration.
Once a successful account discovery step has been done, clients
SHOULD cache the service details that were successfully used (user
identity, principal-URL with full scheme/host/port details) and reuse
those when connecting again at a later time.
If a subsequent connection attempt fails, or authentication fails
persistently, clients SHOULD retry the SRV lookup and account
discovery to "refresh" the cached data.
7. Guidance for Service Providers
Service providers wanting to offer CalDAV or CardDAV services that
can be configured by clients using SRV records need to follow certain
procedures to ensure proper operation.
o CalDAV or CardDAV servers SHOULD be configured to allow
authentication with calendar user addresses (just taking the
"mailbox" portion of any "mailto:" URI) or email addresses
respectively, or with "user identifiers" extracted from them. In
the former case, the addresses MUST NOT conflict with other forms
of a permitted user login name. In the latter case, the extracted
"user identifiers" need to be unique across the server and MUST
NOT conflict with any login name on the server.
o Servers MUST force authentication for "PROPFIND" requests that
retrieve the DAV:current-user-principal property to ensure that
the value of the DAV:current-user-principal property returned
corresponds to the principal-URL of the user making the request.
o If the service provider uses TLS, the service provider MUST ensure
a certificate is installed that can be verified by clients using
the procedure outlined in Section 6 of [RFC 6125] in regard to
verification with an SRV RR as the starting point. In particular,
certificates SHOULD include SRV-ID and DNS-ID identifiers as
appropriate, as described in Section 8.
o Service providers should install the appropriate SRV records for
the offered services and optionally include TXT records.
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RFC 6764 SRV for CalDAV & CardDAV February 2013
8. Security Considerations
Clients that support TLS as defined by [RFC 2818] SHOULD try the
"_caldavs" or "_carddavs" services first before trying the "_caldav"
or "_carddav" services respectively. If a user has explicitly
requested a connection with TLS, the client MUST NOT use any service
information returned for the "_caldav" or "_carddav" services.
Clients MUST follow the certificate-verification process specified in
[RFC 6125].
A malicious attacker with access to the DNS server data, or that is
able to get spoofed answers cached in a recursive resolver, can
potentially cause clients to connect to any server chosen by the
attacker. In the absence of a secure DNS option, clients SHOULD
check that the target FQDN returned in the SRV record matches the
original service domain that was queried. If the target FQDN is not
in the queried domain, clients SHOULD verify with the user that the
SRV target FQDN is suitable for use before executing any connections
to the host. Alternatively, if TLS is being used for the service,
clients MUST use the procedure outlined in Section 6 of [RFC 6125] to
verify the service. When the target FQDN does not match the original
service domain that was queried, clients MUST check the SRV-ID
identifier in the server's certificate. If the FQDN does match,
clients MUST check any SRV-ID identifiers in the server's certificate
or, if no SRV-ID identifiers are present, MUST check the DNS-ID
identifiers in the server's certificate.
Implementations of TLS [RFC 5246], used as the basis for TLS
([RFC 2818]), typically support multiple versions of the protocol as
well as the older SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) protocol. Because of
known security vulnerabilities, clients and servers MUST NOT request,
offer, or use SSL 2.0. See Appendix E.2 of [RFC 5246] for further
details.
9. IANA Considerations
9.1. Well-Known URI Registrations
This document defines two ".well-known" URIs using the registration
procedure and template from Section 5.1 of [RFC 5785].
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RFC 6764 SRV for CalDAV & CardDAV February 2013
9.1.1. caldav Well-Known URI Registration
URI suffix: caldav
Change controller: IETF
Specification document(s): This RFC
Related information: See also [RFC 4791].
9.1.2. carddav Well-Known URI Registration
URI suffix: carddav
Change controller: IETF
Specification document(s): This RFC
Related information: See also [RFC 6352].
9.2. Service Name Registrations
This document registers four new service names as per [RFC 6335]. Two
are defined in this document, and two are defined in [RFC 6352],
Section 11.
