INTERNET-DRAFT Kurt D. Zeilenga Intended Category: Standard Track OpenLDAP Foundation Expires in six months 17 May 2002 LDAPv3: All Operational Attributes Status of this Memo This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026. This document is intended to be, after appropriate review and revision, submitted to the RFC Editor as a Standard Track document. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. Technical discussion of this document will take place on the IETF LDAP Extensions Working Group mailing list . Please send editorial comments directly to the author . 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 . The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at . Copyright 2002, The Internet Society. All Rights Reserved. Please see the Copyright section near the end of this document for more information. Abstract The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) supports a mechanism for requesting the return of all user attributes but does not all operational attributes. This document describes an LDAP extension which clients may use to request the return of all operational attributes. Zeilenga LDAP All Op Attrs [Page 1] INTERNET-DRAFT draft-zeilenga-ldap-opattrs-03 17 May 2002 1. Overview X.500 [X.500] provides a mechanism for clients to request all operational attributes be returned with entries provided in response to a search operation. This mechanism is often used by clients to discover which operational attributes are present in an entry. This documents extends LDAP [RFC2251] to provide a simple mechanism which clients may use to request the return of all operation attributes. The mechanism is designed for use with existing general purpose LDAP clients (including web browsers which support LDAP URLs) and existing LDAP API. 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 BCP 14 [RFC2119]. 2. All Operational Attributes The presence of the attribute description "+" (ASCII 43) in the list of attributes in a Search Request SHALL signify a request for the return of all operational attributes. As with all search requests, client implementors should note that results may not include all requested attributes due to access controls or other restrictions. Clients implementors should also note that certain operational attributes may be returned only if requested by name even when "+" is present. This is because some operational attributes are very expensive to return. Servers supporting this feature SHOULD publish the Object Identifier 1.3.6.1.4.1.4203.1.5.1 as a value of the supportedFeatures [FEATURES] attribute in the root DSE. 3. Interoperability Considerations This mechanism is specifically designed to allow users to request all operational attributes using existing LDAP clients. In particular, the mechanism is designed to be compatible with existing general purpose LDAP clients includes web browsers which support LDAP URLs [RFC2255]. The addition of this mechanism to LDAPv3 is believed not to cause any significant interoperability issues (this has been confirmed through testing). Servers which have yet to implement this specification should ignore the "+" as an unrecognized attribute description per Zeilenga LDAP All Op Attrs [Page 2] INTERNET-DRAFT draft-zeilenga-ldap-opattrs-03 17 May 2002 [RFC2251, Section 4.5.1]. From the client's perspective, a server which does not return all operational attributes when "+" is requested should be viewed as having other restrictions. It is also noted that this mechanism is believed to require no modification of existing LDAP APIs. 4. Security Considerations This document provides a mechanism which clients may use to discover operational attributes. Those relying on security by obscurity SHOULD implement appropriate access controls to restricts access to operational attributes per local policy. 5. IANA Considerations No IANA assignments are requested. This document uses the OID 1.3.6.1.4.1.4203.1.5.1 to identify the feature described above. This OID was assigned [ASSIGN] by OpenLDAP Foundation under its IANA assigned private enterprise allocation [PRIVATE] for use in this specification. 6. Acknowledgment The "+" mechanism is believed to have been first suggested by Bruce Greenblatt in a November 1998 post to the IETF LDAPext Working Group mailing list. 7. Author's Address Kurt D. Zeilenga OpenLDAP Foundation 8. Normative References [RFC2119] S. Bradner, "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14 (also RFC 2119), March 1997. [RFC2251] M. Wahl, T. Howes, S. Kille, "Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (v3)", RFC 2251, December 1997. Zeilenga LDAP All Op Attrs [Page 3] INTERNET-DRAFT draft-zeilenga-ldap-opattrs-03 17 May 2002 [FEATURES] K. Zeilenga, "Feature Discovery in LDAP", draft-zeilenga- ldap-features-xx.txt (a work in progress). 9. Informative References [RFC2255] T. Howes and M. Smith, "The LDAP URL Format", RFC 2255, December 1997. [X.500] ITU-T Rec. X.500, "The Directory: Overview of Concepts, Models and Service", 1993. [ASSIGN] OpenLDAP Foundation, "OpenLDAP OID Delegations", http://www.openldap.org/foundation/oid-delegate.txt. [PRIVATE] IANA, "Private Enterprise Numbers", http://www.iana.org/assignments/enterprise-numbers. Copyright 2002, The Internet Society. 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 AUTHORS, 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. Zeilenga LDAP All Op Attrs [Page 4]