INTERNET-DRAFT                                      Roland Hedberg
<draft-ietf-ids-ph-01.txt>                         Umea University
Expires: February, 1997                               Steve Dorner
                                                      Qualcomm Inc
                                                      Paul Pomes
                                                      Qualcomm Inc



        The CCSO Nameserver (Ph) Architecture




Status of this Memo

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Abstract


   The PH Nameserver from the [Computing and Communications Services
   Office (CCSO),] University of Illinois at
   Urbana-Champaign has for some time now been used by several
   organizations as their choice of publicly available database
   for information about people as well as other things.
   It is now widely felt that the Internet community would benefit
   from having a more rigorous definition of the client-server
   protocol, this document will hopefully achieve that goal.
   The Ph service as specified in this document is built around
   an information model, a client command language and the server
   responses.



1. Overview

1.1 Basic Information Model

   At its simplest, the Ph database can be thought of as a computer
   resident "phone book". However, it can be used to collect arbitrary
   information about people or things, and in response to a query
   about an object named in the database, return information about that
   entity. It is in short a nameserver for people and objects.
   It was designed to keep a relatively small amount
   of arbitrary information about a relatively large number of people
   or things, and provide access to that information over the Internet.
   In order to structure the information the manager of the database has to
   decide which views he wants to present of the real-world objects that
   are to be represented in the database. Each view is then composed of
   a number of fields and their values.
   To support this concept Ph has the notion of named information; that
   is categorizing information into what are called fields and assigning
   descriptive names to those fields.

   Even if the database resides and is reachable from the Internet
   it is local in the meaning that no server is supposed to be able to
   refer a client to another server which might hold the wanted
   information. However a server may contain a list of other Nameservers
   which can be used by clients to query other Nameservers for information.

1.1.1 Fields

   A field descriptor is associated with each field and is used
   to describe the type and behavior of the field.
   A field descriptor includes the fieldname, the maximum length of
   the field, keywords describing the properties of the field as
   well as free text describing what kind of information the field
   is supposed to hold.

   The keywords can be one of the following :

   Always:  Forces the field's contents to be always printed in addition
            to whatever fields specified by the query.

   Any:     This field is always searched by queries.

   Change:  Can be changed by the owner of the entry.

   Default: Printed if no return clause is given in the query.

   Encrypt: Must be encrypted before transmission.

   ForcePub: Viewable/searchable regardless of the content of the
            suppress field

   Indexed: At least one indexed field must be present in each
            query. The indexed fields should be handled by the
            server in such away as to make searches on these fields
            especially efficient.


   LocalPub: May be viewed by anyone in the "local" domain or
            address space. Fields with the LocalPub property
            are completely invisible outside of the "local"
            domain and will not be shown with the fields
            command (section 3.4), is disallowed in query/ph
            commands (section 3.9), and can not be used in
            return clauses (section 3.10) for anyone outside of
            the "local" domain.

   Lookup:  May be used in the selection part of a query; a field
            not marked Lookup may not be used to select entries.

   NoMeta:  Wildcard searches are disallowed.

   NoPeople: No entry of type "person" may include this field.

   Public:  May be viewed by anyone, fields not marked public may
            only be viewed by the entry's owner or a hero.

   Turn:    Users may turn off visibility of a field to everyone
            except himself and heros by prefixing the field text
            with '*' .

 1.1.2 Character Sets

   Historically Ph has been restricted to only handle printable characters,
   that is characters with hexadecimal values between 0x20 and 0x7f.
   Lately with the spreading of 8-bit clean Operating Systems there
   is no reason to keep this limitation.

   This document therefore proposes that ISO-8859-1 shall be regarded
   as an alternative characterset for PH, the default still being US-ASCII.

   If a client can handle ISO-8859-1 it should request the server
   to return ISO-8859-1 by using the "set"-command.

1.2 Standardization issues

   Each Nameserver manager is in essence free to name new
   fields to suit the special needs of his/her organization.
   But in order to make the directory service useful even outside
   of the organization it is recommended that a core set of
   standard fields always should be present.

   Therefore this document defines a couple of standard collections
   of fields (Appendix A).

   Also note that the architecture makes no assumption about the
   search and retrieval mechanisms used within individual servers.
   Operators are thereby free to use any kind of dedicated databases,
   fast indexing software or even gateways to other directory
   services to store and retrieve the information, if desired.

   The Ph simply functions as a known front-end, offering
   a simple data model as well as a well known port and simple query
   language.


1.3 Conventions Used in this Document

   In examples, "C:" and "S:" indicate lines sent by the client and
   server respectively.


