INTERNET-DRAFT Hallvard B. Furuseth Intended Category: Informational University of Oslo Expires: December 2004 June 2004 Structural object class 'untypedObject' for LDAP/X.500 Status of this Memo Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet- Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/1id-abstracts.html The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html Technical discussions of this document are held on the LDAP Extension mailinglist . Please send editorial comments directly to the author . Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2004). Please see the Full Copyright Statement near the end of this document for more information. Abstract This document defines an 'untypedObject' structural object class for the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) and X.500. This is useful for entries with no 'natural' choice of structural object class, e.g. if an entry must exist even though its contents are uninteresting. Furuseth draft-furuseth-ldap-untypedobject-00.txt [Page 1] INTERNET-DRAFT LDAP object class 'untypedObject' June 2004 1. Introduction An entry in a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) [RFC3377] or [X.500] directory must have a structural object class, such as 'person' or 'country'. However, an entry may lack a 'natural' choice of structural object class. For example, the desired structure of a directory tree might require an entry to exist even though it describes no real-world object. This document defines an 'untypedObject' structural object class for this use. 1.1. Related: 'namedObject' (This section will be deleted in the final RFC.) A related structural object class is 'namedObject' of the currently expired Internet-Draft [Named]. This is for use "when no other structural object class is available". Its rationale is entries whose function is supplied by an auxiliary object class like posixGroup [RFC2307]. This draft avoids including that purpose of the object class, to avoid stepping on [Named]'s author's toes. Maybe it should instead include that purpose, and rename the object class accordingly. 2. Object class definition untypedObject is defined as follows. The definition uses the BNF form of ObjectClassDescription from [RFC2252], but with lines folded for readability. ( IANA-ASSIGNED-OID NAME 'untypedObject' DESC 'Entry of no particular type [RFC XXXX]' SUP top STRUCTURAL MAY ( c $ cn $ dc $ l $ o $ ou $ st $ street $ uid $ description $ owner $ seeAlso $ enhancedSearchGuide $ searchGuide ) ) The attribute types are defined in [RFC2256], except for 'dc' in [RFC2247] and 'uid' in [RFC2798]. The name of an entry with this object class will normally be a cn, but attributes c through uid are allowed as well in case the entry name relates to the name of something else. Of these, only the one used for naming is intended to be used in the entry. Use of the others may be an indication that the entry should have a more descriptive object class instead of or in addition to this one. Furuseth draft-furuseth-ldap-untypedobject-00.txt [Page 2] INTERNET-DRAFT LDAP object class 'untypedObject' June 2004 3. Example In a directory with entries named as follows, the entries with RDNs cn=people etc. can use untypedObject: uid=john,cn=people,dc=example,dc=com uid=john,cn=users,cn=system,dc=example,dc=com cn=www,cn=filegroups,cn=system,dc=example,dc=com 4. Security Considerations This document raises no known security issues. 5. IANA Considerations It is requested that the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) register the following upon Expert Review: Subject: Request for LDAP OID Registration Person & email address to contact for further information: Hallvard B Furuseth Specification: RFC XXXX Author/Change Controller: IESG Comments: OID of structural object class 'untypedObject'. It should be below 1.3.6.1.1, according to BCP 64 (RFC 3383) section 3.1. [Editor: I don't know if last sentence is necessary.] Subject: Request for LDAP Descriptor Registration Descriptor (short name): untypedObject Object Identifier: IANA-ASSIGNED-OID Person & email address to contact for further information: Hallvard B Furuseth Usage: Object class Specification: RFC XXXX Author/Change Controller: IESG Comments: Structural object class for entries of no particular type. [Editor: Here and in Section 2, replace IANA-ASSIGNED-OID with the assigned OID and XXXX with the RFC number assigned this document.] Furuseth draft-furuseth-ldap-untypedobject-00.txt [Page 3] INTERNET-DRAFT LDAP object class 'untypedObject' June 2004 6. Appendix A: Notes on choices made for the object class (This section will be deleted in the final RFC.) The c through uid attributes (for naming of entries) match the table of naming attributes in [RFC2253] (UTF-8 String Representation of Distinguished Names), in case the entry's RDN needs to match the RDN of something else. The description, owner and seeAlso attributes seem good to offer for "nothing in particular"-kind of entries, since such entries might not contain anything else which indicates what they are for and who is responsible for them. The enhancedSearchGuide and searchGuide attributes are for entries used as base objects of subtrees. 7. Appendix B: Issues for consideration (This section will be deleted in the final RFC.) Is this object class too general, and should be renamed to something like 'subtreeBase' instead? Or is it not general enough for an object class as general as this, and should also cover what Luke Howard's upcoming 'namedObject' covers (section 1.1)? Is the choice of naming attributes good? It could be expanded, or reduced to just cn, or maybe cn, dc and uid. Furuseth draft-furuseth-ldap-untypedobject-00.txt [Page 4] INTERNET-DRAFT LDAP object class 'untypedObject' June 2004 8. References 8.1. Normative References [RFC2247] Kille, S., Wahl, M., Grimstad, A., Huber, R., Sataluri, S., "Using Domains in LDAP/X.500 Distinguished Names", RFC 2247, January 1998. [RFC2252] Wahl, M., Coulbeck, A., Howes, T., and Kille, S., "Lightweight X.500 Directory Access Protocol (v3): Attribute Syntax Definitions", RFC 2252, December 1997. [RFC2256] Wahl, M., "A Summary of the X.500(96) User Schema for use with LDAPv3", RFC 2256, December 1997. [RFC2798] Smith, M., "Definition of the inetOrgPerson LDAP Object Class", RFC 2798, April 2000. 8.2. Informative References [Named] Howard, L., "A Structural Object Class for Arbitrary Auxiliary Object Classes", draft-howard-namedobject-xx.txt (a work in progress). [RFC2253] Wahl, M., Kille, S., Howes., T., "Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (v3): UTF-8 String Representation of Distinguished Names", RFC 2253, December 1997. [RFC2307] Howard, L., "An Approach for Using LDAP as a Network Information Service", RFC 2307, March 1998. [RFC3377] Hodges, J., Morgan, R., "Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (v3): Technical Specification", RFC3377, September 2002. [X.500] The Directory, ITU-T Recommendations X.500-X.525, 1993. Author's Address Hallvard B. Furuseth USIT, University of Oslo Pb. 1059 - Blindern 0316 Oslo Norway E-mail: h.b.furuseth@usit.uio.no Phone: +47-22 85 28 13 Furuseth draft-furuseth-ldap-untypedobject-00.txt [Page 5] INTERNET-DRAFT LDAP object class 'untypedObject' June 2004 IPR Disclosure Acknowledgement By submitting this Internet-Draft, I certify that any applicable patent or other IPR claims of which I am aware have been disclosed, and any of which I become aware will be disclosed, in accordance with RFC 3668. 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The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary rights that may cover technology that may be required to implement this standard. Please address the information to the IETF at ietf- ipr@ietf.org. Full Copyright Statement Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2004). This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors retain all their rights. This document and the information contained herein are provided on an "AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. 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