Subject: LDAP schema for SLP - Distinguished Names

From: "Paul Collins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 17:12:34 -0800

If it's not too late, might svrloc consider changing the way LDAP 
distinguished names (DN) for SLP are defined?

template-conversion-03.txt says:

> the attributes would look like:
>
>       DN =  6a1c0bfa0396f6be0bf73c4d1e8c45f1

If I understand the draft, this might not work to well with many LDAP
servers. While RFC1777 (LDAPv2) does allow for a simple string as the DN, I
believe the common practice is for DNs to consist of multiple pairs of
attribute types and values, such as:

DN=   cn=Printer Fred, ou=accounting, o="Acme, Inc.", c=US
or
DN=   urlHash=6a1c0bfa0396f6be0bf73c4d1e8c45f1, c=US

Or, as RFC2253 puts it for LDAPv3:

> distinguishedName = [name]                    ; may be empty string
>
> name       = name-component *("," name-component)
>
> name-component = attributeTypeAndValue *("+" attributeTypeAndValue)
>
> attributeTypeAndValue = attributeType "=" attributeValue

Also, as I understand it, a DN is not an attribute or part of an entry,
rather it is a tag for an entry that uniquely describes its location in the
directory heirarchy. LDAPv3 suggests that the first part of the DN, referred
to as RDN, exist as an real attribute value in the entry (that is, my
urlHash part). The rest of the DN would be its location in the LDAP
directory, which can be long, like my first example, or just the naming
context of the directory (often "c=US").

The printer objectClass might look like:

  printer       OBJECT-CLASS
                  SUBCLASS OF top
                  MUST CONTAIN {
                       urlHash,
                       url,
                       description,
                       security-mechanisms-supported
                  }
                  MAY CONTAIN {
                       operator,
                       location-address,
                       priority-queue,
                       number-up,
                       paper-output
                  }

I've never seen "distinguishedName" as an LDAP attribute (per RFC 2256.5.50,
examples in 2256.7).

I hope this input is helpful, and doesn't come at too late a stage in your
process. I'm an LDAP server developer, have no IETF credentials, and have
been working with LDAP for about a year and a half. I'm very interested in
supporting the template, in whatever form you find best, in my server
product.

Best regards,

Paul Collins
Owner/Developer
One Click Systems
[email-masked]

---

From: Erik Guttman <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 1999 08:06:00 +0100 (MET)

> draft-ietf-svrloc-template-conversion-03.txt says:
>
> servers.

Paul,

We certainly can.  This document has had very little review.  I want
to make sure that we proceed correctly even if it means completely 
reworking this document.

It is my hope that we can get concerted attention on this document
from folks in the LDAP community and that we can move quickly to a
workable naming scheme.

Erik

---

From: "Ryan Moats" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 1999 07:14:46 -0600

> from folks in the LDAP community and that we can move quickly to a

I tend to agree with Paul on this one.  I had read over the draft
and was talking to some folks in my part of the world about whether or
not this made sense.  To me it doesn't.

I need to think about this some more before next week to have a
coherent counter proposal though.

Ryan