1.4 A hero

   For Ph a hero is equivalent to a superuser. Being in hero mode
   means that all artificial limits are removed; the hero may change
   any field in any entry in the database, as well as view as many
   entries as he wishes. Hero mode is used mostly for administrative
   purposes.


2. Basic Operation

   Initially, the server host starts the Ph service by listening on
   TCP port 105. When a client host wishes to make use of the service,
   it establishes a TCP connection to the server host. The client
   and the Ph server then exchanges commands and responses
   (respectively) until the connection is closed or aborted.

2.1 Command syntax

   Commands in Ph consist of a keyword optionally followed by zero or
   more keywords or values, separated by spaces, tabs or newlines,
   and followed by a carriage return-linefeed (CRLF) pair.
   A more thorough description using BNF is given in Appendix C.

   Values containing spaces, tabs or newlines must be enclosed
   in double quotes ('"') .
   In addition the sequences "\n", "\t","\"" and "\\" may be used to
   mean newline, tab, double quote and backslash, respectively.

   Keywords must be given in lower case; case in the values of
   fields is preserved, although queries are not case-sensitive.


2.2 Response syntax

   Responses consist of a result code followed by additional
   information possibly separated by entry index and/or field name
   and are terminated by a CRLF pair.

      result code:[entry index:][field name:]text

   Responses to some commands might be multi-lined. In these cases
   each line, except the last, in the response has the appropriate
   result code, negated (prefaced with "-").
   The last line then starts with the appropriate result code,
   without negation.
   Each line must be terminated by a CRLF pair.

   If a particular command can apply to more than one entry,
   then the multilined response must be so organized that all
   information pertaining to one entry is return on consecutive
   lines, and that all those lines must have one and the same
   entry index directly following the resultcode.
   The first entry index should be 1, and be incremented each time
   a new entry is being referred to.

   C: query hedberg return email name title
   S: 102:There were 3 matches to your request.
   S: -200:1:        email: canheg95@student.umu.se
   S: -200:1:         name: Carl Johan Hedberg
   S: -200:1:        title: Student
   S: -200:2:        email: parheg95@student.umu.se
   S: -200:2:         name: Par Hedberg
   S: -200:2:        title: Student
   S: -200:3:        email: Roland.Hedberg@umdac.umu.se
   S: -200:3:         name: Roland Hedberg
   S: -200:3:        title: Boss of the Network group
   S: 200:Ok

   Commands that can apply to more than one field must have the name
   of the field to which the response applies directly following the
   entry index.

   The text of the response will be either an error message intended
   for human consumption, or data from the Nameserver.  Whitespace
   (spaces or tabs) may appear anywhere in the response, but the field
   name and text columns if present must each begin with a whitespace
   character.

   Since more than one specific piece of information may be manipu-
   lated by a particular command, it is possible for parts of a com-
   mand to succeed, while other parts of the same command fail.
   This situation is handled as a single multi-line response, with
   the result code changing as appropriate.

   As for FTP, the result codes are in the range 100-699 (or from
   -699 to -100 for multiline responses), where the leading digit
   has the following significance:

       1: In progress
       2: Success
       3: More information needed
       4: Temporary failure; it may be worthwhile to try again.
       5: Permanent failure
       6: Phquery specific codes

   Many commands generate more than one line of response; every
   client should be prepared to deal with such continued responses.
   Note that a command is finished when and only when the result
   code on a response line (treated as a signed integer) is greater
   than or equal to 200.

   Clients should not make any assumptions as to which numeric
   responses, within the above mentioned ranges that are valid.
   Also note that the server is allowed to send one or more lines
   with resultcodes between -199 - -100 and 100 - 199, as status
   information, before the actual results are transmitted.


2.5 Format of a searchstring

   Matching is not sensitive to upper or lower case letters and is
   normally done on a word-by-word basis. That is, both the query
   expression and the entry information is broken up into words,
   and individual words are compared using exact matching.
   If the order of the words are important in a query, then the
   querystring can be surrounded by '"', whereby the complete
   searchstring is matched against the information in the Nameserver
   database.

   Word delimiters are the following characters:
   <SPACE>,<TAB>,<NEWLINE>,",",";" and ":" .
   These characters are not indexed and should not be part of
   the searchstring.

   However, special symbols, called "wildcard" characters, can be
   used if the exact spelling is unknown.
   The '*' (asterisk, 0x2A ) is used in place of zero or more characters,
   '+' (plus, 0x2B ) in place of one or more unknown characters,
   and '?' (questionmark, 0x3F ) can be used when exactly one character
   is unknown. If the unknown character can be one of a limited set
   this can be specified by surrounding the set with brackets eg. [ei]
   means that in that place a 'e' or a 'i' would match.

