Skip to main content

Connection-less Lightweight X.500 Directory Access Protocol
draft-ietf-osids-cldap-01

The information below is for an old version of the document that is already published as an RFC.
Document Type
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft that was ultimately published as RFC 1798.
Author Alan Young
Last updated 2013-03-02 (Latest revision 1994-07-13)
RFC stream Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
Intended RFC status Historic
Formats
Stream WG state (None)
Document shepherd (None)
IESG IESG state Became RFC 1798 (Historic)
Action Holders
(None)
Consensus boilerplate Unknown
Telechat date (None)
Responsible AD Patrik Fältström
Send notices to <lmm@acm.org>, <montulli@netscape.com>, <koen.holtman@cern.ch>, <andy_mutz@hp.com>
draft-ietf-osids-cldap-01
Network Working Group                                       Alan Young
INTERNET-DRAFT                                        ISODE Consortium
<draft-ietf-osids-cldap-02.txt>                      Expires 01 Jan 95

         Connection-less Lightweight Directory Access Protocol

1.  Status of this Memo

This draft document will be submitted to the RFC Editor as a standards
document. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. Please send comments
to the author, or the discussion group <osi-ds@cs.ucl.ac.uk>.

This document is an Internet Draft.  Internet Drafts are working docu-
ments of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its Areas, and its
Working Groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working docu-
ments 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 docu-
ments at any time.  It is not appropriate to use Internet Drafts as ref-
erence material or to cite them other than as a "working draft" or "work
in progress."

Please check the I-D abstract listing contained in each Internet Draft
directory to learn the current status of this or any other Internet
Draft.

2.  X.500

The protocol described in this document is designed to provide access to
the Directory while not incurring the resource requirements of the
Directory Access Protocol (DAP)[3].  In particular, it is aimed at
avoiding the elapsed time that is associated with connection-oriented
communication and it facilitates use of the Directory in a manner
analagous to the DNS [5,6].  It is specifically targeted at simple
lookup applications that require to read a small number of attribute
values from a single entry.  It is intended to be a complement to DAP
and LDAP [4].  The protocol specification draws heavily on that of LDAP.

3.  Background

The Directory can be used as a repository for many kinds of information.
The full power of DAP is unnecessary for applications that require sim-
ple read access to a few attribute values. Applications addressing is a
good example of this type of use where an application entity needs to

Expires 01 Jan 95                                       [Page 1]


CLDAP                                                          June 1994

determine the Presentation Address (PA) of a peer entity given that
peer's Application Entity Title (AET). If the AET is a Directory Name
(DN) then the required result can be obtained from the PA attribute of
the Directory entry identified by the AET.  This is very similar to DNS.

Use of DAP to achieve this functionality involves a significant number
of network exchanges:

      +---+------------------------------------------------------+
      |#  |     Client (DUA)        DAP        Server (DSA)      |
      +---+------------------------------------------------------+
      | 1 | N-Connect.request       ->                           |
      | 2 |                         <-    N-Connect.response     |
      | 3 | T-Connect.request       ->                           |
      | 4 |                         <-    T-Connect.response     |
      |   | S-Connect.request,                                   |
      |   | P-Connect.request,                                   |
      |   | A-Associate.request,                                 |
      | 5 | DAP-Bind.request        ->                           |
      |   |                               S-Connect.response,    |
      |   |                               P-Connect.response,    |
      |   |                               A-Associate.response,  |
      | 6 |                         <-    DAP-Bind.response      |
      | 7 | DAP-Read.request        ->                           |
      | 8 |                         <-    DAP-Read.response      |
      |   | S-Release.request,                                   |
      |   | P-Release.request,                                   |
      |   | A-Release.request,                                   |
      | 9 | DAP-Unbind.request      ->                           |
      |   |                               S-Release.response,    |
      |   |                               P-Release.response,    |
      |   |                               A-Release.response,    |
      |10 |                         <-    DAP-Unbind.response    |
      |   | T-Disconnect.request,                                |
      |11 | N-Disconnect.request    ->                           |
      |   |                               T-Disconnect.response, |
      |12 |                         <-    N-Disconnect.response  |
      +---+------------------------------------------------------+
This is 10 packets before the application can continue, given that it
can probably do so after issuing the T-Disconnect.request.  (Some minor
variations arise depending upon the class of Network and Transport ser-
vice that is being used; for example use of TP4 over CLNS reduces the
packet count by two.) LDAP is no better in the case where the LDAP
server uses full DAP to communicate with the Directory:

Expires 01 Jan 95                                       [Page 2]


