Re: [xri] 9.1.10 Construction of the Next Authority URI

From
Gabe Wachob <>
Date
2008-02-25T22:39:20+00:00
ID
Thread
Re: [xri] 9.1.10 Construction of the Next Authority URI
But wait, that's the whole point of this change - if its not going to address all the MS problems anyway, why make the change? 

     -Gabe

On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 2:25 PM, Drummond Reed <> wrote:

Agreed, Wil, that IIS is still going to have serious challenges with XRI if

they don't allow stars or colons in the path. But I guess that's a

conversation we can start to have with Microsoft after the XRI 2.0 vote. In

any case it won't be something we can solve overnight.

=Drummond

> -----Original Message-----

> From: Tan, William [mailto:]

> Sent: Monday, February 25, 2008 2:17 PM

> To: Drummond Reed

> Cc: 'Gabe Wachob'; 'John Bradley'; 'Chasen, Les'; 'Markus Sabadello'; 'XRI

> TC'

> Subject: Re: [xri] 9.1.10 Construction of the Next Authority URI

>

> Doesn't it mean that IIS still won't be able to handle HXRI?

> God forbids if we ever run IIS for the proxy, this would not work:

>

> http://xri.net/@foo*bar

>

>

> John, can you also confirm that IIS will be able to take a valid XRI

> authority in URI-normal form in the query without any escaping?

>

> =wil

>

> Drummond Reed wrote:

> >

> > Agreed that we need a backwards compatability note along with the

> > revision. I will add both to Committee Draft 02 Revision 02 this

> > afternoon and post it by this evening.

> >

> > =Drummond

> >

> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------

> >

> > *From:*  [mailto:] *On Behalf Of

> > *Gabe Wachob

> > *Sent:* Monday, February 25, 2008 1:32 PM

> > *To:* John Bradley

> > *Cc:* Chasen, Les; Markus Sabadello; XRI TC

> > *Subject:* Re: [xri] 9.1.10 Construction of the Next Authority URI

> >

> > This rule came out of a discussion we had with Dave McAlpin sometime

> > in the distant past. They were using ? params on their Authority URIs

> > (to indicate namespace) and wanted to have the next authority

> > subsegment added to the path, not the query (having a double query was

> > deemed too odd -- not sure when the query string would be added to -

> > but in the past there may have been a reason).

> >

> > In any case, +1 to this proposal. We need to post a "backwards

> > compatibility" note because some implementations (e.g. some old code I

> > wrote) are explicitly extracting the path and query parts of an

> > authority URL and adding the authority subsegment to the path and

> > reconstructing the URL.... that would not be the algorithm now..

> >

> > -Gabe

> >

> > On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 8:33 AM, John Bradley <

> > <mailto:>> wrote:

> >

> > They are vague on what the security reason is, colon : and asterisk *

> > are both prohibited.

> >

> > I am going to gig into it more today as we need a fix for Kintera's

> > community authority server.

> >

> > The following is a description of the problem.

> >

> > I normally wouldn't recommend accommodating Microsoft's broken code.

> >

> > However I don't see a downside in relaxing the rule on URI

> > construction and make it more in line with the normal append behavior.

> >

> > There may be other platforms that would prefer the root and next

> > element as parameters rather than the path for other reasons as well.

> >

> > From an authority server point of view it needs to turn them into

> > variables anyway unless its doing something very simplistic and

> > handing back XRDs from static files.

> >

> > Lacking any reason for the rule I don't see any reason not to relax it

> > now, so that its the authority servers option on how it wants its URI

> > constructed.

> >

> > This post describes the IIS issue:

> >

> > http://www.computersmarts.us/net-framework/561-kb932552-fix-error-

> message-when-you-visit-asp-net-2-0-based-web-page-httpexception-

> 0x80004005-handlertest-webform1-aspx-b-not-valid-virtual-path.html

> >

> > It is possible it is an asp.net <http://asp.net> issue rather than an

> > IIS one. Not being a windows person at all I am starting from scratch

> > sorting this out.

> >

> > =jbradley

> >

> > On 25-Feb-08, at 7:58 AM, Chasen, Les wrote:

> >

> >

> >

> > Out of curiosity, does IIS specify the security reasons? If so what

> > say thee.

> >

> > contact: =les <http://xri.net/=les>

> >

> > voice: =les/(+phone) <http://xri.net/=les/%28+phone%29>

> >

> > chat: =les/skype/chat <http://xri.net/=les/skype/chat>

> >

> > pibb me =les/+pibb <http://xri.net/=les/+pibb>

> >

> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------

> >

> > *From:* John Bradley [mailto:]

> > *Sent:* Monday, February 25, 2008 10:33 AM

> > *To:* Markus Sabadello

> > *Cc:* XRI TC

> > *Subject:* Re: [xri] 9.1.10 Construction of the Next Authority URI

> >

> > Markus,

> >

> > Yes you could make the change to accept the query as parameters rather

> > than in the path, if you want.

