Internet-Draft Kurt D. Zeilenga
Intended Category: Standard Track OpenLDAP Foundation
Expires in six months 30 September 2005
LDAP: Internationalized String Preparation
<draft-ietf-ldapbis-strprep-06.txt>
Status of this Memo
This document is intended to be published as a Standard Track RFC.
Distribution of this memo is unlimited. Technical discussion of this
document will take place on the IETF LDAP Revision Working Group
mailing list <ietf-ldapbis@openldap.org>. Please send editorial
comments directly to the editor <Kurt@OpenLDAP.org>.
By submitting this Internet-Draft, each author represents that any
applicable patent or other IPR claims of which he or she is aware have
been or will be disclosed, and any of which he or she becomes aware
will be disclosed, in accordance with Section 6 of BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task
Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other
groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material
or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at
http://www.ietf.org/1id-abstracts.html
The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at
http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2005). All Rights Reserved.
Please see the Full Copyright section near the end of this document
for more information.
Zeilenga LDAPprep [Page 1]
Internet-Draft draft-ietf-ldapbis-strprep-06 30 September 2005
Abstract
The previous Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) technical
specifications did not precisely define how character string matching
is to be performed. This led to a number of usability and
interoperability problems. This document defines string preparation
algorithms for character-based matching rules defined for use in LDAP.
Conventions and Terms
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119].
Character names in this document use the notation for code points and
names from the Unicode Standard [Unicode]. For example, the letter
"a" may be represented as either <U+0061> or <LATIN SMALL LETTER A>.
In the lists of mappings and the prohibited characters, the "U+" is
left off to make the lists easier to read. The comments for character
ranges are shown in square brackets (such as "[CONTROL CHARACTERS]")
and do not come from the standard.
Note: a glossary of terms used in Unicode can be found in [Glossary].
Information on the Unicode character encoding model can be found in
[CharModel].
The term "combining mark", as used in this specification, refers to
any Unicode [Unicode] code point which has a mark property (Mn, Mc,
Me). Appendix A provides a complete list of combining marks.
1. Introduction
1.1. Background
A Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) [Roadmap] matching rule
[Syntaxes] defines an algorithm for determining whether a presented
value matches an attribute value in accordance with the criteria
defined for the rule. The proposition may be evaluated to True,
False, or Undefined.
True - the attribute contains a matching value,
False - the attribute contains no matching value,
Undefined - it cannot be determined whether the attribute contains
a matching value or not.
Zeilenga LDAPprep [Page 2]
Internet-Draft draft-ietf-ldapbis-strprep-06 30 September 2005
For instance, the caseIgnoreMatch matching rule may be used to compare
whether the commonName attribute contains a particular value without
regard for case and insignificant spaces.
1.2. X.500 String Matching Rules
"X.520: Selected attribute types" [X.520] provides (amongst other
things) value syntaxes and matching rules for comparing values
commonly used in the Directory. These specifications are inadequate
for strings composed of Unicode [Unicode] characters.
The caseIgnoreMatch matching rule [X.520], for example, is simply
defined as being a case insensitive comparison where insignificant
spaces are ignored. For printableString, there is only one space
character and case mapping is bijective, hence this definition is
sufficient. However, for Unicode string types such as
universalString, this is not sufficient. For example, a case
insensitive matching implementation which folded lower case characters
to upper case would yield different different results than an
implementation which used upper case to lower case folding. Or one
implementation may view space as referring to only SPACE (U+0020), a
second implementation may view any character with the space separator
(Zs) property as a space, and another implementation may view any
character with the whitespace (WS) category as a space.
The lack of precise specification for character string matching has
led to significant interoperability problems. When used in
certificate chain validation, security vulnerabilities can arise. To
address these problems, this document defines precise algorithms for
preparing character strings for matching.
1.3. Relationship to "stringprep"
The character string preparation algorithms described in this document
are based upon the "stringprep" approach [StringPrep]. In
"stringprep", presented and stored values are first prepared for
comparison and so that a character-by-character comparison yields the
"correct" result.
The approach used here is a refinement of the "stringprep"
[StringPrep] approach. Each algorithm involves two additional
preparation steps.
a) prior to applying the Unicode string preparation steps outlined in
"stringprep", the string is transcoded to Unicode;
Zeilenga LDAPprep [Page 3]
Internet-Draft draft-ietf-ldapbis-strprep-06 30 September 2005
b) after applying the Unicode string preparation steps outlined in
"stringprep", the string is modified to appropriately handle
characters insignificant to the matching rule.