3. Commands

3.1 status

   Prints the current status of the nameserver

   C: status
   S: 200:Database ready

3.2 siteinfo - optional

   Returns information about the servers site.
     Maildomain - domain to use for phquery-type mail.
     Mailfield - field to use for phquery-type mail.
     Mailbox - field to use as maildrop
     Administrator - guru in charge of service.
     Passwords - person in charge of ordinary password/change requests.
     Authenticate - authentication methods supported by the server,
       ordered in the site-preferred way. Presently the following
       options are defined:
         1  attempt auto login
         2  allowed to be interactive if needed
         4  use FWTK auth server
         8  use v4 Kerberos login
        16  use v5 Kerberos login
        32  use GSS-API login
        64  use email login
       128  password encrypted response to challenge
       256  use clear-text password

   C: siteinfo
   S: -200:1:maildomain:umu.se
   S: -200:2:mailfield:alias
   S: -200:3:mailbox:email
   S: -200:4:administrator:roland.hedberg@umdac.umu.se
   S: -200:5:passwords:roland.hedberg@umdac.umu.se
   S: -200:6:authenticate:64:32:128
   S: 200: Ok.


3.4 fields

   fields [field ...]

   Without an argument, a list of all available field
   descriptors should be delivered.  Fields marked with the
   "LocalPub" property (Section 1.1.1) should not be delivered
   outside of the local domain .

   The output of the command consists of two lines describing
   each field.
   The first line defines the field in technical terms (max length and
   field attributes), while the second line is a brief description of
   what the field is intended to hold.
   The second number of each response is the field id number.

   C: fields
   S: -200:6:alias:max 32 Indexed Lookup Public Default
   S: -200:6:alias:Unique name for user.
   S: -200:3:name:max 64 Indexed Lookup Public Default
   S: -200:3:name:Fullname
   S: -200:2:email:max 128 Lookup Public Default
   S: -200:2:email:Account to receive electronic mail.
   S: -200:16:other:max 256 Lookup Public Default Change
   S: -200:16:other:Other info the user finds important.
   S: -200:33:home_phone:max 60 Lookup Public Change Turn
   S: -200:33:home_phone:Home telephone number.
   S: 200:Ok.

3.5 id

   id information

   Enters the given information in the Namerserver's log. This command
   is used by the Ph client to enter the user id of the
   person running it.

3.6 set

   set [option=[value] ...]

   Sets an option for this nameserver session.
   Used without arguments it return the setable options.

   C: set verbose=off
   S: 200:Done.

   C: set
   S: -200:echo:off
   S: -200:limit:2
   S: -200:characterset:iso-8859-1
   S: -200:verbose:off
   S: -200:addonly:off
   S: -200:nolog:off
   S: 200:Done.

3.7 login, logout, answer, clear, email, and xlogin

   login [your-alias]

   The "login" command allows you to identify yourself to the
   Nameserver.  More specifically, it identifies you with a particular
   entry in the Nameserver and allows you to change the fields in that
   entry and possibly other entry. It is also necessary to be logged
   in to the Nameserver to view certain sensitive fields in your own
   entry.

   In order to use the "login" command, you must know both your ph
   alias and your ph password.  The dialogue as it appears to the user:

   C: login foo
   S: Enter nameserver password:
   C: bar
   S: 200:foo:Hi how are you?

3.7.1 logout

   logout

   The "logout" command allows a user who is logged in to the
   Nameserver to logout.

   C: logout
   S: 200:Ok.

3.7.2 answer

   answer encrypted-response

   In response to the login command, the Nameserver responds with a
   random challenge string. The Nameserver client encrypts the challenge
   with the password supplied by the user and returns it in the "answer"
   command:

   C: login p-pomes
   S: 301:.%$&.D^67$*1?<.2S@DR:Z@M*)AV-<:4QM>#R>M*HT
   C: answer M5K'F:NI(a?M?O2+-a9`48RA#ZF=L9)G)\XRS7Q^0>0@-R7X$WGb`50B]
   S: 200:p-pomes:Hi how are you?

   The encryption algorithm is based on a three rotor Enigma engine.
   There are known attacks on the security of this approach.

3.7.3 clear

   clear cleartext-password

   The "clear" command can be used instead of the "answer" command to
   complete a login sequence.  It's argument is the user's cleartext
   password.  This command is supplied only to support those clients
   that have not implemented the encryption engine used by the "answer"
   command.  Availability of this command in the server is a compile-time
   setting.  It's use is strongly discouraged.

