7 INTERNET-DRAFT Kurt D. Zeilenga
8 Intended Category: Standard Track OpenLDAP Foundation
9 Expires in six months 17 May 2002
13 LDAPv3: All Operational Attributes
14 <draft-zeilenga-ldap-opattrs-03.txt>
19 This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with all
20 provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026.
22 This document is intended to be, after appropriate review and
23 revision, submitted to the RFC Editor as a Standard Track document.
24 Distribution of this memo is unlimited. Technical discussion of this
25 document will take place on the IETF LDAP Extensions Working Group
26 mailing list <ietf-ldapext@netscape.com>. Please send editorial
27 comments directly to the author <Kurt@OpenLDAP.org>.
29 Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task
30 Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other
31 groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts.
32 Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
33 and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
34 time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
35 material or to cite them other than as ``work in progress.''
37 The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at
38 <http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt>. The list of
39 Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at
40 <http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html>.
42 Copyright 2002, The Internet Society. All Rights Reserved.
44 Please see the Copyright section near the end of this document for
50 The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) supports a mechanism
51 for requesting the return of all user attributes but does not all
52 operational attributes. This document describes an LDAP extension
53 which clients may use to request the return of all operational
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60 INTERNET-DRAFT draft-zeilenga-ldap-opattrs-03 17 May 2002
65 X.500 [X.500] provides a mechanism for clients to request all
66 operational attributes be returned with entries provided in response
67 to a search operation. This mechanism is often used by clients to
68 discover which operational attributes are present in an entry.
70 This documents extends LDAP [RFC2251] to provide a simple mechanism
71 which clients may use to request the return of all operation
72 attributes. The mechanism is designed for use with existing general
73 purpose LDAP clients (including web browsers which support LDAP URLs)
74 and existing LDAP API.
76 The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
77 "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
78 document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119].
81 2. All Operational Attributes
83 The presence of the attribute description "+" (ASCII 43) in the list
84 of attributes in a Search Request SHALL signify a request for the
85 return of all operational attributes.
87 As with all search requests, client implementors should note that
88 results may not include all requested attributes due to access
89 controls or other restrictions. Clients implementors should also note
90 that certain operational attributes may be returned only if requested
91 by name even when "+" is present. This is because some operational
92 attributes are very expensive to return.
94 Servers supporting this feature SHOULD publish the Object Identifier
95 1.3.6.1.4.1.4203.1.5.1 as a value of the supportedFeatures [FEATURES]
96 attribute in the root DSE.
99 3. Interoperability Considerations
101 This mechanism is specifically designed to allow users to request all
102 operational attributes using existing LDAP clients. In particular,
103 the mechanism is designed to be compatible with existing general
104 purpose LDAP clients includes web browsers which support LDAP URLs
107 The addition of this mechanism to LDAPv3 is believed not to cause any
108 significant interoperability issues (this has been confirmed through
109 testing). Servers which have yet to implement this specification
110 should ignore the "+" as an unrecognized attribute description per
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116 INTERNET-DRAFT draft-zeilenga-ldap-opattrs-03 17 May 2002
119 [RFC2251, Section 4.5.1]. From the client's perspective, a server
120 which does not return all operational attributes when "+" is requested
121 should be viewed as having other restrictions.
123 It is also noted that this mechanism is believed to require no
124 modification of existing LDAP APIs.
127 4. Security Considerations
129 This document provides a mechanism which clients may use to discover
130 operational attributes. Those relying on security by obscurity SHOULD
131 implement appropriate access controls to restricts access to
132 operational attributes per local policy.
135 5. IANA Considerations
137 No IANA assignments are requested.
139 This document uses the OID 1.3.6.1.4.1.4203.1.5.1 to identify the
140 feature described above. This OID was assigned [ASSIGN] by OpenLDAP
141 Foundation under its IANA assigned private enterprise allocation
142 [PRIVATE] for use in this specification.
147 The "+" mechanism is believed to have been first suggested by Bruce
148 Greenblatt in a November 1998 post to the IETF LDAPext Working Group
159 8. Normative References
161 [RFC2119] S. Bradner, "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
162 Requirement Levels", BCP 14 (also RFC 2119), March 1997.
164 [RFC2251] M. Wahl, T. Howes, S. Kille, "Lightweight Directory Access
165 Protocol (v3)", RFC 2251, December 1997.
170 Zeilenga LDAP All Op Attrs [Page 3]
172 INTERNET-DRAFT draft-zeilenga-ldap-opattrs-03 17 May 2002
175 [FEATURES] K. Zeilenga, "Feature Discovery in LDAP", draft-zeilenga-
176 ldap-features-xx.txt (a work in progress).
179 9. Informative References
181 [RFC2255] T. Howes and M. Smith, "The LDAP URL Format", RFC 2255,
184 [X.500] ITU-T Rec. X.500, "The Directory: Overview of Concepts,
185 Models and Service", 1993.
187 [ASSIGN] OpenLDAP Foundation, "OpenLDAP OID Delegations",
188 http://www.openldap.org/foundation/oid-delegate.txt.
190 [PRIVATE] IANA, "Private Enterprise Numbers",
191 http://www.iana.org/assignments/enterprise-numbers.
194 Copyright 2002, The Internet Society. All Rights Reserved.
196 This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
197 others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
198 or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and
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200 provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
201 included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this
202 document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
203 the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
204 Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of
205 developing Internet standards in which case the procedures for
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207 or as required to translate it into languages other than English.
209 The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
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