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IETF RFC 8615
Last modified on Monday, May 20th, 2019
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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) M. Nottingham
Request for Comments: 8615 May 2019
Obsoletes: 5785
Updates: 7230, 7595
Category: Standards Track
ISSN: 2070-1721
Well-Known Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs)
 Abstract
This memo defines a path prefix for "well-known locations",
"/.well-known/", in selected Uniform Resource Identifier (URI)
schemes.
In doing so, it obsoletes RFC 5785 and updates the URI schemes
defined in RFC 7230 to reserve that space. It also updates RFC 7595
to track URI schemes that support well-known URIs in their registry.
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 7841.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 8615.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2019 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
(https://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 8615 Well-Known URIs May 2019
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Notational Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Well-Known URIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3.1. Registering Well-Known URIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4.1. Protecting Well-Known Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.2. Interaction with Web Browsing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.3. Scoping Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.4. Hidden Capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5.1. The Well-Known URI Registry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5.2. The Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) Schemes Registry . 9
6. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
6.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
6.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Appendix A. Frequently Asked Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Appendix B. Changes from RFC 5785 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1. Introduction
Some applications on the Web require the discovery of information
about an origin [RFC 6454] (sometimes called "site-wide metadata")
before making a request. For example, the Robots Exclusion Protocol
(http://www.robotstxt.org) specifies a way for automated processes to
obtain permission to access resources; likewise, the Platform for
Privacy Preferences [P3P] tells user agents how to discover privacy
policy before interacting with an origin server.
While there are several ways to access per-resource metadata (e.g.,
HTTP header fields, PROPFIND in Web Distributed Authoring and
Versioning (WebDAV) [RFC 4918]), the perceived overhead (either in
terms of client-perceived latency and/or deployment difficulties)
associated with them often precludes their use in these scenarios.
At the same time, it has become more popular to use HTTP as a
substrate for non-Web protocols. Sometimes, such protocols need a
way to locate one or more resources on a given host.
When this happens, one solution is to designate a "well-known
location" for data or services related to the origin overall, so that
it can be easily located. However, this approach has the drawback of
risking collisions, both with other such designated "well-known
locations" and with resources that the origin has created (or wishes
to create). Furthermore, defining well-known locations usurps the
origin's control over its own URI space [RFC 7320].
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To address these uses, this memo reserves a path prefix in HTTP,
HTTPS, WebSocket (WS), and Secure WebSocket (WSS) URIs for these
"well-known locations", "/.well-known/". Future specifications that
need to define a resource for such metadata can register their use to
avoid collisions and minimise impingement upon origins' URI space.
Well-known URIs can also be used with other URI schemes, but only
when those schemes' definitions explicitly allow it.
2. Notational Conventions
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
"OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
BCP 14 [RFC 2119] [RFC 8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
capitals, as shown here.
3. Well-Known URIs
A well-known URI is a URI [RFC 3986] whose path component begins with
the characters "/.well-known/", provided that the scheme is
explicitly defined to support well-known URIs.
For example, if an application registers the name 'example', the
corresponding well-known URI on 'http://www.example.com/' would be
'http://www.example.com/.well-known/example'.
This specification updates the "http" [RFC 7230] and "https" [RFC 7230]
schemes to support well-known URIs. Other existing schemes can use
the appropriate process for updating their definitions; for example,
[RFC 8307] does so for the "ws" and "wss" schemes. The "Uniform
Resource Identifier (URI) Schemes" registry tracks which schemes
support well-known URIs; see Section 5.2.
Applications that wish to mint new well-known URIs MUST register
them, following the procedures in Section 5.1, subject to the
following requirements.
Registered names MUST conform to the "segment-nz" production in
[RFC 3986]. This means they cannot contain the "/" character.
Registered names for a specific application SHOULD be correspondingly
precise; "squatting" on generic terms is not encouraged. For
example, if the Example application wants a well-known location for
metadata, an appropriate registered name might be "example-metadata"
or even "example.com-metadata", not "metadata".
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At a minimum, a registration will reference a specification that
defines the format and associated media type(s) to be obtained by
dereferencing the well-known URI, along with the URI scheme(s) that
the well-known URI can be used with. If no URI schemes are
explicitly specified, "http" and "https" are assumed.
Typically, applications will use the default port for the given
scheme; if an alternative port is used, it MUST be explicitly
specified by the application in question.
Registrations MAY also contain additional information, such as the
syntax of additional path components, query strings, and/or fragment
identifiers to be appended to the well-known URI, or protocol-
specific details (e.g., HTTP [RFC 7231] method handling).
