ENUM for Presence: Telephone Number Mapping (ENUM) Service Registration for Presence Services
How a phone number in the DNS can point to the address where that person's presence can be checked.
Peterson, J., "Telephone Number Mapping (ENUM) Service Registration for Presence Services", RFC 3953, DOI 10.17487/RFC3953, January 2005, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3953>.
@misc{rfc3953,
series = {Request for Comments},
number = 3953,
howpublished = {RFC 3953},
publisher = {RFC Editor},
doi = {10.17487/RFC3953},
url = {https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3953},
author = {J. Peterson},
title = {{Telephone Number Mapping (ENUM) Service Registration for Presence Services}},
pagetotal = 7,
year = 2005,
month = jan,
} RFC text
Contents
Network Working Group J. Peterson
Request for Comments: 3953 NeuStar
Category: Standards Track January 2005
Telephone Number Mapping (ENUM) Service
Registration for Presence Services
Status of this Memo
This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2005).
Abstract
This document registers a Telephone Number Mapping (ENUM) service for
presence. Specifically, this document focuses on provisioning pres
URIs in ENUM.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. ENUM Service Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
3. Presence for E.164 Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
4. The 'E2U+pres' Enumservice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
5. Example of E2U+pres Enumservice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
6. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
7. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
8. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
8.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
8.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Author's Address. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Full Copyright Statement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1. Introduction
ENUM (E.164 Number Mapping, RFC 3761 [1]) is a system that uses DNS
(Domain Name Service, RFC 1034 [8]) to translate telephone numbers,
such as +12025332600, into URIs (Uniform Resource Identifiers, RFC
2396 [9]), such as pres:user@host.com. ENUM exists primarily to
facilitate the interconnection of systems that rely on telephone
numbers with those that use URIs to identify resources.
Presence is a service defined in RFC 2778 [2] that allows users of a
communications service to monitor one another's availability and
disposition in order to make decisions about communicating. Presence
information is highly dynamic and generally characterizes whether a
user is online or offline, busy or idle, away from communications
devices or nearby, and the like.
The IETF has defined a generic URI used to identify a presence
service for a particular resource: the 'pres' URI scheme (defined in
CPP [4]). This document describes an enumservice for advertising
presence information associated with an E.164 number.
2. ENUM Service Registration
As defined in [1], the following is a template covering information
needed for the registration of the enumservice specified in this
document:
Service name: "E2U+pres"
URI scheme(s): "pres:"
Functional Specification: See section 4.
Security considerations: See section 6.
Intended usage: COMMON
Author: Jon Peterson (jon.peterson@neustar.biz)
Any other information that the author deems interesting: See
section 3.
3. Presence for E.164 Numbers
This document specifies an enumservice field that allows presence
information to be provided for an E.164 number. This may include
presence states associated with telephones, or presence of non-
telephony communications services advertised by ENUM.
Endpoints that participate in a presence architecture are known
(following the framework in RFC 2778 [2]) as watchers and
presentities. Watchers subscribe to the presence of presentities and
are notified when the presence of a presentity changes. Watchers
generally monitor the presence of a group of presentities with whom
they have an ongoing association. As an example, consider how this
might apply to a telephony service. Most cellular telephones today
have an address book-like feature, a small database of names and
telephone numbers. Such a telephone might act as a watcher,
subscribing to the presence of some or all of the telephone numbers
in its address book. The display of the telephone might then show
its user, when a presence-enabled telephone number is selected, the
availability of the destination. With this information, the user
might change their calling habits to correspond better to the
availability of his or her associates.
The presence information that is shared varies by communications
service. The IETF has defined a Presence Information Data Format (or
PIDF [6]) for describing the presence data associated with a
presentity. The baseline PIDF specification declares only two
presence states: OPEN and CLOSED (these terms are defined in RFC 2778
[2]); the former suggests that the destination resource is able to
accept communication requests, the latter that it is not. These two
states provide useful but rudimentary insight into the communications
status of a presentity. For that reason, PIDF is an extensible
format, and new sorts of statuses can be defined for specific
communications services. For example, a telephony-based presence
service might define a status corresponding to 'busy'. Extending
PIDF for telephony services is, however, outside the scope of this
document.
4. The 'E2U+pres' Enumservice
Traditionally, the services field of an NAPTR record (as defined in
[10]) contains a string composed of two subfields: a 'protocol'
subfield and a 'resolution service' subfield. ENUM in particular
defines an 'E2U' (E.164 to URI) resolution service. This document
defines an 'E2U+pres' enumservice for presence.
The scheme of the URI that will appear in the regexp field of an
NAPTR record using the 'E2U+pres' enumservice SHOULD be the 'pres'
URI scheme. Other URI schemes appropriate to presence services MAY
be used; however, the use of the 'pres' URI scheme ensures a greater
level of compatibility than would the use of any URI specific to a
particular presence protocol. The purpose of a pres URI is to
provide a generic way to locate a presence service. Techniques for
dereferencing the pres URI to locate a presence service are given in
[5].