Hence, preparation of character strings for X.500 matching involves
the following steps:
1) Transcode
2) Map
3) Normalize
4) Prohibit
5) Check Bidi (Bidirectional)
6) Insignificant Character Handling
These steps are described in Section 2.
1.4. Relationship to the LDAP Technical Specification
This document is a integral part of the LDAP technical specification
[Roadmap] which obsoletes the previously defined LDAP technical
specification [RFC3377] in its entirety.
This document details new LDAP internationalized character string
preparation algorithms used by [Syntaxes] and possible other technical
specifications defining LDAP syntaxes and/or matching rules.
1.5. Relationship to X.500
LDAP is defined [Roadmap] in X.500 terms as an X.500 access mechanism.
As such, there is a strong desire for alignment between LDAP and X.500
syntax and semantics. The character string preparation algorithms
described in this document are based upon "Internationalized String
Matching Rules for X.500" [XMATCH] proposal to ITU/ISO Joint Study
Group 2.
2. String Preparation
The following six-step process SHALL be applied to each presented and
attribute value in preparation for character string matching rule
evaluation.
1) Transcode
2) Map
3) Normalize
4) Prohibit
Zeilenga LDAPprep [Page 4]
Internet-Draft draft-ietf-ldapbis-strprep-06 30 September 2005
5) Check bidi
6) Insignificant Character Handling
Failure in any step causes the assertion to evaluate to Undefined.
The character repertoire of this process is Unicode 3.2 [Unicode].
2.1. Transcode
Each non-Unicode string value is transcoded to Unicode.
PrintableString [X.680] value are transcoded directly to Unicode.
UniversalString, UTF8String, and bmpString [X.680] values need not be
transcoded as they are Unicode-based strings (in the case of
bmpString, a subset of Unicode).
TeletexString [X.680] values are transcoded to Unicode. As there is
no standard for mapping TelexString values to Unicode, the mapping is
left a local matter.
For these and other reasons, use of TeletexString is NOT RECOMMENDED.
The output is the transcoded string.
2.2. Map
SOFT HYPHEN (U+00AD) and MONGOLIAN TODO SOFT HYPHEN (U+1806) code
points are mapped to nothing. COMBINING GRAPHEME JOINER (U+034F) and
VARIATION SELECTORs (U+180B-180D, FF00-FE0F) code points are also
mapped to nothing. The OBJECT REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFC) is
mapped to nothing.
CHARACTER TABULATION (U+0009), LINE FEED (LF) (U+000A), LINE
TABULATION (U+000B), FORM FEED (FF) (U+000C), CARRIAGE RETURN (CR)
(U+000D), and NEXT LINE (NEL) (U+0085) are mapped to SPACE (U+0020).
All other control code (e.g., Cc) points or code points with a control
function (e.g., Cf) are mapped to nothing. The following is a
complete list of these code points: U+0000-0008, 000E-001F, 007F-0084,
0086-009F, 06DD, 070F, 180E, 200C-200F, 202A-202E, 2060-2063,
206A-206F, FEFF, FFF9-FFFB, 1D173-1D17A, E0001, E0020-E007F.
ZERO WIDTH SPACE (U+200B) is mapped to nothing. All other code points
with Separator (space, line, or paragraph) property (e.g, Zs, Zl, or
Zp) are mapped to SPACE (U+0020). The following is a complete list of
Zeilenga LDAPprep [Page 5]
Internet-Draft draft-ietf-ldapbis-strprep-06 30 September 2005
these code points: U+0020, 00A0, 1680, 2000-200A, 2028-2029, 202F,
205F, 3000.
For case ignore, numeric, and stored prefix string matching rules,
characters are case folded per B.2 of [StringPrep].
The output is the mapped string.
2.3. Normalize
The input string is be normalized to Unicode Form KC (compatibility
composed) as described in [UAX15]. The output is the normalized
string.
2.4. Prohibit
All Unassigned code points are prohibited. Unassigned code points are
listed in Table A.1 of [StringPrep].
Characters which, per Section 5.8 of [Stringprep], change display
properties or are deprecated are prohibited. These characters are are
listed in Table C.8 of [StringPrep].
Private Use code points are prohibited. These characters are listed
in Table C.3 of [StringPrep].
All non-character code points are prohibited. These code points are
listed in Table C.4 of [StringPrep].
Surrogate codes are prohibited. These characters are listed in Table
C.5 of [StringPrep].
The REPLACEMENT CHARACTER (U+FFFD) code point is prohibited.
The step fails if the input string contains any prohibited code point.