CLDAP                                                          June 1994

  +----+--------------------------------------------------------------+
  | #  |  Client     LDAP     LDAP server      DAP         DSA        |
  +----+--------------------------------------------------------------+
  | 1  | TCP SYN      ->                                              |
  | 2  |              <-    TCP SYN ACK                               |
  | 3  | BindReq      ->                                              |
  | 4  |                    N-Connect.req      ->                     |
  | 5  |                                       <-    N-Connect.res    |
  | 6  |                    T-Connect.req      ->                     |
  | 7  |                                       <-    T-Connect.res    |
  | 8  |                    DAP-Bind.req       ->                     |
  | 9  |                                       <-    DAP-Bind.res     |
  |10  |              <-    BindRes                                   |
  |11  | SearchReq    ->                                              |
  |12  |                    DAP-Search.req     ->                     |
  |13  |                                       <-    DAP-Search.res   |
  |14  |              <-    SearchRes                                 |
  |15  | TCP FIN      ->                                              |
  |16  |                    DAP-Unbind.req     ->                     |
  |17  |                                       <-    DAP-Unbind.res   |
  |18  |                    N-Disconnect.req   ->                     |
  |19  |                                       <-    N-Disconnect.res |
  +----+--------------------------------------------------------------+
Here there are 14 packets before the application can continue.  Even if
the LDAP server is on the same host as the DSA (so packet delay is neg-
ligible), or if the DSA supports LDAP directly, then there are still 6
packets.

                  +--+--------------------------------+
                  |# |  Client     LDAP   LDAP server |
                  +--+--------------------------------+
                  |1 | TCP SYN      ->                |
                  |2 |              <-    TCP SYN ACK |
                  |3 | BindReq      ->                |
                  |4 |              <-    BindRes     |
                  |5 | SearchReq    ->                |
                  |6 |              <-    SearchRes   |
                  +--+--------------------------------+

This protocol provides for simple access to the Directory where the
delays inherent in the above exchanges are unacceptable and where the
additional functionality provided by connection-mode operation is not
required.

4.  Protocol Model

CLDAP is based directly on LDAP [4] and inherits many of the key aspects
of the LDAP protocol:

Expires 01 Jan 95                                       [Page 3]


CLDAP                                                          June 1994

-    Many protocol data elements are encoding as ordinary strings (e.g.,
     Distinguished Names).

-    A lightweight BER encoding is used to encode all protocol elements.

It is different to LDAP in that:

-    Protocol elements are carried directly over UDP or other connec-
     tion-less transport, bypassing much of the session/presentation
     overhead and that of connections (LDAP uses a connection-mode
     transport service).

-    A restricted set of operations is available.

The definitions of most protocol elements are inherited from LDAP.

The general model adopted by this protocol is one of clients performing
protocol operations against servers. In this model, this is accomplished
by a client transmitting a protocol request describing the operation to
be performed to a server, which is then responsible for performing the
necessary operations on the Directory.  Upon completion of the necessary
operations, the server returns a response containing any results or
errors to the requesting client.

Note that, although servers are required to return responses whenever
such responses are defined in the protocol, there is no requirement for
synchronous behaviour on the part of either client or server implementa-
tions: requests and responses for multiple operations may be exchanged
by client and servers in any order, as long as servers eventually send a
response for every request that requires one.

Also, because the protocol is implemented over a connection-less trans-
port service clients must be prepared for either requests or responses
to be lost.  Clients should use a retry mechanism with timeouts in order
to achieve the desired level of reliability.  It is not required that a
client abandon any requests to which no response has been received and
for which a reply is no longer required (because the request has been
timed out), but they may do so.

Consistent with the model of servers performing protocol operations on
behalf of clients, it is also to be noted that protocol servers are
expected to handle referrals without resorting to the return of such
referrals to the client. This protocol makes no provisions for the
return of referrals to clients, as the model is one of servers ensuring
the performance of all necessary operations in the Directory, with only
final results or errors being returned by servers to clients.

Note that this protocol can be mapped to a strict subset of the

Expires 01 Jan 95                                       [Page 4]


CLDAP                                                          June 1994

Directory abstract service, so it can be cleanly provided by the DAP.

5.  Mapping Onto Transport Services

This protocol is designed to run over connection-less transports, with
all 8 bits in an octet being significant in the data stream.  Specifica-
tions for two underlying services are defined here, though others are
also possible.

5.1.  User Datagram Protocol (UDP)

The CLDAPMessage PDUs are mapped directly onto UDP datagrams.  Only one
request may be sent in a single datagram. Only one response may be sent
in a single datagram.  Server implementations running over the UDP
should provide a protocol listener on port 389.

5.2.  Connection-less Transport Service (CLTS)

Each LDAPMessage PDU is mapped directly onto T-Unit-Data.

6.  Elements of Protocol

CLDAP messages are defined by the following ASN.1:

    CLDAPMessage ::= SEQUENCE {
        messageID       MessageID,
        user            LDAPDN,         -- on request only --
        protocolOp      CHOICE {
                        searchRequest   SearchRequest,
                        searchResponse  SEQUENCE OF
                                            SearchResponse,
                        abandonRequest  AbandonRequest
        }
    }

where MessageID, LDAPDN, SearchRequest, SearchResponse and AbandonRe-
quest are defined in the LDAP protocol.

