INTERNET-DRAFT
draft-ietf-ldup-subentry-05.txt
Ed Reed
Reed-Matthews, Inc.
November 15, 2000
LDAP Subentry Schema
1. Status of this Memo
This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full
conformance with all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026.
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
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The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be
accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html.
This Internet-Draft expires on May 15, 2001.
2. Abstract
This document describes an object class called ldapSubEntry
which MAY be used to indicate operations and management
related entries in the directory, called LDAP Subentries.
To control the visibility of entries of type ldapSubEntry,
a control, ldapSubentriesControl, is defined, and a special
case using Search filters is described.
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 [RFC2119]. The sections below reiterate these
definitions and include some additional ones.
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3. Definitions
3.1 ldapSubEntry Class
( 2.16.840.1.113719.2.142.6.1.1 NAME 'ldapSubEntry'
DESC 'LDAP Subentry class, version 1'
SUP top STRUCTURAL
MAY ( cn ) )
The class ldapSubEntry is intended to be used as a super-
class when defining other structural classes to be used
as LDAP Subentries, and as the structural class to which
Auxiliary classes may be added for application specific
subentry information. Where possible, the use of Auxiliary
classes to extend LDAP Subentries is strongly preferred.
The presence of ldapSubEntry in the list of super-classes
of an entry in the directory makes that entry an LDAP
Subentry. Object classes derived from ldapSubEntry are
themselves considered ldapSubEntry classes, for the purpose
of this discussion.
LDAP Subentries MAY be named by their commonName attribute
[RFC2251]. Other naming attributes are also permitted.
LDAP Subentries MAY be containers, unlike their [X.501]
counterparts.
LDAP Subentries MAY be contained by, and will usually be
located in the directory information tree immediately
subordinate to, administrative points. Further (unlike
X.500 subentries), LDAP Subentries MAY be contained by
other LDAP Subentries (the way organizational units may be
contained by other organizational units). Deep nestings of
LDAP Subentries are discouraged, but not prohibited.
3.2 ldapSubentriesControl
This control is included in the searchRequest message as
part of the controls field of the LDAPMessage, as defined
in Section 4.1.12 of [RFC2251].
The controlType is set to "1.3.6.1.4.1.7628.5.101.1". The
criticality MAY be set to either TRUE or FALSE. The
controlValue is absent.
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There is no corresponding response control defined.
LDAP servers that support this control MUST treat LDAP
Subentries as "operational objects" in much the same way
that "operational attributes" are not returned in search
results and [X.511] read operations when only user
attributes are requested.
Entries which are not LDAP Subentries may still be
referenced in the base object of search operations where
the ldapSubentriesControl is present in the request.
3.2.1 LDAP Search with scope other than baseObject
The ldapSubentriesControl is defined for LDAP to signal to
LDAP Search operations that ONLY LDAP Subentries are to be
included in the return set of entries for the Search,
provided other Search criteria (such as scope and filter)
are satisfied. When ldapSubentriesControl is NOT included
in a Search request on a server that supports the control,
LDAP Subentries MUST be omitted from the return set (with
the single exception described in section 3.3, below).
3.2.2 LDAP Search with scope of baseObject
For Search operations with a scope value of baseObject, the
presence or absence of the ldapSubentriesControl MUST be
ignored. Specifically, baseObject searches applied to
ldapSubEntry entries MUST be evaluated by Search as if the
ldapSubentriesControl is present, even if it is absent.
This provision is intended to preserve the behavior of
[X.511] Read operations, which are not affected by the
[X.511] subentries control (see section 3.2.4 below), and
because it would seem silly to behave otherwise.
3.2.3 Other LDAP operations
The ldapSubentriesControl is not defined for any LDAP
operation other than Search. However, an LDAPv3 Extension
MAY define a use of this control with that extension as
long as such use is consistent with this specification.
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3.2.4 Correspondence to X.500 [X.511]
In [X.511] a ServiceControl option is used to govern the
visibility of [X.501] subentries. The subentry
ServiceControl option is a specific bit of a bitstring
that, when set to TRUE in the common arguments of an X.500
Search or List operation, indicates that the operation is
to access ONLY the subentries found in the context of the
list or search. In fact, normal entries are explicitly NOT
returned in the result of a list or search operation when
the X.500 subentries ServiceControl is set.
Entries which are not subentries may still be referenced in
the base object of list and search operations where the
subentries control is set.
The [X.511] subentries ServiceControl has no meaning for
operations other than Search and List (i.e., Read, Modify,
Delete, etc.).
3.3 Search Filter
LDAP servers MUST implement the following special handling
of ldapSubEntry entries: search operations which include a
filter "objectclass=ldapSubEntry" MUST include entries
derived from the ldapSubEntry class in the scope of their
operations, regardless of whether the control (section 3.2
above) is included in the Search or not.
This method of requesting the operation be applied to
entries of ldapSubEntry class is intuitive, and is
specified to maintain consistency with previous drafts of
this document.
Developers SHOULD use the control (section 3.2) in lieu of
the Search Filter method of searching for LDAP Subentries,
as the Search Filter method MAY be depreciated in the
future.
4. Security Considerations
LDAP Subentries will frequently be used to hold data which
reflects either the actual or intended behavior of the
directory service. As such, permission to read such
entries MAY need to be restricted to authorized users.
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More importantly, IF a directory service treats the
information in an LDAP Subentry as the authoritative source
of policy to be used to control the behavior of the
directory, then permission to create, modify, or delete
such entries MUST be carefully restricted to authorized
administrators.
5. References
[RFC2119] S. Bradner, "Key words for use in RFCs to
Indicate Requirement Levels", RFC 2119, March 1997
[RFC2251] S. Kille, M. Wahl, and T. Howes, "Lightweight
Directory Access Protocol (v3)", RFC 2251, December 1997
[X.501] ITU-T Rec. X.501, "The Directory: Models", 1993 and
subsequent versions
[X.511] ITU-T Rec. X.501, "The Directory: Abstract Service
Definition", 1993 and subsequent versions
6. Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2000). All Rights
Reserved.
This document and translations of it may be copied and
furnished to others, and derivative works that comment on
or otherwise explain it or assist in its implementation may
be prepared, copied, published and distributed, in whole or
in part, without restriction of any kind, provided that the
above copyright notice and this paragraph are included on
all such copies and derivative works. However, this
document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by
removing the copyright notice or references to the Internet
Society or other Internet organizations, except as needed
for the purpose of developing Internet standards in which
case the procedures for copyrights defined in the Internet
Standards process must be followed, or as required to
translate it into languages other than English.
The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and
will not be revoked by the Internet Society or its
successors or assigns.
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This document and the information contained herein is
provided on an "AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND
THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS 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."
7. Acknowledgements
The use of subEntry object class to store Replica and
Replication Agreement information is due primarily to the
lucid explanation by Mark Wahl, (then of Innosoft), of how
they could be used and extended.
The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope
of any intellectual property 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; neither does it represent that it has made any
effort to identify any such rights. Information on the
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and standards-related documentation can be found in BCP-11.
Copies of claims of rights made available for publication
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 Secretariat.
The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its
attention any copyrights, patents or patent applications,
or other proprietary rights which may cover technology that
may be required to practice this standard. Please address
the information to the IETF Executive Director.
8. Author's Address
Edwards E. Reed
Reed-Matthews, Inc.
1064 E 140 North
Lindon, UT 84042
USA
E-mail: eer@oncalldba.com
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LDUP Mailing List: ietf-ldup@imc.org
LDAPEXT Mailing List: ietf-ldapext@netscape.com
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