Otherwise, the output is the input string.
2.5. Check bidi
Bidirectional characters are ignored.
2.6. Insignificant Character Handling
In this step, the string is modified to ensure proper handling of
Zeilenga LDAPprep [Page 6]
Internet-Draft draft-ietf-ldapbis-strprep-06 30 September 2005
characters insignificant to the matching rule. This modification
differs from matching rule to matching rule.
Section 2.6.1 applies to case ignore and exact string matching.
Section 2.6.2 applies to numericString matching.
Section 2.6.3 applies to telephoneNumber matching.
2.6.1. Insignificant Space Handling
For the purposes of this section, a space is defined to be the SPACE
(U+0020) code point followed by no combining marks.
NOTE - The previous steps ensure that the string cannot contain any
code points in the separator class, other than SPACE (U+0020).
If the input string contains at least one non-space character, then
the string is modified such that the string starts with exactly one
space character, ends with exactly one SPACE character, and that any
inner (non-empty) sequence of space characters is replaced with
exactly two SPACE characters. For instance, the input strings
"foo<SPACE>bar<SPACE><SPACE>", results in the output
"<SPACE>foo<SPACE><SPACE>bar<SPACE>".
Otherwise, if the string being prepared is an initial, any, or final
substring, then the output string is exactly one SPACE character, else
the output string is exactly two SPACEs.
Appendix B discusses the rationale for the behavior.
2.6.2. numericString Insignificant Character Handling
For the purposes of this section, a space is defined to be the SPACE
(U+0020) code point followed by no combining marks.
All spaces are regarded as insignificant and are to be removed.
For example, removal of spaces from the Form KC string:
"<SPACE><SPACE>123<SPACE><SPACE>456<SPACE><SPACE>"
would result in the output string:
"123456"
and the Form KC string:
"<SPACE><SPACE><SPACE>"
would result in the output string:
"" (an empty string).
Zeilenga LDAPprep [Page 7]
Internet-Draft draft-ietf-ldapbis-strprep-06 30 September 2005
2.6.3. telephoneNumber Insignificant Character Handling
For the purposes of this section, a hyphen is defined to be
HYPHEN-MINUS (U+002D), ARMENIAN HYPHEN (U+058A), HYPHEN (U+2010),
NON-BREAKING HYPHEN (U+2011), MINUS SIGN (U+2212), SMALL HYPHEN-MINUS
(U+FE63), or FULLWIDTH HYPHEN-MINUS (U+FF0D) code point followed by no
combining marks and a space is defined to be the SPACE (U+0020) code
point followed by no combining marks.
All hyphens and spaces are considered insignificant and are to be
removed.
For example, removal of hyphens and spaces from the Form KC string:
"<SPACE><HYPHEN>123<SPACE><SPACE>456<SPACE><HYPHEN>"
would result in the output string:
"123456"
and the Form KC string:
"<HYPHEN><HYPHEN><HYPHEN>"
would result in the (empty) output string:
"".
3. Security Considerations
"Preparation for International Strings ('stringprep')" [StringPrep]
security considerations generally apply to the algorithms described
here.
4. Acknowledgments
The approach used in this document is based upon design principles and
algorithms described in "Preparation of Internationalized Strings
('stringprep')" [StringPrep] by Paul Hoffman and Marc Blanchet. Some
additional guidance was drawn from Unicode Technical Standards,
Technical Reports, and Notes.
This document is a product of the IETF LDAP Revision (LDAPBIS) Working
Group.
5. Author's Address
Kurt D. Zeilenga
OpenLDAP Foundation
Email: Kurt@OpenLDAP.org
Zeilenga LDAPprep [Page 8]
Internet-Draft draft-ietf-ldapbis-strprep-06 30 September 2005
6. References
[[Note to the RFC Editor: please replace the citation tags used in
referencing Internet-Drafts with tags of the form RFCnnnn where
possible.]]
6.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14 (also RFC 2119), March 1997.
[Roadmap] Zeilenga, K. (editor), "LDAP: Technical Specification
Road Map", draft-ietf-ldapbis-roadmap-xx.txt, a work in
progress.
[StringPrep] Hoffman P. and M. Blanchet, "Preparation of
Internationalized Strings ('stringprep')",
draft-hoffman-rfc3454bis-xx.txt, a work in progress.
[Syntaxes] Legg, S. (editor), "LDAP: Syntaxes and Matching Rules",
draft-ietf-ldapbis-syntaxes-xx.txt, a work in progress.