Note that this specification defines neither how to determine the
hostname to use to find the well-known URI for a particular
application, nor the scope of the metadata discovered by
dereferencing the well-known URI; both should be defined by the
application itself.
Also, this specification does not define a format or media type for
the resource located at "/.well-known/", and clients should not
expect a resource to exist at that location.
Well-known URIs are rooted in the top of the path's hierarchy; they
are not well-known by definition in other parts of the path. For
example, "/.well-known/example" is a well-known URI, whereas
"/foo/.well-known/example" is not.
See also Section 4 for Security Considerations regarding well-known
locations.
3.1. Registering Well-Known URIs
The "Well-Known URIs" registry is located at
<https://www.iana.org/assignments/well-known-uris/>. Registration
requests can be made by following the instructions located there or
by sending an email to the <wellknown-uri-review@ietf.org> mailing
list.
Registration requests consist of at least the following information:
URI suffix: The name requested for the well-known URI, relative to
"/.well-known/"; e.g., "example".
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Change controller: For Standards Track RFCs, state "IETF". For
others, give the name of the responsible party. Other details
(e.g., email address, home page URI) may also be included.
Specification document(s): Reference to the document that specifies
the field, preferably including a URI that can be used to retrieve
a copy of the document. An indication of the relevant sections
may also be included, but is not required.
Status: One of "permanent" or "provisional". See guidance below.
Related information: Optionally, citations to additional documents
containing further relevant information.
General requirements for registered values are described in
Section 3.
Values defined by Standards Track RFCs and other open standards (in
the sense of [RFC 2026], Section 7.1.1) have a status of "permanent".
Other values can also be registered as permanent, if the experts find
that they are in use, in consultation with the community. Other
values should be registered as "provisional".
Provisional entries can be removed by the experts if -- in
consultation with the community -- the experts find that they are not
in use. The experts can change a provisional entry's status to
permanent; in doing so, the experts should consider how widely used a
value is and consult the community beforehand.
Note that "consult the community" above refers to those responsible
for the URI scheme(s) in question. Generally, this would take place
on the mailing list(s) of the appropriate Working Group(s) (possibly
concluded), or on <art@ietf.org> if no such list exists.
Well-known URIs can be registered by third parties (including the
expert(s)), if the expert(s) determine that an unregistered well-
known URI is widely deployed and not likely to be registered in a
timely manner otherwise. Such registrations still are subject to the
requirements defined, including the need to reference a
specification.
4. Security Considerations
Applications minting new well-known URIs, as well as administrators
deploying them, will need to consider several security-related
issues, including (but not limited to) exposure of sensitive data,
denial-of-service attacks (in addition to normal load issues), server
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RFC 8615 Well-Known URIs May 2019
and client authentication, vulnerability to DNS rebinding attacks,
and attacks where limited access to a server grants the ability to
affect how well-known URIs are served.
[RFC 3552] contains some examples of potential security considerations
that may be relevant to application protocols and administrators
deploying them.
4.1. Protecting Well-Known Resources
Because well-known locations effectively represent the entire origin,
server operators should appropriately control the ability to write to
them. This is especially true when more than one entity is
co-located on the same origin. Even for origins that are controlled
by and represent a single entity, due care should be taken to assure
that write access to well-known locations is not granted unwittingly,
either externally through server configuration or locally through
implementation permissions (e.g., on a filesystem).
4.2. Interaction with Web Browsing
Applications using well-known URIs for "http" or "https" URLs need to
be aware that well-known resources will be accessible to Web
browsers, and therefore are able to be manipulated by content
obtained from other parts of that origin. If an attacker is able to
inject content (e.g., through a Cross-Site Scripting vulnerability),
they will be able to make potentially arbitrary requests to the well-
known resource.
HTTP and HTTPS also use origins as a security boundary for many other
mechanisms, including (but not limited to) cookies [RFC 6265], Web
Storage [WEBSTORAGE], and various capabilities.
