INTERNET-DRAFT S. Legg draft-legg-ldap-admin-01.txt Adacel Technologies Intended Category: Standards Track February 25, 2003 Directory Administrative Model in LDAP Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003). All Rights Reserved. Status of this Memo This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026. 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/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. Distribution of this document is unlimited. Comments should be sent to the LDUP working group mailing list or to the author. This Internet-Draft expires on 25 August 2003. 1. Abstract This document adapts the X.500 directory administrative model for use by the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol. The administrative model partitions the Directory Information Tree for various aspects of directory data administration, e.g. subschema, access control and collective attributes. The generic framework that applies to every aspect of administration is described in this document. The definitions that apply for a specific aspect of administration, e.g. access control administration, are described in other documents. Legg Expires 25 August 2003 [Page 1] INTERNET-DRAFT Directory Administrative Model February 25, 2003 2. Table of Contents 1. Abstract ...................................................... 1 2. Table of Contents ............................................. 2 3. Introduction .................................................. 2 4. Conventions ................................................... 2 5. Administrative Areas .......................................... 3 6. Autonomous Administrative Areas ............................... 3 7. Specific Administrative Areas ................................. 3 8. Inner Administrative Areas .................................... 4 9. Administrative Entries ........................................ 5 10. Security Considerations ...................................... 5 11. Acknowledgements ............................................. 5 12. Normative References ......................................... 5 13. Informative References ....................................... 6 14. Copyright Notice ............................................. 6 15. Author's Address ............................................. 7 3. Introduction This document adapts the X.500 directory administrative model [X501] for use by the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) [RFC3377]. The administrative model partitions the Directory Information Tree (DIT) for various aspects of directory data administration, e.g. subschema, access control and collective attributes. This document provides the definitions for the generic parts of the administrative model that apply to every aspect of directory data administration. Sections 5 to 9, in conjunction with [SUBENTRY], describe the means by which administrative authority is aportioned and exercised in the DIT. Aspects of administration that conform to the administrative model described in this document are detailed elsewhere, e.g. access control administration is described in [ACA] and collective attribute administration is described in [COLLECT]. This document is derived from, and duplicates substantial portions of, Sections 4 and 8 of [X501]. 4. Conventions 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 RFC 2119 [RFC2119]. Legg Expires 25 August 2003 [Page 2] INTERNET-DRAFT Directory Administrative Model February 25, 2003 5. Administrative Areas An administrative area is a subtree of the DIT considered from the perspective of administration. The root entry of the subtree is an administrative point. An administrative point is represented by an entry holding an administrativeRole attribute [SUBENTRY]. The values of this attribute identify the kind of administrative point. 6. Autonomous Administrative Areas The DIT may be partitioned into one or more non-overlapping subtrees termed autonomous administrative areas. It is expected that the entries in an autonomous administrative area are all administered by the same administrative authority. An administrative authority may be responsible for several autonomous administrative areas in separated parts of the DIT but it SHOULD NOT arbitrarily partition the collection of entries under its control into autonomous administrative areas (thus creating adjacent autonomous areas administered by the same authority). The root entry of an autonomous administrative area's subtree is called an autonomous administrative point. An autonomous administrative area extends from its autonomous administrative point downwards until another autonomous administrative point is encountered, at which point another autonomous administrative area begins. 7. Specific Administrative Areas Entries in an administrative area may be considered in terms of a specific administrative function. When viewed in this context, an administrative area is termed a specific administrative area. Examples of specific administrative areas are subschema specific administrative areas, access control specific areas and collective attribute specific areas. An autonomous administrative area may be considered as implicitly defining a single specific administrative area for each specific aspect of administration. In this case, there is a precise correspondence between each such specific administrative area and the autonomous administrative area. Alternatively, for each specific aspect of administration, the autonomous administrative area may be partitioned into Legg Expires 25 August 2003 [Page 3] INTERNET-DRAFT Directory Administrative Model February 25, 2003 non-overlapping specific administrative areas. If so partitioned for a particular aspect of administration, each entry of the autonomous administrative