[Unicode] The Unicode Consortium, "The Unicode Standard, Version
3.2.0" is defined by "The Unicode Standard, Version 3.0"
(Reading, MA, Addison-Wesley, 2000. ISBN 0-201-61633-5),
as amended by the "Unicode Standard Annex #27: Unicode
3.1" (http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr27/) and by the
"Unicode Standard Annex #28: Unicode 3.2"
(http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr28/).
[UAX15] Davis, M. and M. Duerst, "Unicode Standard Annex #15:
Unicode Normalization Forms, Version 3.2.0".
<http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr15/tr15-22.html>,
March 2002.
[X.680] International Telecommunication Union -
Telecommunication Standardization Sector, "Abstract
Syntax Notation One (ASN.1) - Specification of Basic
Notation", X.680(2002) (also ISO/IEC 8824-1:2002).
6.2. Informative References
[X.500] International Telecommunication Union -
Telecommunication Standardization Sector, "The Directory
-- Overview of concepts, models and services,"
X.500(1993) (also ISO/IEC 9594-1:1994).
Zeilenga LDAPprep [Page 9]
Internet-Draft draft-ietf-ldapbis-strprep-06 30 September 2005
[X.501] International Telecommunication Union -
Telecommunication Standardization Sector, "The Directory
-- Models," X.501(1993) (also ISO/IEC 9594-2:1994).
[X.520] International Telecommunication Union -
Telecommunication Standardization Sector, "The
Directory: Selected Attribute Types", X.520(1993) (also
ISO/IEC 9594-6:1994).
[Glossary] The Unicode Consortium, "Unicode Glossary",
<http://www.unicode.org/glossary/>.
[CharModel] Whistler, K. and M. Davis, "Unicode Technical Report
#17, Character Encoding Model", UTR17,
<http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr17/>, August
2000.
[XMATCH] Zeilenga, K., "Internationalized String Matching Rules
for X.500", draft-zeilenga-ldapbis-strmatch-xx.txt, a
work in progress.
[RFC1345] Simonsen, K., "Character Mnemonics & Character Sets",
RFC 1345, June 1992.
Appendix A. Combining Marks
This appendix is normative.
0300-034F 0360-036F 0483-0486 0488-0489 0591-05A1 05A3-05B9 05BB-05BC
05BF 05C1-05C2 05C4 064B-0655 0670 06D6-06DC 06DE-06E4 06E7-06E8
06EA-06ED 0711 0730-074A 07A6-07B0 0901-0903 093C 093E-094F 0951-0954
0962-0963 0981-0983 09BC 09BE-09C4 09C7-09C8 09CB-09CD 09D7 09E2-09E3
0A02 0A3C 0A3E-0A42 0A47-0A48 0A4B-0A4D 0A70-0A71 0A81-0A83 0ABC
0ABE-0AC5 0AC7-0AC9 0ACB-0ACD 0B01-0B03 0B3C 0B3E-0B43 0B47-0B48
0B4B-0B4D 0B56-0B57 0B82 0BBE-0BC2 0BC6-0BC8 0BCA-0BCD 0BD7 0C01-0C03
0C3E-0C44 0C46-0C48 0C4A-0C4D 0C55-0C56 0C82-0C83 0CBE-0CC4 0CC6-0CC8
0CCA-0CCD 0CD5-0CD6 0D02-0D03 0D3E-0D43 0D46-0D48 0D4A-0D4D 0D57
0D82-0D83 0DCA 0DCF-0DD4 0DD6 0DD8-0DDF 0DF2-0DF3 0E31 0E34-0E3A
0E47-0E4E 0EB1 0EB4-0EB9 0EBB-0EBC 0EC8-0ECD 0F18-0F19 0F35 0F37 0F39
0F3E-0F3F 0F71-0F84 0F86-0F87 0F90-0F97 0F99-0FBC 0FC6 102C-1032
1036-1039 1056-1059 1712-1714 1732-1734 1752-1753 1772-1773 17B4-17D3
180B-180D 18A9 20D0-20EA 302A-302F 3099-309A FB1E FE00-FE0F FE20-FE23
1D165-1D169 1D16D-1D172 1D17B-1D182 1D185-1D18B 1D1AA-1D1AD
Appendix B. Substrings Matching
Zeilenga LDAPprep [Page 10]
Internet-Draft draft-ietf-ldapbis-strprep-06 30 September 2005
In absence of substrings matching, the insignificant space handling
for case ignore/exact matching could be simplified. Specifically,
the handling could be as require all sequences of one or more spaces
be replaced with one space and, if string contains non-space
characters, removal of all all leading spaces and trailing spaces.
