INTERNET DRAFT FTP Internationalization

(IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months. Internet-Drafts may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is not appropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as a "working draft" or "work in progress". To view the entire list of current Internet-Drafts, please check the 1id-abstracts.txt listing contained in the Internet-Drafts Shadow Directories on ftp.is.co.za (Africa), The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC 2119]. Abstract The File Transfer Protocol, as defined in RFC 959 [RFC959] and RFC 1123 Section 4 [RFC1123], is one of the oldest and widely used protocols on the Internet. The protocol's primary character set, 7 bit ASCII, has served the protocol well through the early growth years of the Internet. However, as the Internet becomes more global, there is a need to support character sets beyond 7 bit ASCII. This document addresses the internationalization (I18n) of FTP, which includes supporting the multiple character sets found throughout the Internet community. This is achieved by extending the FTP specification and giving recommendations for proper internationalization support.