An application that defines well-known locations should not assume
that it has sole access to these mechanisms or that it is the only
application using the origin. Depending on the nature of the
application, mitigations can include:
o Encrypting sensitive information
o Allowing flexibility in the use of identifiers (e.g., cookie
names) to avoid collisions with other applications
o Using the 'HttpOnly' flag on cookies to assure that cookies are
not exposed to browser scripting languages [RFC 6265]
o Using the 'Path' parameter on cookies to assure that they are not
available to other parts of the origin [RFC 6265]
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RFC 8615 Well-Known URIs May 2019
o Using X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff [FETCH] to assure that
content under attacker control can't be coaxed into a form that is
interpreted as active content by a Web browser
Other good practices include:
o Using an application-specific media type in the Content-Type
header field, and requiring clients to fail if it is not used
o Using Content-Security-Policy [CSP] to constrain the capabilities
of active content (such as HTML [HTML5]), thereby mitigating
Cross-Site Scripting attacks
o Using Referrer-Policy [REFERRER-POLICY] to prevent sensitive data
in URLs from being leaked in the Referer request header field
o Avoiding use of compression on any sensitive information (e.g.,
authentication tokens, passwords), as the scripting environment
offered by Web browsers allows an attacker to repeatedly probe the
compression space; if the attacker has access to the path of the
communication, they can use this capability to recover that
information.
4.3. Scoping Applications
This memo does not specify the scope of applicability for the
information obtained from a well-known URI, and does not specify how
to discover a well-known URI for a particular application.
Individual applications using this mechanism must define both
aspects; if this is not specified, security issues can arise from
implementation deviations and confusion about boundaries between
applications.
Applying metadata discovered in a well-known URI to resources other
than those co-located on the same origin risks administrative as well
as security issues. For example, allowing
"https://example.com/.well-known/example" to apply policy to
"https://department.example.com", "https://www.example.com", or even
"https://www.example.com:8000" assumes a relationship between hosts
where there might be none, thereby giving control to a potential
attacker.
Likewise, specifying that a well-known URI on a particular hostname
is to be used to bootstrap a protocol can cause a large number of
undesired requests. For example, if a well-known HTTPS URI is used
to find policy about a separate service such as email, it can result
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RFC 8615 Well-Known URIs May 2019
in a flood of requests to Web servers, even if they don't implement
the well-known URI. Such undesired requests can resemble a denial-
of-service attack.
4.4. Hidden Capabilities
Applications using well-known locations should consider that some
server administrators might be unaware of their existence (especially
on operating systems that hide directories whose names begin with
"."). This means that if an attacker has write access to the
.well-known directory, they would be able to control its contents,
possibly without the administrator realising it.
5. IANA Considerations
5.1. The Well-Known URI Registry
This specification updates the registration procedures for the "Well-
Known URI" registry, first defined in [RFC 5785]; see Section 3.1.
Well-known URIs are registered on the advice of one or more experts,
with a Specification Required (using terminology from [RFC 8126]).
The experts' primary considerations in evaluating registration
requests are:
o Conformance to the requirements in Section 3
o The availability and stability of the specifying document
o The considerations outlined in Section 4
IANA will direct the senders of any incoming registry requests to
this document and, if defined, the processes established by the
expert(s); typically, this will mean referring them to the registry
Web page.
Per this document, IANA has:
o Updated the registration procedure to Specification Required.
o Added a "Status" column to the registry and marked all of the
existing registrations as "permanent".
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5.2. The Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) Schemes Registry
This specification adds a field to the registration template of the
"Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) Schemes" registry, with the name
"Well-Known URI Support" and a default value of "-".
If a URI scheme explicitly has been specified to use well-known URIs
as per Section 3, the value changes to a reference to that
specification. Initial values not equal to "-" are given in Table 1.
+------------+------------------------+
| URI Scheme | Well-Known URI Support |
+------------+------------------------+
| coap | [RFC 7252] |
| coap+tcp | [RFC 8323] |
| coap+ws | [RFC 8323] |
| coaps | [RFC 7252] |
| coaps+tcp | [RFC 8323] |
| coaps+ws | [RFC 8323] |
| http | [RFC 8615] |
| https | [RFC 8615] |
| ws | [RFC 8307] |
| wss | [RFC 8307] |
+------------+------------------------+
Table 1: Rows in URI Scheme Registry with Nonempty New Column
6. References
6.1. Normative References
[RFC 2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 2119, March 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 2119>.
[RFC 3986] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform
Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66,
RFC 3986, DOI 10.17487/RFC 3986, January 2005,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 3986>.
[RFC 6454] Barth, A., "The Web Origin Concept", RFC 6454,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 6454, December 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 6454>.
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RFC 8615 Well-Known URIs May 2019
[RFC 7230] Fielding, R., Ed. and J. Reschke, Ed., "Hypertext Transfer
Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Message Syntax and Routing",
RFC 7230, DOI 10.17487/RFC 7230, June 2014,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 7230>.
