INTERNET-DRAFT Kurt D. Zeilenga
Intended Category: Standard Track OpenLDAP Foundation
Expires in six months 17 May 2002
LDAPv3: All Operational Attributes
<draft-zeilenga-ldap-opattrs-03.txt>
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>.
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Copyright 2002, The Internet Society. All Rights Reserved.
Please see the Copyright section near the end of this document for
more information.
Abstract
The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) supports a mechanism
for requesting the return of all user attributes but does not all
operational attributes. This document describes an LDAP extension
which clients may use to request the return of all operational
attributes.
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1. 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.
This documents extends LDAP [RFC2251] to provide 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)
and existing LDAP API.
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].
2. All Operational Attributes
The presence of the attribute description "+" (ASCII 43) 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 feature SHOULD publish the Object Identifier
1.3.6.1.4.1.4203.1.5.1 as a value of the supportedFeatures [FEATURES]
attribute in the root DSE.
3. 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
[RFC2255].
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
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[RFC2251, 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 APIs.
4. 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.
5. IANA Considerations
No IANA assignments are requested.
This document uses the OID 1.3.6.1.4.1.4203.1.5.1 to identify the
feature described above. This OID was assigned [ASSIGN] by OpenLDAP
Foundation under its IANA assigned private enterprise allocation
[PRIVATE] for use in this specification.
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. Normative References
[RFC2119] S. Bradner, "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14 (also RFC 2119), March 1997.
[RFC2251] M. Wahl, T. Howes, S. Kille, "Lightweight Directory Access
Protocol (v3)", RFC 2251, December 1997.
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[FEATURES] K. Zeilenga, "Feature Discovery in LDAP", draft-zeilenga-
ldap-features-xx.txt (a work in progress).
9. Informative References
[RFC2255] T. Howes and M. Smith, "The LDAP URL Format", RFC 2255,
December 1997.
[X.500] ITU-T Rec. X.500, "The Directory: Overview of Concepts,
Models and Service", 1993.
[ASSIGN] OpenLDAP Foundation, "OpenLDAP OID Delegations",
http://www.openldap.org/foundation/oid-delegate.txt.
[PRIVATE] IANA, "Private Enterprise Numbers",
http://www.iana.org/assignments/enterprise-numbers.
Copyright 2002, The Internet Society. All Rights Reserved.
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