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Open records

The IETF operates in an open and transparent fashion and we publish open records of most of the contributions, submissions, statements, and communications that we receive.

NOTE: Please see our Privacy Statement for full details of our approach to transparency and details of what we do not make public. For details of how IETF contributions are licensed please see the IETF Trust website.

Our open records are mix of document based data such as email messages or meeting minutes, structured data such as details of Working Groups, and raw data such as statistics on meeting attendance. Our records are available through a mix online tools and direct access. The tools provide additional features, better context and managed workflows, while the direct access mechanisms are more suited for local processing or archival purposes.

Key access tools

  • Datatracker. Through this tool you can find public data on all of our published documents (RFCs and Internet-Drafts), working groups and teams, meetings and proceedings, IPR disclosures, liaison statements and statistics. There are also details of how to use the datatracker API to access data programmatically.
  • Mail Archive. This allows you to search the archives of all of our public mailing lists. It provides a unique and permanent URL for every email message received.
  • RFC Editor website. This provides access to all RFCs in a variety of formats through a number of mechanisms.
  • This website. Additionally, our website has pages on meetings (past and upcoming), policies and groups/teams.

Statistics dashboards

Direct access to documents, records and raw data

Direct access is provided through two mechanisms: rsync at rsync.ietf.org and HTTP at www.ietf.org.

The following table explains what is available through what mechanism. The names are not consistent between services and so the rsync name is used if it exists, otherwise the next best is used.

Directory contents Rsync name HTTPS URL under ietf.org
Repository of WG Charters charter /charter
IANA Time Zone Database NOT AVAILABLE BY RSYNC /timezones
The Internet Draft Archive (active and expired) id-archive /archive
The Internet Draft Repository (currently active) internet-drafts /id/
Repository of Proceedings proceedings /proceedings {1}
Repository of RFCs rfc /rfc
Repository of Slide Documents slides /slides
IANA assignments NOT AVAILABLE BY RSYNC /assignments {2}
A grouping of some of these records everything-ftp /ietf-ftp
Older list text archives concluded-wg-ietf-mail-archive /ietf-ftp/concluded-wg-ietf-mail-archive
Repository of Conflict Review documents conflict-reviews /ietf-ftp/conflict-reviews
Repository of Mailing List Text Archives mailman-archive /ietf-ftp/ietf-mail-archive
/mail-archive/text
Repository of Status Change Documents status-changes /ietf-ftp/status-changes
IESG Minutes iesg-minutes NOT AVAILABLE BY HTTPS
Legacy material supporting long-lived URLs legacy-files NOT AVAILABLE BY HTTPS
The xml2rfc citation libraries xml2rfc.bibxml NOT AVAILABLE BY HTTPS
Jabber group chat logs NOT AVAILABLE BY RSYNC /jabber/logs
Old website from 2009 NOT AVAILABLE BY RSYNC /old
Raw audio from IETF 105 and IETF 106 NOT AVAILABLE BY RSYNC /audio
ID and RFC indices NOT AVAILABLE BY RSYNC /download
YANG modules NOT AVAILABLE BY RSYNC /ietf-ftp/yang

Notes:

  • {1} Directory listing forbidden (error 403) but access to individual files is allowed
  • {2} Redirects to IANA website

Review of these archives

We regularly review the contents of these records and the mechanisms by which they are provided and as a result of that, may delete some records or cease mechanisms in the future.

IETF LLC transparency report

The IETF LLC publishes regular updates on government requests and disclosures made about the infrastructure we operate and information we maintain.