Network Working Group                                            M. Wahl
Internet-Draft                                     Informed Control Inc.
Intended status: Standards Track                       September 6, 2007
Expires: March 9, 2008


                 LDAP Administrators Address Attribute
                      draft-wahl-ldap-adminaddr-05

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   This Internet-Draft will expire on March 9, 2008.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2007).














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Abstract

   Organizations with multiple or outsourced directory servers need the
   ability for administrators to determine who is responsible for a
   particular directory server.  This document defines an attribute with
   contact information for a directory server's responsible party,
   conceptually similar to the 'sysContact' object of SNMP, which can be
   retrieved from the directory server using the Lightweight Directory
   Access Protocol.










































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1.  Introduction

   This document defines an attribute type, administratorsAddress, for
   use in LDAP [1] directory deployments.

   The values of attributes of this attribute type are used to provide
   contact information of the responsible party for an LDAP server, or
   of the responsible party for a naming context (or other directory
   administrative division) within a LDAP server.

   This attribute is intended to be used by management tools that are
   LDAP clients.  For example, a management tool for checking the state
   of a replication or referral topology might use this attribute to
   send email to the manager of a particular server when it detects an
   error.

   (This attribute type was originally defined in the mid-1990s for
   inclusion in the LDAPv3 data model, but was omitted from the LDAPv3
   root DSE specification as there was only one implementation of a
   server supporting that attribute at that time.)

   The words "MUST", "SHOULD" and "MAY" are used as defined in RFC 2119
   [2].

   Please send comments to the author at mark.wahl@informed-control.com.


























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2.  The administratorsAddress attribute

   The attribute type is defined as follows (with lines wrapped for
   readability):

     ( 1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.101.120.1 NAME 'administratorsAddress'
      EQUALITY caseExactIA5Match
      SYNTAX 1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.26
      USAGE directoryOperation )

   Attributes of this type can contain one or more values, and each
   value is a URI [3].  Each URI is encoded using the IA5 string syntax
   [4].

   Unlike the labeledURI attribute [6], these values do not have a
   label.

   In existing practice, this URI can be of the 'mailto:' form
   identifying a personal or role email address, such as
   "mailto:helpdesk@example.com".

   To obtain the responsible party for a directory server, the attribute
   is read from the root DSE, using a baseObject search requesting the
   attribute of this type be returned, as described in RFC 4512 [5].

   To obtain the responsible party for a naming context, the attribute
   is read from the entry at the base of the naming context, using a
   baseObject search requesting the attribute of this type be returned.
   Note that these addresses need not be the same as that of the
   directory server administrator, or of a data administrator.

   An attribute of this type MAY be present in other entries and
   subentries in a directory information tree.  For example, an
   attribute might be present in a collective attribute subentry.
   (Collective attribute subentries are defined in RFC 3671 [7] and RFC
   3672 [8]).

   A client SHOULD treat values of this attribute type which do not
   contain a valid URI as non-resolvable.

   This document only specifies how a client can read this attribute.
   Some servers MAY support updating this attribute over protocol,
   subject to access control.  Other servers might instead provide this
   value read only, if it is configured through the server's out-of-band
   management interface, such as in a configuration file.






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3.  Security Considerations

   Generally, the information provided by this attribute in a particular
   organization's directory service is intended to be visible to all the
   directory service administrators and to all the administrators of
   directory-enabled applications in the organization.  Since one use of
   this attribute is to find who is responsible for a directory server
   that is not making authentication decisions properly, in some
   deployments it might be appropriate to allow any user, including
   anonymous (unauthenticated) users, to read the values of an attribute
   of this type from the root DSE.  Thus, it is good practice that the
   email addresses chosen for use in this attribute avoid revealing
   personal information.  Applications setting values of this attribute
   SHOULD NOT encode passwords or other secret information within the
   URIs, and MUST allow the administrator to choose not to provide a
   value for this attribute.



































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4.  IANA Considerations

   The LDAP Parameter registration for this attribute type has already
   been reviewed by the Directorate and processed by IANA.  This
   attribute type object identifier is registered as follows:


      Descriptor: administratorsAddress

      Object Identifier: 1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.101.120.1

      Person & email address to contact for further information:
      Mark Wahl <Mark.Wahl@informed-control.com>

      Usage: attribute type

      Author/Change Controller: Mark Wahl


































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5.  Changes from previous versions

   In an earlier Internet-Draft of the ASID working group, the
   administratorsAddress attribute was defined to only be present in the
   root DSE, the definition did not specify an equality matching rule
   and had usage "dSAOperation", and the values of the attribute were
   limited to being URLs of the mailto form.












































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6.  Acknowledgments

   The contents of this document is based on earlier work of the ASID
   Working Group of the IETF.  The contributions of its members is
   greatly appreciated.














































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7.  References

7.1.  Normative References

   [1]  Zeilenga, K., "Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP):
        Technical Specification Road Map", RFC 4510, June 2006.

   [2]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement
        Levels", RFC 2119, BCP 14, March 1997.

   [3]  Berners-Lee, T., "Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic
        Syntax", RFC 1738, STD 66, January 2005.

   [4]  Legg, S., "Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP):
        Syntaxes and Matching Rules", RFC 4517, June 2006.

   [5]  Zeilenga, K., "Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP):
        Directory Information Models", RFC 4512, June 2006.

7.2.  Informative References

   [6]  Smith, M., "Definition of an X.500 Attribute Type and Object
        Class to Hold Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs)", RFC 2079.

   [7]  Zeilenga, K., "Collective Attributes in the Lightweight
        Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)", RFC 3671.

   [8]  Zeilenga, K. and S. Legg, "Subentries in the Lightweight
        Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)", RFC 3672.






















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Appendix A.  Copyright

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society 2007.  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.







































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Author's Address

   Mark Wahl
   Informed Control Inc.
   PO Box 90626
   Austin, TX  78709
   US

   Email: mark.wahl@informed-control.com










































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Full Copyright Statement

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   This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions
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   retain all their rights.

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   "AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS
   OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY, THE IETF TRUST 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
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Acknowledgment

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   Administrative Support Activity (IASA).





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