   C: login p-pomes
   S: 301:E=@Y&VW^_9YVI;D5.[EB0:B)9Z#_&X$:2)\L$VJC87
   C: clear MySecret
   S: 200:p-pomes:Hi how are you?

3.7.4 email

   email local-userid

   The "email" command can also be used instead of the "answer" command
   to complete a login sequence.  The value of local-userid is the user's
   login name on the local machine.  If all of the following conditions are
   true, then the email command will be accepted by the server:

   1) The connection to the server originates on port 1023 or less on the
      client.
   2) The canonical name of the client's host matches the right-hand side
      of the email address of the requested alias specified in the "login"
      command.
   3) The "local-userid" matches the left-hand side of the email address
      belonging to the requested alias.

3.7.5 xlogin

   xlogin option alias

   Extended login command for GSS, Kerberos v4 and v5, SNK/4, etc.
   The option is one of the values returned in the Authenticate field
   of the "siteinfo" command (section 3.2).  Alias is the user's alias

   C: xlogin 16 p-pomes
   S: 301:DoKrbLogin started; send Kerberos mutual authenticator.
   C: answer Ja8QO1cJHYz2IdWyg7uhAnixVqgCZQBWr64ciXYku1ktdu....
   S: 200:p-pomes:Hi how are you?

   C: xlogin 4 p-pomes
   S: 302:SNK Challenge "024142":
   C: answer 82344338
   S: 200:p-pomes:Hi how are you?

   The answer command returns the requested quantity, Kerberos authenticator,
   SNK/4 response, etc.  Binary quantities are first base-64 encoded.

3.8 add

   add field=value...

   This command is used to add new entries to the database.
   You must be logged in and have special privileges to use "add".

   C: add name="doe john" id="123456789" alias="j-doe"
   S: 200:Ok.

3.9 query/ph

   query [field=]value [field=value] . . . [return field1 [field2]]

   If no field is specified together with a value then the field
   is assumed to be "name" and/or "nickname".
   When more than one field-value specification are given in a query,
   entries matching all specifications are returned (implicit AND).

   It if possible to define which fields should be returned by adding
   a 'return' clause. If no return clause is defined the Ph server will
   return a default list of fields. A return clause consists of the
   word "return" followed by a list of fields or the word "all".
   If the word "all" is used the all viewable fields will be
   returned.

3.10 delete

   delete [field=]value...

   This command is used to delete entire new entries from the database.
   You must be logged in and have special privileges to use "delete".

   The arguments to the "delete" command are the same as the selection
   part of a "query" command.  "Delete" finds all the entries that
   match the argument(s) and deletes them.

   The "delete" command obeys the Nameserver "limit" option, which can
   be used to prevent deletion of more entries than intended.

3.11 make

   make field="value"...

   The "make" command allows you to change fields in your own Nameserver
   entry. In order to use the "make" command, you must first login to the
   Nameserver.

3.11 force

   force field="value"

   The "force" command overrides the encryption requirement for fields
   such as password that have the Encrypt property.

3.13 change

   change [field=]value make field="value"...

   This command is used to change one or more fields to the values
   specified.  The "change" command consists of two clauses, the
   "change" clause and the "make" clause.  The "change" clause
   determines which entries will be affected by the command.  It uses
   the same arguments as the selection clause of a "query" command.
   The "make" clause specifies which field(s) will be changed and the
   new value(s) of the specified field(s).

   You must be logged in to use "change".

   Change differs from the "make" command in that it can modify
   multiple Ph entries simultaneously.

   The "change" command obeys the Nameserver "limit" option, which can
   be used to prevent changing the field contents of more entries than
   intended.

3.14 help

   help [{native|client} [topic ...]]

   Prints help on the Nameserver as such or on specific clients .
   If client is specified, it should be a valid Nameserver client
   identifier, such as "ph".
   The client-specific help will first be searched for topic, and
   then the native help will be searched. If topic is omitted, a
   list of all available help texts will be returned. If "native"
   or client are also omitted, a list of clients will be returned.

   C: help native 101
   S: 101:
   S:  The Nameserver echo option is set. The text of this response
   S:  is the command you just gave, which has not (yet) been executed.


3.15 quit/exit/stop

   C: quit
   S: 200:Bye!



