SRS specification

The SRS protocol uses messages in an XML format for system requests and responses. The protocol is available in DTD, Relax NG and XSD. All three version are part of the download packages. Individual parts of the protocol are covered in depth throughout the Internet-Draft.

The SRS works in a connection−oriented fashion with no session state. The registrar sends a request to the registry containing commands to be executed by the NZ-SRS. The result of processing these commands is returned as the response. Each registrar request receives a response containing the result of processing all of the requests in a single request.

A Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) is used to manage issues of security, authentication of requests and responses and non−repudiation of actions. This is achieved by signing a checksum of the XML message with the sender’s private key, using a SHA1 checksum.

The specification of SRS and a description of the communication protocol used by the system is available in IETF I-D format but has not been accepted as an RFC:

text/plain iconInternet-Draft on the IETF webpage (refers to IETF website)

Specification documents
application/pdf iconDetailed Requirements Specifications
 263K

This document identifies

  • the key players involved in the SRS system, and explains their interest in the way the SRS will behave
  • the business requirements of the SRS users, in terms of what they actually require from the system, and of some of the constraints that this will place on the SRS.  Because of the technical nature of the SRS, it then moves on to explain the services that the SRS will provide to meet these requirements.
  • the key data that will need to be handled by the SRS, on behalf of the users identified above.

Registrars