WHOAMI: A Method For Identifying a Domain Operator's Contact Information
draft-brown-whoami-02

Abstract

This document proposes a method by which the operator of a domain may publish their contact information in a discoverable and machine-readable format.

Status of This Memo

This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

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This Internet-Draft will expire on December 3, 2018.

Copyright Notice

Copyright (c) 2018 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.

Table of Contents

• 1. Introduction
• 1.1. Conventions Used in This Document
• 2. WHOAMI Protocol
• 2.1. URI Record
• 2.1.1. URI Record with a data: scheme
• 2.2. Well-Known URL
• 3. Security Considerations
• 4. Privacy Considerations
• 5. IANA Considerations
• 6. References
• 6.1. Normative References
• 6.2. Informative References
• Appendix A. Change History
• A.1. Change from 01 to 02
• A.2. Change from 00 to 01
• Author's Address

1. Introduction

This document specifies a protocol which provides a way for the operator of a domain name to publish their contact information in a discoverable and machine-readable format.

It serves as a complementary service to WHOIS ([RFC3912]) and RDAP ([RFC7480]), and differs in that it relies on self-publication by the domain operator, rather than a centralised third party service.

1.1. 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 [RFC2119].

2. WHOAMI Protocol

Domain Operators MAY publish a WHOAMI Record in conformance with this specification. It may be published (a) at a URL indicated by a URI record published in the DNS (as described in Section 2.1), or (b) at a well-known URL (as described in Section 2.2).

Software which consumes WHOAMI records SHOULD first perform a DNS query for the URI record for a domain, falling back to the well-known URL if the query does not return a positive result.

2.1. URI Record

Domain Operators MAY publish the URL of their WHOAMI record as a URI record in the DNS. An example of such a record is below:

$ORIGIN example.com.
_nicname._tcp IN URI 10 1 https://example.com/whoami/whoami.vcf

Note: the Owner Name, Priority, Weight, Target and URI in the above record are illustrative only.

The Service Tag of the URI record is constructed as per Section 4.1 of [RFC7553], with the "_nicname" tag being derived from the "Who Is Protocol" entry in the "Service Name and Transport Protocol Port Number Registry (see [RFC6335]).

2.1.1. URI Record with a data: scheme

Domain Operators MAY publish a record with a "data:" scheme ([RFC2397]). This allows the WHOAMI record to be embedded in the URI record itself. An example of such a URI is below:

data:text/vcard;charset=utf-8;base64,QkVHSU46VkNBUkQNClZFUlNJT046NC4w
DQpVSUQ6dXJuOnV1aWQ6NGZiZTg5NzEtMGJjMy00MjRjLTljMjYtMzZjM2UxZWZmNmIxD
QpGTjtQSUQ9MS4xOkouIERvZQ0KTjpEb2U7Si47OzsNCkVNQUlMO1BJRD0xLjE6amRvZU
BleGFtcGxlLmNvbQ0KQ0xJRU5UUElETUFQOjE7dXJuOnV1aWQ6NTNlMzc0ZDktMzM3ZS0
0NzI3LTg4MDMtYTFlOWMxNGUwNTU2DQpFTkQ6VkNBUkQ=

If a "data:" scheme is used, the MIME type of the data MUST be "text/vcard".

2.2. Well-Known URL

Domain Operators MAY publish their WHOAMI record at the following URL:

http://example.com/.well-known/whoami/whoami.vcf

The "whoami" path segment has been registered in the "Well-Known URI Registry" (see [RFC5785]).

It is RECOMMENDED that web servers which support HTTP over Transport Layer Security (TLS, [RFC2818]) provide a 3xx redirect to the HTTPS version of this URL.

Software which consumes WHOAMI records MUST follow 3xx redirections return in server responses.

The Content-Type header of the server response MUST be "text/vcard".

3. Security Considerations

WHOAMI provides no security capabilities above and beyond those provided by the underlying protocols it uses, namely DNS and HTTP.

WHOAMI records in general will not be confidential: while HTTPS provides transport-layer security, unless some form of authentication is used, WHOAMI records will be freely available to anyone who requests them. Authentication of client requests is not covered by this document.

The integrity of WHOAMI records served over DNS may be verified using DNSSEC validation. The use of TLS ensures that records served over HTTPS have not been modified in-transit.

4. Privacy Considerations

Since WHOAMI records are not private, the information included in a WHOAMI record is exposed to the public. Domain owners should therefore exercise caution when entering information into their WHOAMI record. For example, rather than publishing the contact informations of people, role-based contact information SHOULD be used instead.

5. IANA Considerations

This specification registers the "whoami" well-known URI in the "Well-Known URIs" registry as defined by [RFC5785].

URI suffix: whoami

Change controller: IETF

Specification document(s): (this document)

Related information: no remarks

6. References

6.1. Normative References

6.2. Informative References

Appendix A. Change History

A.1. Change from 01 to 02

1. Removed all the layer-9 stuff.

A.2. Change from 00 to 01

1. Fixed well-known URI registration, various typos. Improved consistency of terminology.

Author's Address