INTERNET-DRAFT Kurt D. Zeilenga
Intended Category: Standard Track OpenLDAP Foundation
Expires: 3 October 2001 3 April 2001
LDAPv3: All Operational Attributes
<draft-zeilenga-ldap-opattrs-00.txt>
1. Status of this Memo
This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with all
provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026.
This document is intended to be, after appropriate review and
revision, submitted to the RFC Editor as a Standard Track document.
Distribution of this memo is unlimited. Technical discussion of this
document will take place on the IETF LDAP Extensions Working Group
mailing list <ietf-ldapext@netscape.com>. Please send editorial
comments directly to the author <Kurt@OpenLDAP.org>.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task
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groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
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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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Copyright 2001, The Internet Society. All Rights Reserved.
Please see the Copyright section near the end of this document for
more information.
2. Overview
X.500 [X.500] provides a mechanism for clients to request all
operational attributes be returned with entries provided in response
to a search operation. This mechanism is often used by clients to
discover which operational attributes are present in an entry. LDAP
[RFC2251] does not provide a similar mechanism to clients.
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This document defines a simple mechanism which clients may use to
request the return of all operation attributes. The mechanism is
designed for use with existing general purpose LDAP clients (including
web browsers which support LDAP URLs). This document details an LDAP
extension.
The key words ``MUST'', ``MUST NOT'', ``REQUIRED'', ``SHALL'', ``SHALL
NOT'', ``SHOULD'', ``SHOULD NOT'', ``RECOMMENDED'', and ``MAY'' in
this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119
[RFC2119].
3. All Operational Attributes
The presence of the attribute description "+" in the list of
attributes in a Search Request SHALL signify a request for the return
of all operational attributes.
As with all search requests, client implementors should note that
results may not include all requested attributes due to access
controls or other restrictions. Clients implementors should also note
that certain operational attributes may be returned only if requested
by name even when "+" is present. This is because some operational
attributes are very expensive to return.
Servers supporting this extension SHOULD publish the Object Identifier
OID.TBD as a value of supportedFeatures [FEATURES] attribute in the
root DSE.
4. Interoperability Considerations
This mechanism is specifically designed to allow users to request all
operational attributes using existing LDAP clients. In particular,
the mechanism is designed to be compatible with existing general
purpose LDAP clients includes web browsers which support LDAP URLs
[RFC 2255].
The addition of this mechanism to LDAPv3 is believed not to cause any
significant interoperability issues (this has been confirmed through
testing). Servers which have yet to implement this specification
should ignore the "+" as an unrecognized attribute description per
[RFC 2251, Section 4.5.1]. From the client's perspective, a server
which does not return all operational attributes when "+" is requested
should be viewed as having other restrictions.
It is also noted that this mechanism is believed to require no
modification of existing LDAP SDKs.
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5. Security Considerations
This document provides a mechanism which clients may use to discover
operational attributes. Those relying on security by obscurity SHOULD
implement appropriate access controls to restricts access to
operational attributes per local policy.
6. Acknowledgment
The "+" mechanism is believed to have been first suggested by Bruce
Greenblatt in a November 1998 post to the IETF LDAPext Working Group
mailing list.
7. Author's Address
Kurt D. Zeilenga
OpenLDAP Foundation
<Kurt@OpenLDAP.org>
8. Bibliography
[RFC2219] S. Bradner, "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC2251] M. Wahl, T. Howes, S. Kille, "Lightweight Directory Access
Protocol (v3)", RFC 2251, December 1997.
[RFC2255] T. Howes and M. Smith, "The LDAP URL Format", RFC 2255,
December 1997.
[FEATURES] K. Zeilenga, "Feature Discovery in LDAP", draft-zeilenga-
ldap-features-xx.txt (a work in progress).
[X.500] ITU-T Rec. X.500, "The Directory: Overview of Concepts,
Models and Service", 1993.
Copyright 2001, The Internet Society. 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
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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
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