# Re: URN functionality from URLs

Alexander Dupuy (dupuy@smarts.com)
Wed, 15 Dec 1993 23:58:37 +0500

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    Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1993 23:58:37 +0500

    From: dupuy@smarts.com (Alexander Dupuy)

    Message-Id: <9312160458.AA21685@brainy.smarts.com>

    To: uri@bunyip.com

    Subject: Re: URN functionality from URLs

Keith Moore <moore@cs.utk.edu> writes:
> I've been assuming that the domain name derived from a URN would point to a
> URN-to-whatever lookup service, not to the host providing the file service
> itself. Also, the domain name derived from a URN would be in a different
> part of the tree than domain names used to look up host addresses.
>
> The point is, the domain name derived from a URN isn't the primary name for a
> host, it's just a way to find a URN->whatever server given a URN, using the
> DNS.

Everyone talks about this hypothetical URN->URL protocol, but I haven't seen
any details on exactly how it would work. And requiring people who want to
electronically publish something to set up an {FTP,HTTP,GOPHER,etc.} server, a
DNS server to handle the requests for URN->URL server locations, and then an
URN->URL server as well, seems a bit much. (Even if all these servers were
already in place, they would still have to add records for their publications
to all three).

The original suggestion about using DNS for URN->URL translation never
suggested that every record be stored in DNS, only that the information be
tied into the DNS in a seamless manner, to allow for splitting and joining URN
domains easily.

The STANF proposal suggested using the filesystem (or FTP protocol) to manage
the URN->URL translation. There are some problems with this, the least of
them being with the FTP protocol itself. But the idea of simplifying things
so that no special URN->URL translation protocol would be necessary is very
appealing.

It seems to me that, given the flexibility of all the protocols in question,
that most (if not all) of them could be used to provide the URN->URL
translation. So perhaps the right information to put in those DNS TXT records
is an standard URL which describes the service (and object or query) which
should be used to translate the URN into an URL.

So if my site publishes everything via FTP (we're in the stone ages here :-)
we would set up a file for each URN that could return either the object
itself, or a file containing just the URL about where it really is. More
sophisticated sites using HTTP or other space age IR protocols could use the
powerful mapping facilities that they give you. If somebody comes up with a
protocol optimized for URN->URL translation, we can add a new URL naming
scheme for it. Best of all - we can do this now with no new protocols, DNS
records (or even domain roots)!

@alex

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