7 INTERNET-DRAFT Kurt D. Zeilenga
8 Intended Category: Standard Track OpenLDAP Foundation
9 Expires: 26 December 2001 26 June 2001
13 LDAPv3: All Operational Attributes
14 <draft-zeilenga-ldap-opattrs-01.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 2001, The Internet Society. All Rights Reserved.
44 Please see the Copyright section near the end of this document for
50 X.500 [X.500] provides a mechanism for clients to request all
51 operational attributes be returned with entries provided in response
52 to a search operation. This mechanism is often used by clients to
53 discover which operational attributes are present in an entry.
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60 INTERNET-DRAFT draft-zeilenga-ldap-opattrs-01 26 June 2001
63 This documents updates LDAP [RFC2251] to provide a simple mechanism
64 which clients may use to request the return of all operation
65 attributes. The mechanism is designed for use with existing general
66 purpose LDAP clients (including web browsers which support LDAP URLs)
67 and existing LDAP API.
69 The key words ``MUST'', ``MUST NOT'', ``REQUIRED'', ``SHALL'', ``SHALL
70 NOT'', ``SHOULD'', ``SHOULD NOT'', ``RECOMMENDED'', and ``MAY'' in
71 this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119
75 2. All Operational Attributes
77 The presence of the attribute description "+" (ASCII 43) in the list
78 of attributes in a Search Request SHALL signify a request for the
79 return of all operational attributes.
81 As with all search requests, client implementors should note that
82 results may not include all requested attributes due to access
83 controls or other restrictions. Clients implementors should also note
84 that certain operational attributes may be returned only if requested
85 by name even when "+" is present. This is because some operational
86 attributes are very expensive to return.
88 Servers supporting this feature SHOULD publish the Object Identifier
89 1.3.6.1.4.1.4203.1.5.1 as a value of supportedFeatures [FEATURES]
90 attribute in the root DSE.
93 3. Interoperability Considerations
95 This mechanism is specifically designed to allow users to request all
96 operational attributes using existing LDAP clients. In particular,
97 the mechanism is designed to be compatible with existing general
98 purpose LDAP clients includes web browsers which support LDAP URLs
101 The addition of this mechanism to LDAPv3 is believed not to cause any
102 significant interoperability issues (this has been confirmed through
103 testing). Servers which have yet to implement this specification
104 should ignore the "+" as an unrecognized attribute description per
105 [RFC2251, Section 4.5.1]. From the client's perspective, a server
106 which does not return all operational attributes when "+" is requested
107 should be viewed as having other restrictions.
109 It is also noted that this mechanism is believed to require no
110 modification of existing LDAP APIs.
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116 INTERNET-DRAFT draft-zeilenga-ldap-opattrs-01 26 June 2001
119 4. Security Considerations
121 This document provides a mechanism which clients may use to discover
122 operational attributes. Those relying on security by obscurity SHOULD
123 implement appropriate access controls to restricts access to
124 operational attributes per local policy.
129 The "+" mechanism is believed to have been first suggested by Bruce
130 Greenblatt in a November 1998 post to the IETF LDAPext Working Group
143 [RFC2219] S. Bradner, "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
144 Requirement Levels", RFC 2119, March 1997.
146 [RFC2251] M. Wahl, T. Howes, S. Kille, "Lightweight Directory Access
147 Protocol (v3)", RFC 2251, December 1997.
149 [RFC2255] T. Howes and M. Smith, "The LDAP URL Format", RFC 2255,
152 [FEATURES] K. Zeilenga, "Feature Discovery in LDAP", draft-zeilenga-
153 ldap-features-xx.txt (a work in progress).
155 [X.500] ITU-T Rec. X.500, "The Directory: Overview of Concepts,
156 Models and Service", 1993.
159 Copyright 2001, The Internet Society. All Rights Reserved.
161 This document and translations of it may be copied and
162 furnished to others, and derivative works that comment on or
163 otherwise explain it or assist in its implementation may be
164 prepared, copied, published and distributed, in whole or in
165 part, without restriction of any kind, provided that the
166 above copyright notice and this paragraph are included on
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172 INTERNET-DRAFT draft-zeilenga-ldap-opattrs-01 26 June 2001
175 all such copies and derivative works. However, this
176 document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by
177 removing the copyright notice or references to the Internet
178 Society or other Internet organizations, except as needed
179 for the purpose of developing Internet standards in which
180 case the procedures for copyrights defined in the Internet
181 Standards process must be followed, or as required to
182 translate it into languages other than English.
184 The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will
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188 This document and the information contained herein is
189 provided on an "AS IS" basis and THE AUTHORS, THE INTERNET
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192 LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION
193 HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED
194 WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
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