The 'pres' URI scheme does not identify any particular protocol that
will be used to handle presence operations (such as subscriptions and
notifications). Rather, the mechanism in [5] details a way to
discover whether the presence protocol(s) supported by the watcher
is/are also supported by the presentity. SIP [7] is one protocol
that can be used to convey presence information and manage
subscriptions/notifications.
5. Example of E2U+pres enumservice
The following is an example of the use of the enumservice registered
by this document in an NAPTR resource record.
$ORIGIN 3.8.0.0.6.9.2.3.6.1.4.4.e164.arpa.
IN NAPTR 100 10 "u" "E2U+pres" "!^.*$!pres:jon.peterson@example.net!"
6. Security Considerations
DNS does not make policy decisions about the records it shares with
an inquirer. All DNS records must be assumed to be available to all
inquirers at all times. The information provided within an ENUM
record set must therefore be considered open to the public -- which
is a cause for some privacy considerations.
Revealing a pres URI in and of itself is unlikely to introduce many
privacy concerns, although, depending on the structure of the URI, it
might reveal the full name or employer of the target. The use of
anonymous URIs mitigates this risk. More serious privacy concerns
are associated with the unauthorized distribution of presence
information. For this reason, presence protocols have a number of
security requirements (detailed in RFC 2779 [3]) that call for
authentication of watchers, integrity and confidentiality properties,
and similar measures to prevent abuse of presence information. Any
presence protocol used in conjunction with the 'pres' URI scheme is
required to meet these requirements.
Unlike a traditional telephone number, the resource identified by a
pres URI may require that callers provide cryptographic credentials
for authentication and authorization before presence information is
returned. In concert with presence protocols, ENUM can actually
provide far greater protection from unwanted callers than does the
existing PSTN, despite the public availability of ENUM records.
7. IANA Considerations
This document registers the 'E2U+pres' enumservice under the
enumservice registry described in the IANA considerations in RFC
3761. Details of the registration are given in section 2.
8. References
8.1. Normative References
[1] Faltstrom, P. and M. Mealling, "The E.164 to Uniform Resource
Identifiers (URI) Dynamic Delegation Discovery System (DDDS)
Application", RFC 3761, April 2004.
[2] Day, M., Rosenberg, J., and H. Sugano, "A Model for Presence and
Instant Messaging", RFC 2778, February 2000.
[3] Day, M., Aggarwal, S., Mohr, G., and J. Vincent, "Instant
Messaging / Presence Protocol Requirements", RFC 2779, February
2000.
[4] Peterson, J., "Common Profile for Presence (CPP)", RFC 3859,
August 2004.
[5] Peterson, J., "Address Resolution for Instant Messaging and
Presence", RFC 3861, August 2004.
8.2. Informative References
[6] Sugano, H., Fujimoto, S., Klyne, G., Bateman, A., Carr, W., and
J. Peterson, "Presence Information Data Format (PIDF)", RFC
3863, August 2004.
[7] Rosenberg, J., Schulzrinne, H., Camarillo, G., Johnston, A.,
Peterson, J., Sparks, R., Handley, M., and E. Schooler, "SIP:
Session Initiation Protocol", RFC 3261, June 2002.
[8] Mockapetris, P., "Domain Names - Concepts and Facilities", STD
13, RFC 1034, November 1987.
[9] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform
Resource Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax", RFC 2396, August
1998.
[10] Mealling, M., "Dynamic Delegation Discovery System (DDDS) Part
Three: The Domain Name System (DNS) Database", RFC 3403, October
2002.
Author's Address
Jon Peterson
NeuStar, Inc.
1800 Sutter St.
Suite 570
Concord, CA 94520
USA
Phone: +1 925/363-8720
EMail: jon.peterson@neustar.biz
URI: http://www.neustar.biz/
Full Copyright Statement
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2005).
This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions
contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors
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ISO Plain Language
On this page
§1Introduction
ENUM (E.164 Number Mapping, described in RFC 3761) is a system that uses DNS (Domain Name Service, described in RFC 1034) to translate telephone numbers, such as +12025332600, into URIs (Uniform Resource Identifiers, described in RFC 2396), such as pres:user@host.com. ENUM exists primarily to make it easier to connect systems that rely on telephone numbers with systems that use URIs to identify resources.
Presence is a service defined in RFC 2778 that lets users of a communications service watch one another's availability and disposition in order to decide how to communicate. Presence information is highly dynamic. It generally says whether a user is online or offline, busy or idle, away from communications devices or nearby, and so on.
The IETF has defined a generic URI for identifying a presence service for a particular resource: the 'pres' URI scheme, defined in the Common Profile for Presence. This document describes an enumservice for advertising presence information associated with an E.164 number.
ENUM uses DNS records to turn a phone number into an address that software can use. Presence is a service that shows whether a person is free to talk. This document adds a way for a phone number to carry a generic address for checking that person's presence.
§3Presence for E.164 Numbers
The document specifies an enumservice field that allows presence information to be provided for an E.164 number. This may include presence states associated with telephones, or the presence of non-telephony communications services advertised by ENUM.
