MACE administers a Uniform Resource Name (URN) namespace, supporting the assignment of unique, global, persistent names to resources of various kinds by MACE and its delegates. The Namespace Identifier (NID) of the namespace is "urn:mace".

The Informational RFC, RFC 3613, Defines the "urn:mace" namespace and describes the procedures and policies governing its use.

View current registered names in the urn:mace namespace

Other URN-related information includes:

• RFC 3406, "Uniform Resource Names (URN) Namespace Definition Mechanisms", describes how URN namespaces are registered.

• RFC 2141, "URN Syntax", defines the syntax of URNs.

• The IANA URN Namespace Registry page lists all currently registered URN Namespaces.

Some urn:mace namespaces are administered by MACE, on behalf of MACE/Internet2-related projects and services, while other namespaces are delegated to other organizations, to be administered by them. Representatives of organizations interested in registering a urn:mace namespace should first read RFC 3613, and consider the following:

• MACE operates the URN registry in support of its mission of promoting standardization and interoperability in middleware for research and education networking. MACE is pleased to consider requests consistent with that mission, and reserves the right to deny inappropriate requests.

• Stability is a key element of URN-based naming. Organizations operating urn:mace delegated namespaces agree to notify MACE <mace-submit AT internet2.edu> with any changes, including changes in contact persons, etc.

• The primary contact should be in a decision-making role for the organization and authorized to act on behalf of the organization in this capacity. The primary contact must be involved in the communication with MACE regarding the registration.
  
  
• MACE delegates URNs to the following classes of registrants:
  1. Universities and colleges, preferably with a request to register the top-level institutional domain, e.g. in the US, to register domain.edu.
  2. Corporations providing services to higher education and research, again preferably to the corp.com top-level domain for the corporation
  3. Federations, Projects, Consortia, Institutes and Projects in the higher education and research space given the following conditions:
     • The organization has a registered domain name, and the registration request is for that domain name.
     • The organization is intended to be in existence for several years at minimum
     • The primary registrant is a principal within the relevant organization and is also concurrently in the employ of a university, college or other institution of higher education
     
     Non-institutional activities seeking URNs should try to get them via a delegation from one of their supporting institutions, rather than directly from MACE.
     
     
• Discoverability is another important element of URN-based naming. Organizations are strongly encouraged to maintain accurate information describing names they have registered in their delegated namespace.
  
  
• Subspaces of delegated namespaces may be further delegated to other organizations. urn:mace delegates are encouraged to follow the same principles and procedures used by MACE in managing its delegations.

Use this form to request a urn:mace namespace.