VPN Consortium

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This document revises the registration procedures given in RFC 2717 based on five years of experience. It simplifies the requirements for getting a scheme listed by IANA by removing the technical review and allowing multiple registrants to share a scheme name.

RFC 2717 describes the current mechanism for registering new URL schemes. There is widespread dissatisfaction in the Internet community with these procedures, which has led to many people simply ignoring them and using unregistered schemes in many widely-deployed applications. This document revises the procedures in RFC 2717 to make registration much simpler and more definitive, at a cost of allowing some schemes to have multiple registrations. The basic structure of the new procedure is: Scheme names in the registry can have multiple entries for the name. There is no "first come, first served" restriction on a name. After an RFC that registers a scheme name is published, the RFC is entered into the registry and the name is then closed to additional entries. There is no technical review of registrations, only a minor secretarial review (and a check whether or not the name's registration is already closed). Schemes in the current IANA registry are closed to new registrations.

The registrant should first check the IANA scheme name registry to see whether or not there is already an entry for the name desired and, if so, whether the name's registration is closed. If it is not closed (or there is no entry under the name yet), the registrant may register the name by submitting the template shown here to IANA. Upon receipt of the filled-in template, IANA: Checks the submission for completeness. Checks the current registry for an entry of that name. If such a registry exists, checks that the registry is not closed. If it is closed, IANA rejects the registration request. Checks the URL given in the request, makes sure it is alive, and checks that it generally describes the URL scheme being registered. [[ Possibly more here. ]] Fills in the registry.

[[ Use same template as RFC 2717, but add "URL of document more completely describing the scheme". ]]

[[ Needs to be filled in. Similar to steps as above, but with the addition of marking the name's registry as "closed" after entering the new entry. ]]

Clearly, this whole document is about IANA considerations.

[[ Stuff here about adding URLs. ]] [[ Adding an indicator for each current name that the name is closed because all current names start off closed. ]]

[[ How to start a new name entry ]]

[[ Checking that the name is actually open ]]

[[ Making it the last entry; closing out the name ]]

There are no known security issues with the new registration mechanism.