The 'user' element is supplied only on requests (it should be zero
length and is ignored in responses). It may be used for logging purposes
but it is not required that a CLDAP server implementation apply any par-
ticular semantics to this field.

Editor's note:
     There has been some discussion about the desirability of authenti-
     cation with CLDAP requests and the addition of the fields necessary
     to support this. This might take the form of a clear text password
     (which would go against the current IAB drive to remove such things

Expires 01 Jan 95                                       [Page 5]


CLDAP                                                          June 1994

     from protocols) or some arbitrary credentials. Such a field is not
     included.  It is felt that, in general, authentication would incur
     sufficient overhead to negate the advantages of the connectionless
     basis of CLDAP.  If an application requires authenticated access to
     the Directory then CLDAP is not an appropriate protocol.

Within a searchResponse all but the last SearchResponse has choice
'entry' and the last SearchResponse has choice 'resultCode'.  Within a
searchResponse, as an encoding optimisation, the value of the objectName
LDAP DN may use a trailing '*' character to refer to the baseObject of
the corresponding searchRequest.  For example, if the baseObject is
specified as "o=UofM, c=US", then the following objectName LDAPDNs in a
response would have the indicated meanings

          objectName returned   actual LDAPDN denoted
          -----------------------------------------------------
          "*"                   "o=UofM, c=US"
          "cn=Babs Jensen, *"   "cn=Babs Jensen, o=UofM, c=US"

6.1.  Errors

The following error code is added to the LDAPResult.resultCode enumera-
tion of [4]:

                             resultsTooLarge              (70),

This error is returned when the LDAPMessage PDU containing the results
of an operation are too large to be sent in a single datagram.

6.2.  Example

A simple lookup can be performed in 4 packets. This is reduced to 2 if
either the DSA implements the CLDAP protocol, the CLDAP server has a
cache of the desired results, or the CLDAP server and DSA are co-located
such that there is insignificant delay between them.

    +--+-----------------------------------------------------------+
    |# |  Client     CLDAP    CLDAP server    DAP        DSA       |
    +--+-----------------------------------------------------------+
    |1 | SearchReq    ->                                           |
    |2 |                     DAP-Search.req   ->                   |
    |3 |                                      <-    DAP-Search.res |
    |4 |              <-     SearchRes                             |
    +--+-----------------------------------------------------------+

Expires 01 Jan 95                                       [Page 6]


CLDAP                                                          June 1994

7.  Implementation Considerations

The following subsections provide guidance on the implementation of
clients and servers using the CLDAP protocol.

7.1.  Server Implementations

Given that the goal of this protocol is to minimise the elapsed time
between making a Directory request and receiving the response, a server
which uses DAP to access the directory should use techniques that assist
in this.

-    A server should remain bound to the Directory during reasonably
     long idle periods or should remain bound permanently.

-    Cacheing of results is highly desirable but this must be tempered
     by the need to provide up-to-date results given the lack of a cache
     invalidation protocol in DAP (either implicit via timers or
     explicit) and the lack of a dontUseCopy service control in the pro-
     tocol.

Of course these issues are irrelevant if the CLDAP protocol is directly
supported by a DSA.

7.2.  Client Implementations

For simple lookup applications, use of a retry algorithm with multiple
servers similar to that commonly used in DNS stub resolver implementa-
tions is recommended.  The location of a CLDAP server or servers may be
better specified using IP addresses (simple or broadcast) rather than
names that must first be looked up in another directory such as DNS.

8.  Security Considerations

This protocol provides no facilities for authentication. It is expected
that servers will bind to the Directory either anonymously or using sim-
ple authentication without a password.

9.  Bibliography

[1]  The Directory: Overview of Concepts, Models and Service.  CCITT
     Recommendation X.500, 1988

[2]  The Directory: Models.  CCITT Recommendation X.501 ISO/IEC JTC
     1/SC21; International Standard 9594-2, 1988

[3]  The Directory: Abstract Service Definition.  CCITT Recommendation
     X.511, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC21; International Standard 9594-3, 1988

Expires 01 Jan 95                                       [Page 7]


CLDAP                                                          June 1994

[4]  X.500 Lightweight Directory Access Protocol.  W. Yeong, T. Howes,
     S. Kille; RFC 1487, July 1993.

[5]  Domain names - implementation and specification.  P. Mockapetris;
     RFC 1035, November 1987.

[6]  Domain names - concepts and facilities.  P. Mockapetris; RFC 1034,
     November 1987.

10.  Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Tim Howes and Steve Kille for their detailed comments and
to other members of the working group.

This work was initiated by the Union Bank of Switzerland.

11.  Author's Addresses

   Alan Young
   ISODE Consortium
   The Dome, The Square
   RICHMOND
   GB - TW9 1DT

   Phone:    +44 81 332 9091
   Internet: <A.Young@isode.com>
   X.400:    i=A; s=Young; o=ISODE Consortium; p=ISODE; a=MAILNET; c=FI

Expires 01 Jan 95                                       [Page 8]