In the presence of substrings matching, this simplified space handling
this simplified space handling would lead to unexpected and
undesirable matching behavior. For instance:
1) (CN=foo\20*\20bar) would match the CN value "foobar" but not
"foo<SPACE>bar" nor "foo<SPACE><SPACE>bar";
2) (CN=*\20foobar\20*) would match "foobar", but (CN=*\20*foobar*\20*)
would not;
3) (CN=foo\20*\20bar) would match "foo<SPACE>X<SPACE>bar" but not
"foo<SPACE><SPACE>bar".
The first case illustrates that this simplified space handling would
cause leading and trailing spaces in substrings of the string to be
regarded as insignificant. However, only leading and trailing (as
well as multiple consecutive spaces) of the string (as a whole) are
insignificant.
The second case illustrates that this simplified space handling would
cause sub-partitioning failures. That is, if a prepared any substring
matches a partition of the attribute value, then an assertion
constructed by subdividing that substring into multiple substrings
should also match.
The third case illustrates that this simplified space handling causes
another partitioning failure. Though both the initial or final
strings match different portions of "foo<SPACE>X<SPACE>bar" with
neither matching the X portion, they don't match a string consisting
of the two matched portions less the unmatched X portion.
In designing an appropriate approach for space handling for substrings
matching, one must study key aspects of X.500 case exact/ignore
matching. X.520 [X.520] says:
The [substrings] rule returns TRUE if there is a partitioning of
the attribute value (into portions) such that:
- the specified substrings (initial, any, final) match different
portions of the value in the order of the strings sequence;
- initial, if present, matches the first portion of the value;
- final, if present, matches the last portion of the value;
- any, if present, matches some arbitrary portion of the value.
That is, the substrings assertion (CN=foo\20*\20bar) matches the
attribute value "foo<SPACE><SPACE>bar" as the value can be partitioned
into the portions "foo<SPACE>" and "<SPACE>bar" meeting the above
Zeilenga LDAPprep [Page 11]
Internet-Draft draft-ietf-ldapbis-strprep-06 30 September 2005
requirements.
X.520 also says:
[T]he following spaces are regarded as not significant:
- leading spaces (i.e. those preceding the first character that is
not a space);
- trailing spaces (i.e. those following the last character that is
not a space);
- multiple consecutive spaces (these are taken as equivalent to a
single space character).
This statement applies to the assertion values and attribute values
as whole strings, and not individually to substrings of an assertion
value. In particular, the statements should be taken to mean that
if an assertion value and attribute value match without any
consideration to insignificant characters, then that assertion value
should also match any attribute value which differs only by inclusion
or removal of insignificant characters.
Hence, the assertion (CN=foo\20*\20bar) matches
"foo<SPACE><SPACE><SPACE>bar" and "foo<SPACE>bar" as these values
only differ from "foo<SPACE><SPACE>bar" by the inclusion or removal
of insignificant spaces.
Astute readers of this text will also note that there are special
cases where the specified space handling does not ignore spaces
which could be considered insignificant. For instance, the assertion
(CN=\20*\20*\20) does not match "<SPACE><SPACE><SPACE>"
(insignificant spaces present in value) nor " " (insignificant
spaces not present in value). However, as these cases have no
practical application that cannot be met by simple assertions, e.g.
(cn=\20), and this minor anomaly can only be fully addressed by a
preparation algorithm to be used in conjunction with
character-by-character partitioning and matching, the anomaly is
considered acceptable.
Intellectual Property Rights
The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any
Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might be claimed
to pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described
in this document or the extent to which any license under such
rights might or might not be available; nor does it represent that
it has made any independent effort to identify any such rights.
Information on the procedures with respect to rights in RFC documents
can be found in BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Zeilenga LDAPprep [Page 12]
Internet-Draft draft-ietf-ldapbis-strprep-06 30 September 2005
Copies of IPR disclosures made to the IETF Secretariat and any
assurances of licenses to be made available, or the result of an
attempt made to obtain a general license or permission for the use
of such proprietary rights by implementers or users of this
specification can be obtained from the IETF on-line IPR repository
at http://www.ietf.org/ipr.
The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any
copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary
rights that may cover technology that may be required to implement
this standard. Please address the information to the IETF at
ietf-ipr@ietf.org.
Full Copyright
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2005).
This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions
contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors
retain all their rights.
This document and the information contained herein are provided on an
"AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE
REPRESENTS OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE
INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF
THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Zeilenga LDAPprep [Page 13]