area is contained in one and only one specific administrative area for that aspect, i.e. specific administrative areas do not overlap. The root entry of a specific administrative area's subtree is called a specific administrative point. A specific administrative area extends from its specific administrative point downwards until another specific administrative point of the same administrative aspect is encountered, at which point another specific administrative area begins. Specific administrative areas are always bounded by the autonomous administrative area they partition. Where an autonomous administrative area is not partitioned for a specific aspect of administration, the specific administrative area for that aspect coincides with the autonomous administrative area. In this case, the autonomous administrative point is also the specific administrative point for this aspect of administration. A particular administrative point may be the root of an autonomous administrative area and may be the root of one or more specific administrative areas for different aspects of administration. It is not necessary for an administrative point to represent each specific aspect of administrative authority. For example, there might be an administrative point, subordinate to the root of the autonomous administrative area, which is used for access control purposes only. 8. Inner Administrative Areas For some aspects of administration, e.g. access control or collective attributes, inner administrative areas may be defined within the specific administrative areas, to allow a limited form of delegation, or for administrative or operational convenience. An inner administrative area may be nested within another inner administrative area. The rules for nested inner areas are defined as part of the definition of the specific administrative aspect for which they are allowed. The root entry of an inner administrative area's subtree is called an inner administrative point. An inner administrative area (within a specific administrative area) extends from its inner administrative point downwards until a specific administrative point of the same administrative aspect is encountered. An inner administrative area Legg Expires 25 August 2003 [Page 4] INTERNET-DRAFT Directory Administrative Model February 25, 2003 is bounded by the specific administrative area within which it is defined. 9. Administrative Entries An entry located at an administrative point is an administrative entry. Administrative entries MAY have subentries [SUBENTRY] as immediate subordinates. The administrative entry and its associated subentries are used to control the entries encompassed by the associated administrative area. Where inner administrative areas are used, the scopes of these areas may overlap. Therefore, for each specific aspect of administrative authority, a definition is required of the method of combination of administrative information when it is possible for entries to be included in more than one subtree or subtree refinement associated with an inner area defined for that aspect. 10. Security Considerations This document defines a generic framework for employing policy of various kinds, e.g. access controls, to entries in the DIT. Such policy can only be correctly enforced at a directory server holding a replica of a portion of the DIT if the administrative entries for administrative areas that overlap the portion of the DIT being replicated, and the subentries of those administrative entries relevant to any aspect of policy that is required to be enforced at the replica, are included in the replicated information. Administrative entries and subentries SHOULD be protected from unauthorized examination or changes by appropriate access controls. 11. Acknowledgements This document is derived from, and duplicates substantial portions of, Sections 4 and 8 of [X501]. 12. Normative References [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. [RFC3377] Hodges, J. and R. Morgan, "Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (v3): Technical Specification", RFC 3377, September 2002. Legg Expires 25 August 2003 [Page 5] INTERNET-DRAFT Directory Administrative Model February 25, 2003 [SUBENTRY] Zeilenga, K. and S. Legg, "Subentries in LDAP", draft-zeilenga-ldap-subentry-xx.txt, a work in progress, August 2002. 13. Informative References [ACA] Legg, S., "Access Control Administration in LDAP", draft-legg-ldap-acm-admin-xx.txt, a work in progress, February 2003. [COLLECT] Zeilenga, K., "Collective Attributes in LDAP", draft-zeilenga-ldap-collective-xx.txt, a work in progress, August 2002. [X501] ITU-T Recommendation X.501 (02/2001), Information technology - Open Systems Interconnection - The Directory: Models 14. Copyright Notice Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003). All Rights Reserved. This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than English. The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns. This document and the information contained herein is provided on an "AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS 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. Legg Expires 25 August 2003 [Page 6] INTERNET-DRAFT Directory Administrative Model February 25, 2003 15. Author's Address Steven Legg Adacel Technologies Ltd. 250 Bay Street Brighton, Victoria 3186 AUSTRALIA Phone: +61 3 8530 7710 Fax: +61 3 8530 7888 EMail: steven.legg@adacel.com.au Appendix A - Changes From Previous Drafts A.1 Changes in Draft 00 This document reproduces Section 4 from draft-legg-ldap-acm-admin-00.txt as a standalone document. All changes made are purely editorial. No technical changes have been introduced. A.2 Changes in Draft 01 RFC 3377 replaces RFC 2251 as the reference for LDAP. Legg Expires 25 August 2003 [Page 7]