[RFC 8126] Cotton, M., Leiba, B., and T. Narten, "Guidelines for
Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26,
RFC 8126, DOI 10.17487/RFC 8126, June 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 8126>.
[RFC 8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC 8174,
May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 8174>.
6.2. Informative References
[CSP] West, M., "Content Security Policy Level 3", World Wide
Web Consortium WD WD-CSP3-20160913, September 2016,
<https://www.w3.org/TR/2016/WD-CSP3-20160913>.
[FETCH] WHATWG, "Fetch - Living Standard",
<https://fetch.spec.whatwg.org>.
[HTML5] WHATWG, "HTML - Living Standard",
<https://html.spec.whatwg.org>.
[P3P] Marchiori, M., "The Platform for Privacy Preferences 1.0
(P3P1.0) Specification", World Wide Web Consortium
Recommendation REC-P3P-20020416, April 2002,
<http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/REC-P3P-20020416>.
[REFERRER-POLICY]
Eisinger, J. and E. Stark, "Referrer Policy", World Wide
Web Consortium CR CR-referrer-policy-20170126, January
2017,
<https://www.w3.org/TR/2017/CR-referrer-policy-20170126>.
[RFC 2026] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision
3", BCP 9, RFC 2026, DOI 10.17487/RFC 2026, October 1996,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 2026>.
[RFC 3552] Rescorla, E. and B. Korver, "Guidelines for Writing RFC
Text on Security Considerations", BCP 72, RFC 3552,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 3552, July 2003,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 3552>.
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RFC 8615 Well-Known URIs May 2019
[RFC 4918] Dusseault, L., Ed., "HTTP Extensions for Web Distributed
Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV)", RFC 4918,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 4918, June 2007,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 4918>.
[RFC 5785] Nottingham, M. and E. Hammer-Lahav, "Defining Well-Known
Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs)", RFC 5785,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 5785, April 2010,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 5785>.
[RFC 6265] Barth, A., "HTTP State Management Mechanism", RFC 6265,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 6265, April 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 6265>.
[RFC 7231] Fielding, R., Ed. and J. Reschke, Ed., "Hypertext Transfer
Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Semantics and Content", RFC 7231,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 7231, June 2014,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 7231>.
[RFC 7252] Shelby, Z., Hartke, K., and C. Bormann, "The Constrained
Application Protocol (CoAP)", RFC 7252,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 7252, June 2014,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 7252>.
[RFC 7320] Nottingham, M., "URI Design and Ownership", BCP 190,
RFC 7320, DOI 10.17487/RFC 7320, July 2014,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 7320>.
[RFC 8307] Bormann, C., "Well-Known URIs for the WebSocket Protocol",
RFC 8307, DOI 10.17487/RFC 8307, January 2018,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 8307>.
[RFC 8323] Bormann, C., Lemay, S., Tschofenig, H., Hartke, K.,
Silverajan, B., and B. Raymor, Ed., "CoAP (Constrained
Application Protocol) over TCP, TLS, and WebSockets",
RFC 8323, DOI 10.17487/RFC 8323, February 2018,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 8323>.
[WEBSTORAGE]
Hickson, I., "Web Storage (Second Edition)", World Wide
Web Consortium Recommendation REC-webstorage-20160419,
April 2016,
<http://www.w3.org/TR/2016/REC-webstorage-20160419>.
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Appendix A. Frequently Asked Questions
Aren't well-known locations bad for the Web?
They are, but for various reasons -- both technical and social --
they are sometimes necessary. This memo defines a "sandbox" for
them, to reduce the risks of collision and to minimise the impact
upon preexisting URIs on sites.
Why "/.well-known?"
It's short, descriptive, and according to search indices, not
widely used.
What impact does this have on existing mechanisms, such as P3P and
robots.txt?
None, until they choose to use this mechanism.
Why aren't per-directory well-known locations defined?
Allowing every URI path segment to have a well-known location
(e.g., "/images/.well-known/") would increase the risks of
colliding with a preexisting URI on a site, and generally these
solutions are found not to scale well because they're too
"chatty".
Appendix B. Changes from RFC 5785
o Allowed non-Web well-known locations
o Adjusted IANA instructions
o Updated references
o Made various other clarifications
o Tracked supporting schemes in the "Uniform Resource Identifier
(URI) Schemes" registry
Author's Address
Mark Nottingham
Email: mnot@mnot.net
URI: https://www.mnot.net/
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RFC TOTAL SIZE: 26866 bytes
PUBLICATION DATE: Monday, May 20th, 2019
LEGAL RIGHTS: The IETF Trust (see BCP 78)
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