RFC links are broken

[JulianMaurin]

Documentation

Hello 👋
RFC hyperlinks present on https://docs.python.org are broken.

It's impacting the documentation version from 3.5.X to 3.10.X and any link to RFC.

Example:

• https://docs.python.org/3.10/library/urllib.parse.html
• https://docs.python.org/3.5/library/urllib.parse.html
• https://docs.python.org/3.10/library/email.utils.html?highlight=rfc#email.utils.decode_rfc2231

Links are targeting https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfcXXXX.html (redirecting to https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfcXXXX.html.html).

The correct address seems to be https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfcXXXX.html but I notice the usage of https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfcXXXX.html on the python 3.12.X documentation.

Not sure there is not already something about this issue, if it's the case sorry but I was not able to find it.

[hugovk]

The RFC links are built using the Sphinx RFC role, like :rfc:`1808`

Sphinx itself expands these out to the full links.

I see Sphinx updated the RFC base URL in sphinx-doc/sphinx#9858:

-    'rfc_base_url': 'https://tools.ietf.org/html/',`
+    'rfc_base_url': 'https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/',

As mentioned in that PR:

The tools.ietf.org subdomain is being wound down and services are moving to
datatracker.ietf.org. Links to RFC documents using the old subdomain are being
redirected to datatracker; this updates the configured rfc_base_url to
point to the current subdomain.

Discussion: mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf/0n-6EXEmkTp3Uv_vj-5Vnm3o0bo

That change was released in Sphinx 4.4.0 (released Jan 2022).

---

main/3.12 and 3.11 are already on sphinx==4.5.0:

• https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/main/Doc/requirements.txt
• https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/3.11/Doc/requirements.txt

But 3.10 is on sphinx==3.4.3:

• https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/3.10/Doc/requirements.txt

And 3.9 and 3.8 are on sphinx==2.4.4:

• https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/3.9/Doc/requirements.txt
• https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/3.8/Doc/requirements.txt

And 3.7 is on Sphinx==2.3.1:

• https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/3.7/Doc/Makefile

[merwok]

Welcoming pull requests that add the RFC base URL setting to our sphinx config!

[JulianMaurin]

Welcoming pull requests that add the RFC base URL setting to our sphinx config!

One my way 🚀

[hugovk]

Ping also @rjsparks (author of the above-mentioned https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf/0n-6EXEmkTp3Uv_vj-5Vnm3o0bo/):

It looks like there's a problem with the RFC redirects. For example:

https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc123.html

redirects to

https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc123.html.html

Note the double .html.html

If I remove a surplus .html then it works:

https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc123.html

@rjsparks - please could you check the redirects? Thank you!

[JulianMaurin]

Ping also @rjsparks (author of the above-mentioned mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf/0n-6EXEmkTp3Uv_vj-5Vnm3o0bo):

It looks like there's a problem with the RFC redirects. For example:

https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc123.html

redirects to

https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc123.html.html

Note the double .html.html

If I remove a surplus .html then it works:

https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc123.html

@rjsparks - please could you check the redirects? Thank you!

It seems that the problem has already been solved. I assume that something has been done about the redirection?
If it's the case, I'm interested about what was the fix, thanks

[rjsparks]

The redirect rule needed tuning.

[merwok]

Thanks for fixing it and letting us know!

Keeping this ticket open for PRs, we might as well generate canonical links and avoid redirections.
Links in people’s browsers may change from visited to unvisited, but I don’t think it’s a concern here.

[ambv]

I don't think this should be addressed in security fixes-only branches as they don't include regular documentation updates. As such, I think this is fixed. Thanks, all! ✨ 🍰 ✨