Subject: I-D ACTION:draft-ietf-pkix-ac509prof-03.txt

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 09 May 2000 06:36:34 -0400

A New Internet-Draft is available from the on-line Internet-Drafts directories.
This draft is a work item of the Public-Key Infrastructure (X.509) Working Group of the IETF.

	Title		: An Internet Attribute Certificate Profile for 
                          Authorization
	Author(s)	: S. Farrell, R. Housley 
	Filename	: draft-ietf-pkix-ac509prof-03.txt
	Pages		: 38
	Date		: 08-May-00
	
This specification defines a profile for the use of X.509 Attribute
Certificates in Internet Protocols. Attribute certificates may be
used in a wide range of applications and environments covering a
broad spectrum of interoperability goals and a broader spectrum of
operational and assurance requirements. The goal of this document is
to establish a common baseline for generic applications requiring
broad interoperability as well as limited special purpose
requirements.  The profile places emphasis on attribute certificate
support for Internet electronic mail, IPSec, and WWW security
applications.

A URL for this Internet-Draft is:
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-pkix-ac509prof-03.txt

Internet-Drafts are also available by anonymous FTP. Login with the username
"anonymous" and a password of your e-mail address. After logging in,
type "cd internet-drafts" and then
	"get draft-ietf-pkix-ac509prof-03.txt".

A list of Internet-Drafts directories can be found in
http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html 
or ftp://ftp.ietf.org/ietf/1shadow-sites.txt

Internet-Drafts can also be obtained by e-mail.

Send a message to:
	[email-masked].
In the body type:
	"FILE /internet-drafts/draft-ietf-pkix-ac509prof-03.txt".
	
NOTE:	The mail server at ietf.org can return the document in
	MIME-encoded form by using the "mpack" utility.  To use this
	feature, insert the command "ENCODING mime" before the "FILE"
	command.  To decode the response(s), you will need "munpack" or
	a MIME-compliant mail reader.  Different MIME-compliant mail readers
	exhibit different behavior, especially when dealing with
	"multipart" MIME messages (i.e. documents which have been split
	up into multiple messages), so check your local documentation on
	how to manipulate these messages.

Below is the data which will enable a MIME compliant mail reader
implementation to automatically retrieve the ASCII version of the
Internet-Draft.

---

From: "Andy Dowling" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 May 2000 16:17:11 +0100

section 4.4.5 of the ac profile document states the following:

   The roleAuthority field MUST NOT be used. The roleName field MUST be
   present, and roleName MUST use the uniformResourceIdentifier CHOICE
   of the GeneralName.

This means that we cannot define a policy authority for the role attribute!
:-(
Previously, where we used IETFAttrSyntax, we were able to qualify the
attribute
in this way.

Could we change the profile to allow the use of roleAuthority, i.e.:

   The roleAuthority field MAY be used to specify the issuing authority of
the role attribute.
   The roleName field MUST be
   present, and roleName MUST use the uniformResourceIdentifier CHOICE
   of the GeneralName.

Any comments?

Andy

---

From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 09 May 2000 19:32:52 +0100

Hi Andy,

When I first looked at it, I thought we'd left this out simply
to make things easier, but since that didn't actually sound right,
I checked, and there is a real reason.

X.509 says: "The roleAuthority, if present, identifies the recognized 
authority that is responsible for issuing the role specification 
certificate"

And given that we have to be compatible with X.509 and don't want 
to complicate the profile by introducing "role specification 
certificates", I think we do have to mandate not using the
roleAuthority.

Regards,
Stephen.

-- 
____________________________________________________________
Stephen Farrell         				   
Baltimore Technologies,   tel: (direct line) +353 1 647 7406
61 Fitzwilliam Lane,                    fax: +353 1 647 7499
Dublin 2.                mailto:[email-masked]
Ireland                             http://www.baltimore.com