> >

> > The purpose however is to allow authority servers on platforms that

> > have a restriction on * in the path.

> >

> > The only required change to openXRI would be in the next authority URI

> > construction.

> >

> > OpenXRI would append to the end of the URI rather than the end of the

> > path.

> >

> > =jbradley

> >

> > On 25-Feb-08, at 5:09 AM, Markus Sabadello wrote:

> >

> > No problem from an OpenXRI Server point of view.

> >

> > The OpenXRI Server uses a thing called "URIMapper" to extract a

> > request (a "root namespace" and a "query") from a URI.

> >

> > Right now there's a "FolderURIMapper" which expects requests like this:

> > http://www.myserver.com/resolve/ns/@mycompany/*myname

> > In this case the "root namespace" is @mycompany, and the query is

> *myname.

> >

> > Then there's a "SingleNamespaceURIMapper" which expects requests like

> > this:

> > http://www.myserver.com/resolve/*myname

> > In this case the "root namespace" is hard-coded in the configuration

> > file (e.g. @mycompany), and the query is *myname.

> >

> > So with the change there could also be a "QueryURIMapper" for requests

> > like this:

> > http://www.myserver.com/resolve?namespace=@mycompany&query=*myname

> > <http://www.myserver.com/resolve?namespace=@mycompany&query=*myname>

> > Again, the "root namespace" would be @mycompany, and the query would

> > be *myname.

> >

> > Markus

> >

> > On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 1:32 AM, Drummond Reed

> > < <mailto:>> wrote:

> >

> > John,

> >

> > I spent some time today looking at this issue. My recollection was

> > that appending directly to the path was originally specified (in XRI

> > resolution 1.0) because the XRI Resolution 1.0 editors conceptualized

> > XRI resolution as a series of HTTP(S) URI substitutions - which it

> > still is.

> >

> > However I can't see any reason why the Next Authority String (section

> > 9.1.10) can't just be appended to the fully constructed Next Authority

> > Resolution Service Endpoint URI. That would increase the flexibility

> > of XRI authorities to control their incoming resolution requests, and

> > to use a query parameter if that makes life easier (as it sounds like

> > it will with this IIS bug).

> >

> > Gabe, can you see any reason not to do this? Les, Wil, Steve? Or

> > anyone else?

> >

> > We need to resolve this quickly as we need to put CD03 to a vote this

> > week in order to make our planned May vote.

> >

> > =Drummond

> >

> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------

> >

> > *From:* John Bradley [mailto: <mailto:>]

> > *Sent:* Sunday, February 24, 2008 1:04 PM

> > *To:* XRI TC

> > *Cc:* Gabe Wachob; Drummond Reed

> > *Subject:* [xri] 9.1.10 Construction of the Next Authority URI

> >

> > Steve and I have discovered an issue with using IIS as an XRI

> > authority server.

> >

> > It turns out that Microsoft will not let you have a * in the path for

> > "security reasons".

> >

> > There is a hotfix that disables URL validation, but is not recommended.

> >

> > In our wisdom we thought that we could construct URI like:

> >

> > /http://76.14.26.160/xdiservice-webservice/Default.aspx?localName=/

> > to get around the problem.

> >

> > This did not work because we are not following the normal append rules

> for URI construction.

> >

> > The problem is of corse that in 9.1.10 we are specific about only

> appending to the path, so we get.

> >

> > /http://76.14.26.160/xdiservice-

> webservice/Default.aspx/*aaa.3/?localName=/

> > Drummond and I discussed this and decided that a change to line 1460 may

> be appropriate.

> > Change:

> >

> > The final step is to append the Next Authority String to the path

> component of the Next Authority

> >

> >

> > To:

> >

> >

> > The final step is to append the Next Authority String to the end of the

> Next Authority

> >

> >

> > This would allow authority servers to accept the next subsegment as a

> path or parameter as they like.

> >

> >

> > We believe that this is fully backwards compatible with the current

> authority servers.

> >

> >

> > I understand that the time to consider this is limited,  and apologize

> for discovering this at the last minute.

> >

> >

> > I don't see a good reason for the spec to restrict people to only use

> the path.

> >

> >

> > Regards

> > =jbradley

> >

> >

> >

> >

> > --

> > Gabe Wachob /  <mailto:> \

> > http://blog.wachob.com

> >

-- 
Gabe Wachob /  \ http://blog.wachob.com