Network Working Group                                        M. Mealling
Request for Comments: 3001                       Network Solutions, Inc.
Category: Informational                                    November 2000

A URN Namespace of Object Identifiers

Status of this Memo

   This memo provides information for the Internet community.  It does
   not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution of this
   memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

Abstract

This document describes a Uniform Resource Names (URN) namespace that
contains Object Identifiers (OIDs).

1. Introduction

   An Object Identifier is a series of digits delimited in some way.
   The rules roughly state that once an entity is assigned an Object
   Identifier (OID) it has sole discretion to further subdelegate off of
   that OID.  Some examples of OIDs include:

   o  1.3.6.1 - the Internet OID
   o  1.3.6.1.4.1 - IANA-assigned company OIDs, used for private MIBs
      and such things
   o  1.3.6.1.2.1.27 - The Applications MIB
   o  0.9.2342.19200300.100.4 - Object ID's used in the directory pilot
      project to identify X.500 Object Classes.  Mostly defined in RFC-
      1274.

   This document specifies the "oid" URN namespace [1].  This namespace
   is for encoding an Object Identifier as specified in ASN.1 [2] as a
   URI.

   The namespace specification is for a formal namespace.

2. Specification Template

Namespace ID:

"oid" requested.

   Registration Information:

      Registration Version Number: 1
      Registration Date: 2000-04-30

   Declared registrant of the namespace:

      I need help here.  I'm not comfortable being the 'registrant'.  So
      who do I actually put here?

      The ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1 - SubCommittee 6 The
      actual real authority is the ASN.1 specification itself but at
      present SC6 is the committee that has the authority to interpret
      what that means.

   Declaration of structure:

      The NSS portion of the identifier follows the string encoding
      rules found in RFC 1778 Section 2.15 [3] which specifies a series
      of digits separated by a period with the most significant digit
      being at the left and the least significant being at the right.

      No changes are anticipated since Object Identifiers are fairly
      simple and have been standardized with no changes for many years.

   Relevant ancillary documentation:

      Relevant documentation can be found in X.660/Amd 2 | ISO/IEC
      9834-1/Amd 2 [2].

   Identifier uniqueness considerations:

      The rules for assignment of OIDs requires that each OID be unique
      to the OID space and that it cannot be reassigned or reused.  By
      reference this URN namespace inherents those rules.

   Identifier persistence considerations:

      The rules concerning the use of OIDs requires that they not be
      reused once assigned.  By reference this URN namespace inherents
      those rules.

   Process of identifier assignment:

      Once an OID is assigned to some entity, that entity can then
      create and assign new OIDs below that particular OID.  There are
      multiple entities that assign new OIDs to the general public.  The
      top three levels are pre-assigned as follows:

         0 - ITU-T assigned
         1 - ISO assigned
         2 - Joint ISO/ITU-T assignment

several assigned OIDs that are of importance to the Internet are:

         1.3.6.1 - the Internet OID
         1.3.6.1.4.1 - IANA-assigned company OIDs, used for private
                       MIBs and such things

   Process of identifier resolution:

      At this time no resolution mechanism is defined.

   Rules for Lexical Equivalence:

      OIDs are composed of multiple occurrences of digits and the "."
      character.  Lexical equivalence is achieved by exact string match.

   Conformance with URN Syntax:

      There are no additional characters reserved.

   Validation mechanism:

      None.

   Scope:

      Global

3. Examples

   The following examples are taken from the example OIDs from the
   Introduction:

      urn:oid:1.3.6.1
      urn:oid:1.3.6.1.4.1
      urn:oid:1.3.6.1.2.1.27
      URN:OID:0.9.2342.19200300.100.4

4. Security Considerations

None not already inherent to using unverifiable OIDs

5. Acknowledgements

   The author would like to thank Harald Alvestrand for the use of his
   OID database as a source for examples and references.

References

   [1]  Moats, R., "URN Syntax", RFC 2141, May 1997.

   [2]  CCITT, "Specification of Basic Encoding Rules for Abstract
        Syntax Notation One (ASN.1)", CCITT Recommendation X.209,
        January 1988.

   [3]  Howes, T., Kille, S., Yeong, W. and C. Robbins, "The String
        Representation of Standard Attribute Syntaxes", RFC 1778, March
        1995.

Author's Address

   Michael Mealling
   Network Solutions, Inc.
   505 Huntmar Park Drive
   Herndon, VA  22070
   US

   Phone: +1 770 935 5492
   EMail: michaelm@netsol.com
   URI:   http://www.netsol.com

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