Endpoints that take part in a presence architecture are known, following the framework in RFC 2778, as watchers and presentities. Watchers subscribe to the presence of presentities and are notified when that presence changes. Watchers generally monitor the presence of a group of presentities with whom they have an ongoing association.
The example given is a telephony service. Most cellular telephones today have an address book-like feature, a small database of names and telephone numbers. Such a telephone might act as a watcher, subscribing to the presence of some or all of the telephone numbers in its address book. When a presence-enabled telephone number is selected, the display could show its user the availability of the destination, and the user might then change their calling habits to match the availability of their associates.
The presence information that is shared varies by communications service. The IETF has defined a Presence Information Data Format (PIDF) for describing the presence data associated with a presentity. The baseline PIDF specification declares only two presence states, OPEN and CLOSED, where OPEN suggests the destination resource is able to accept communication requests and CLOSED that it is not. These two states give useful but rudimentary insight into the communications status of a presentity. PIDF is therefore extensible, and new sorts of statuses can be defined for specific communications services, for example a status corresponding to 'busy' for a telephony-based presence service. Extending PIDF for telephony services is, however, outside the scope of this document.
One side watches, the other side is watched. A watcher subscribes to a presentity and is told when its state changes. The baseline format for that state has just two values, OPEN and CLOSED, though it can be extended with more detailed ones.
§4The E2U+pres Enumservice
Traditionally the services field of a NAPTR record, as defined in RFC 3403, contains a string composed of two subfields: a 'protocol' subfield and a 'resolution service' subfield. ENUM in particular defines an 'E2U' (E.164 to URI) resolution service. This document defines an 'E2U+pres' enumservice for presence.
The scheme of the URI that appears in the regexp field of a NAPTR record using the 'E2U+pres' enumservice SHOULD be the 'pres' URI scheme. Other URI schemes appropriate to presence services MAY be used, but using the 'pres' URI scheme ensures a greater level of compatibility than using any URI specific to a particular presence protocol. The purpose of a pres URI is to provide a generic way to locate a presence service. Techniques for dereferencing the pres URI to locate a presence service are given in RFC 3861.
The 'pres' URI scheme does not identify any particular protocol that will be used to handle presence operations such as subscriptions and notifications. Rather, the mechanism in RFC 3861 details a way to discover whether the presence protocols supported by the watcher are also supported by the presentity. SIP is one protocol that can be used to convey presence information and manage subscriptions and notifications.
A NAPTR record for the number should carry a pres URI. That URI does not say which protocol to use; it is a generic pointer, and looking it up tells you which presence protocols both ends share.
§5Example of an E2U+pres NAPTR Record
The document gives one example of the enumservice it registers, in a NAPTR resource record. The origin is the ENUM tree for the number, and the record's services field is u E2U+pres, with the replacement expression producing a pres URI for the named user.
The example record is reproduced below exactly as the RFC prints it.
Here is the actual DNS record. The services field names the E2U+pres service, and the expression turns the number into a pres URI for one user.
$ORIGIN 3.8.0.0.6.9.2.3.6.1.4.4.e164.arpa.
IN NAPTR 100 10 "u" "E2U+pres" "!^.*$!pres:jon.peterson@example.net!"§6Security Considerations
DNS does not make policy decisions about the records it shares with an inquirer. All DNS records must be assumed to be available to all inquirers at all times. The information provided within an ENUM record set must therefore be considered open to the public, which is a cause for some privacy concerns.
Revealing a pres URI in itself is unlikely to introduce many privacy concerns, although, depending on the structure of the URI, it might reveal the full name or employer of the target. The use of anonymous URIs mitigates this risk. More serious privacy concerns are associated with the unauthorized distribution of presence information. For this reason, presence protocols have a number of security requirements, detailed in RFC 2779, that call for authentication of watchers, integrity and confidentiality properties, and similar measures to prevent abuse of presence information. Any presence protocol used in conjunction with the 'pres' URI scheme is required to meet these requirements.
Unlike a traditional telephone number, the resource identified by a pres URI may require that callers provide cryptographic credentials for authentication and authorization before presence information is returned. In concert with presence protocols, ENUM can therefore provide far greater protection from unwanted callers than the existing Public Switched Telephone Network does, despite the public availability of ENUM records.
Anyone can read DNS, so the ENUM record itself is public. The protection comes later: the presence service can demand credentials before it tells anyone anything.
§7IANA Considerations and the Registration
The document registers the 'E2U+pres' enumservice under the enumservice registry described in the IANA considerations in RFC 3761. The registration details are given in section 2, using the template defined in RFC 3761: the service name is "E2U+pres", the URI scheme is "pres:", the functional specification is in section 4, the security considerations are in section 6, the intended usage is COMMON, and the author is Jon Peterson of NeuStar.
This document's main act is to add one entry to the IANA registry of ENUM services, so that the name E2U+pres means a fixed thing for anyone using it.
- Service nameE2U+pres
- URI schemepres:
- Intended usageCOMMON
- Functional SpecificationSee section 4.
- Security considerationsSee section 6.
- AuthorJon Peterson