9.2.1. caldav Service Name Registration
Service Name: caldav
Transport Protocol(s): TCP
Assignee: IESG <iesg@ietf.org>
Contact: IETF Chair <chair@ietf.org>
Description: Calendaring Extensions to WebDAV (CalDAV) - non-TLS
Reference: [RFC 6764]
Assignment Note: This is an extension of the http service. Defined
TXT keys: path=<context path>
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RFC 6764 SRV for CalDAV & CardDAV February 2013
9.2.2. caldavs Service Name Registration
Service Name: caldavs
Transport Protocol(s): TCP
Assignee: IESG <iesg@ietf.org>
Contact: IETF Chair <chair@ietf.org>
Description: Calendaring Extensions to WebDAV (CalDAV) - over TLS
Reference: [RFC 6764]
Assignment Note: This is an extension of the https service. Defined
TXT keys: path=<context path>
9.2.3. carddav Service Name Registration
Service Name: carddav
Transport Protocol(s): TCP
Assignee: IESG <iesg@ietf.org>
Contact: IETF Chair <chair@ietf.org>
Description: vCard Extensions to WebDAV (CardDAV) - non-TLS
Reference: [RFC 6352]
Assignment Note: This is an extension of the http service. Defined
TXT keys: path=<context path>
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RFC 6764 SRV for CalDAV & CardDAV February 2013
9.2.4. carddavs Service Name Registration
Service Name: carddavs
Transport Protocol(s): TCP
Assignee: IESG <iesg@ietf.org>
Contact: IETF Chair <chair@ietf.org>
Description: vCard Extensions to WebDAV (CardDAV) - over TLS
Reference: [RFC 6352]
Assignment Note: This is an extension of the https service. Defined
TXT keys: path=<context path>
10. Acknowledgments
This specification was suggested by discussion that took place within
the Calendaring and Scheduling Consortium's CalDAV Technical
Committee. The author thanks the following for their contributions:
Stuart Cheshire, Bernard Desruisseaux, Eran Hammer-Lahav, Helge Hess,
Arnaud Quillaud, Wilfredo Sanchez, and Joe Touch.
11. References
11.1. Normative References
[RFC 2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC 2616] Fielding, R., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Frystyk, H.,
Masinter, L., Leach, P., and T. Berners-Lee, "Hypertext
Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1", RFC 2616, June 1999.
[RFC 2617] Franks, J., Hallam-Baker, P., Hostetler, J., Lawrence, S.,
Leach, P., Luotonen, A., and L. Stewart, "HTTP
Authentication: Basic and Digest Access Authentication",
RFC 2617, June 1999.
[RFC 2782] Gulbrandsen, A., Vixie, P., and L. Esibov, "A DNS RR for
specifying the location of services (DNS SRV)", RFC 2782,
February 2000.
[RFC 2818] Rescorla, E., "HTTP Over TLS", RFC 2818, May 2000.
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RFC 6764 SRV for CalDAV & CardDAV February 2013
[RFC 3744] Clemm, G., Reschke, J., Sedlar, E., and J. Whitehead, "Web
Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV)
Access Control Protocol", RFC 3744, May 2004.
[RFC 3986] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform
Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66,
RFC 3986, January 2005.
[RFC 4791] Daboo, C., Desruisseaux, B., and L. Dusseault,
"Calendaring Extensions to WebDAV (CalDAV)", RFC 4791,
March 2007.
[RFC 4918] Dusseault, L., "HTTP Extensions for Web Distributed
Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV)", RFC 4918, June 2007.
[RFC 5246] Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, "The Transport Layer Security
(TLS) Protocol Version 1.2", RFC 5246, August 2008.
[RFC 5322] Resnick, P., Ed., "Internet Message Format", RFC 5322,
October 2008.
[RFC 5397] Sanchez, W. and C. Daboo, "WebDAV Current Principal
Extension", RFC 5397, December 2008.
[RFC 5785] Nottingham, M. and E. Hammer-Lahav, "Defining Well-Known
Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs)", RFC 5785,
April 2010.
[RFC 6068] Duerst, M., Masinter, L., and J. Zawinski, "The 'mailto'
URI Scheme", RFC 6068, October 2010.
[RFC 6125] Saint-Andre, P. and J. Hodges, "Representation and
Verification of Domain-Based Application Service Identity
within Internet Public Key Infrastructure Using X.509
(PKIX) Certificates in the Context of Transport Layer
Security (TLS)", RFC 6125, March 2011.
[RFC 6335] Cotton, M., Eggert, L., Touch, J., Westerlund, M., and S.
Cheshire, "Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)
Procedures for the Management of the Service Name and
Transport Protocol Port Number Registry", BCP 165,
RFC 6335, August 2011.
[RFC 6352] Daboo, C., "CardDAV: vCard Extensions to Web Distributed
Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV)", RFC 6352, August 2011.
[RFC 6763] Cheshire, S. and M. Krochmal, "DNS-Based Service
Discovery", RFC 6763, February 2013.
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RFC 6764 SRV for CalDAV & CardDAV February 2013
11.2. Informative References
[RFC 5545] Desruisseaux, B., "Internet Calendaring and Scheduling
Core Object Specification (iCalendar)", RFC 5545,
September 2009.
Author's Address
Cyrus Daboo
Apple Inc.
1 Infinite Loop
Cupertino, CA 95014
USA
EMail: cyrus@daboo.name
URI: http://www.apple.com/
Daboo Standards Track PAGE 14
RFC TOTAL SIZE: 28361 bytes
PUBLICATION DATE: Wednesday, February 20th, 2013
LEGAL RIGHTS: The IETF Trust (see BCP 78)
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