4. Miscellaneous

4.1 Authors Addresses

   Roland Hedberg
   Umdac
   Umea University
   901 87 Umea
   Sweden
   <Roland.Hedberg@umdac.umu.se>

   Paul Pomes
   Qualcomm Inc
   USA
   <ppomes@qualcomm.com>

   Steve Dorner
   Qualcomm Inc
   USA
   <sdorner@qualcomm.com>

Appendix A

   Default fields connected to different object types :

   any
      type
      address
      name

   phone        Information you would find in a phonebook
      phone
      fax

   person       Information about a human being
      alias
      personal_title
      RFC822-email
      homepage_URL
      hero

   staff        Information about an employee
      department
      office_location
      office_address
      office_phone
      job_title
      pager
      hours
      nickname

   unit         Information about an organizational unit
      email
      homepage_URL


Appendix B

   Result codes

   100 In progress (general).
   101 Echo of current command.
   102 Count of number of matches to query.
   103 No hostname found for IP address.
   200 Success (general).
   201 Database ready, but read only.
   300 More information (general).
   301 Encrypt this string.
   302 Print this prompt.
   400 Temporary error (general).
   401 Internal database error.
   402 Lock not obtained within timeout period.
   403 Login would have been OK, but database read-only
   475 Database unavailable; try later.
   500 Permanent error (general).
   501 No matches to query.
   502 Too many matches to query.
   503 Not authorized for requested information.
   504 Not authorized for requested search criteria.
   505 Not authorized to change requested field.
   506 Request refused; must be logged in to execute.
   507 Field does not exist.
   508 Field is not present in requested entry.
   509 Alias already in use.
   510 Not authorized to change this entry.
   511 Not authorized to add entries.
   512 Illegal value.
   513 Unknown option.
   514 Unknown command.
   515 No indexed field in query.
   516 No authorization for request.
   517 Operation failed because database is read only.
   518 To many entries selected by change command.
   520 CPU usage limit exceeded.
   521 Change command would have overridden existing field,
       and the "addonly" option is on.
   522 Attempt to view "Encrypted" field.
   523 Expecting "answer" or "clear".
   524 Names of help topics may not contain "/".
   525 Email authentication failed
   526 Host name address not found in DNS
   527 Reverse DNS lookup does not match forward DNS lookup
   528 General Kerberos database error.
   529 Selected authentication method not available
   590 Remote queries not allowed.
   598 Command unknown.
   599 Syntax error.
   600 Ambiguous or multiple match

Appendix  C

   Description of the client command language using the augmented
   Backus-Naur Form (RFC822) .

   command     =   ph-command CRLF

   ph-command  =   "status"
                       / a-command
                       / oa-command
                       / av-command
                       / answer-command
                       / query-command
                       / delete-command
                       / change-command
                       / "help"
                       / quit-command

   a-command       =   ( siteinfo/fields/id/login/help/email/clear ) [attribute]

   oa-command      =   (xlogin) number attribute

   av-command      =   ( set / add / make ) 1*attribute-value

   answer-command  =   (answer) printablestring
   query-command   =   ( query / ph ) 1*selection ["return" 1*attribute]

   quit-command    =   "quit" / "exit" / "stop"

   change-command  =   change 1*selection make 1*attribute-value

   delete-command  =   "delete" selection

   selection       =  ( value / attribute-value )
                      *( <SPACE> ( value / attribute-value ) )

   attribute-value =   attribute "=" value

   value           =   atom / quoted-string

   atom            =   1*<any CHAR except specials, SPACE and CTLs>

   CTL             =   <any ASCII control character and DEL> ; ( 0-31 , 127 )

   printable       =   <any ASCII character except CTLs>     ; ( 32-126 )

   CHAR            =   < any ISO-8859-1 character >          ; ( 0-255 )

   SPACE           =   < ASCII SP >                          ; ( 32 )

   attribute       =   1*( ALPHA / DIGIT / "_" / "-" )

   number          =   1*(DIGIT)

   ALPHA           =  <any ASCII alphabetic character> ; (65-90,97-122 )

   DIGIT           =  <any ASCII decimal digit)        ; (48-57 )

   quoted-string   =  <"> *(qtext/quoted-pair) <">

   quoted-pair     =  "\" CHAR

   qtext           =  <any CHAR excepting <">,"\" & CR, and including
                       linear-white-space>

   linear-white-space = 1*([CRLF] LWSP-char)

   LWSP-char       = SPACE / HTAB

   CRLF            = CR LF

   HTAB            = <ASCII HT, horizontal tab>       ; ( 9 )

   CR              = <ASCII CR, carriage-return>      ; ( 13 )

   LF              = <ASCII LF, linefeed>             ; ( 10 )

   specials        =  "=" / "*" / "?" / "\" / <">