A Strategic Plan for Deploying an Internet X.500 Directory Service
RFC 1430
Network Working Group S. Hardcastle-Kille
Request for Comments: 1430 ISODE-Consortium
E. Huizer
SURFnet bv
V. Cerf
Corporation for National Research Initiatives
R. Hobby
University of California, Davis
S. Kent
Bolt, Beranek and Newman
February 1993
A Strategic Plan for Deploying an
Internet X.500 Directory Service
Status of this Memo
This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does
not specify an Internet standard. Distribution of this memo is
unlimited.
Abstract
There are a number of reasons why a new Internet Directory Service is
required. This document describes an overall strategy for deploying
a Directory Service on the Internet, based on the OSI X.500 Directory
Service. It then describes in more detail the initial steps which
need to be taken in order to achieve these goals, and how work
already undertaken by Internet Engineering Task Force Working Groups
(IETF WGs) is working towards these goals.
Table of Contents
1. REQUIREMENTS 2
2. SUMMARY OF SOLUTION 3
3. INFORMATION FRAMEWORK 3
3.1 The Technical Model 3
3.2 Extending the Technical Model 4
3.3 The Operational Model 5
4. NAME ASSIGNMENT 5
5. DIRECTORY INFRASTRUCTURE 6
5.1 Short Term Requirements 7
5.2 Medium Term Requirements 9
5.3 Long Term Requirements 9
6. DATAMANAGEMENT 9
6.1 Legal Issues 10
7. TECHNICAL ISSUES 10
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RFC 1430 X.500 Strategy February 1993
7.1 Schema 11
7.2 Use on the Internet 11
7.3 Replication of Knowledge and Data 12
7.4 Presentation of Directory Names 13
7.5 DSA Naming and MD Structure 13
8. SECURITY 13
8.1 Directory Provision of Authentication 14
8.2 Directory Security 15
9. RELATION TO DNS 16
10. EXTERNAL CONNECTIONS 16
11. REFERENCES 17
12. Security Considerations 19
13. Authors' Addresses 20
1. REQUIREMENTS
There is substantial interest in establishing a new Directory Service
on the Internet. In the short term, there is pressure to establish
two new services:
- White Pages lookup of users;
- Support for X.509 Authentication for a range of applications in
particular for Privacy Enhanced mail [Lin89].
In the medium term, there are likely to be many requirements for
Directory Services, including:
- General resource lookup, for information ranging from committee
structures to bibliographic data;
- Support of management of the Internet infrastructure, and
integration of configuration information into the higher level
directory;
- Support of applications on the Internet. For example:
o Electronic distribution lists;
o Capability information on advanced user agents;
o Location of files and archive services.
- Support for Mail Handling Systems; Be they RFC-822 based or X.400
based (IETF MHS-DS WG), e.g.,:
o Support for routing;
o Info on User agent capabilities; essential for a usage of
Multimedia mail like MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions).
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RFC 1430 X.500 Strategy February 1993
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