INTERNET-DRAFT Kurt D. Zeilenga Intended Category: Informational OpenLDAP Foundation Expires: 5 May 2002 5 November 2001 LDAPv2 to Historic Status Status of 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 an Informational document. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. Technical discussion of this document will take place on the IETF LDAP Revision Working Group (LDAPbis) mailing list . Please send editorial comments directly to the document editor . 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 2001, The Internet Society. All Rights Reserved. Please see the Copyright section near the end of this document for more information. Abstract This note discusses moving version 2 of the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol [LDAPv2] and dependent specifications to Historic status. Zeilenga LDAPv2 to Historic Status [Page 1] INTERNET-DRAFT draft-zeilenga-ldapv2-01.txt 5 November 2001 Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, version 2 LDAPv2 (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, version 2) [RFC1777] was published in 1995 as a Draft Standard. Since publication, a number of inadequacies in the specification have been discovered. LDAPv3 [RFC2251] was published in 1997 as a Proposed Standard to resolve these inadequacies. While LDAPv3 is currently being revised [LDAPbis], it is clearly technically superior to LDAPv2. The LDAPv2 specification is not generally adhered to. That is, an independently developed implementation of the specification would not interoperate with existing implementations as existing implementations use syntaxes and semantics different than those prescribed by the specification. Below are two examples. 1) Existing LDAPv2 implementations do not commonly restrict textual values to IA5 and T.61 as required by RFC 1777 and RFC 1778. Some existing implementations use ISO 8859-1, others use UCS-2, others use UTF-8, and some use whatever the local character set happens to be. 2) RFC 1777 requires use of the textual string associated with AttributeType in the X.500 Directory standards. However, existing implementations use the NAME associated with the AttributeType in LDAPv3 schema [RFC2252]. That is, LDAPv2 requires the organization name attribute is named "organizationName" not "o". In addition, LDAPv2 does not provide adequate security features for use on the Internet. LDAPv2 does not provide any mechanism for data integrity or confidentiality. LDAPv2 does not support modern authentication mechanisms such as those based on DIGEST-MD5, Kerberos V, and X.509 public keys. Dependent Specifications Since the publication of RFC 1777, 1778, and 1779, there have been additional standard track RFCs published which dependent on these technical specifications, including: "Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Operational Protocols - LDAPv2" [RFC2559] and "Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure LDAPv2 Schema" [RFC2587]. RFC 2559 is an applicability statement for LDAPv2. It depends on RFC 1777 and updates RFC 1778. If LDAPv2 is moved to Historic status, so must this document. Zeilenga LDAPv2 to Historic Status [Page 2] INTERNET-DRAFT draft-zeilenga-ldapv2-01.txt 5 November 2001 RFC 2587 provides additional schema for LDAPv2. It depends on RFC 1777 and RFC 1778. If LDAPv2 is moved to Historic status, so must this document. Recommendation Developers should not implement LDAPv2 per RFC 1777 as such would result in an implementation which will not interoperate with existing LDAPv2 implementations. Developers should implement LDAPv3 instead. Deployers should recognize that significant interoperability issues exist between current LDAPv2 implementations. LDAPv3 is clearly technically superior to LDAPv2 and hence should be used instead. It is recommended that RFC 1777, RFC 1778, and RFC 1779, as well as RFC 2559 and RFC 2587, be moved to Historic status. Security Considerations The security of the Internet will not be impacted by the retirement of LDAPv2. Acknowledgment The author would like to thank the designers of LDAPv2 for their contribution to the Internet community. Author's Address Kurt D. Zeilenga OpenLDAP Foundation Email: Kurt@OpenLDAP.org References [LDAPbis] IETF LDAP Revision (v3) Working Group (LDAPbis), . [RFC1777] Yeong, W., Howes, T., and S. Kille, "Lightweight Directory Access Protocol", RFC 1777, March 1995. [RFC1778] T. Howes, S. Kille, W. Yeong, C. Robbins, "The String Zeilenga LDAPv2 to Historic Status [Page 3] INTERNET-DRAFT draft-zeilenga-ldapv2-01.txt 5 November 2001 Representation of Standard Attribute Syntaxes", RFC 1778, March 1995. [RFC1779] S. Kille, "A String Representation of Distinguished Names", RFC 1779, March 1995. [RFC2251] Wahl, M., Howes, T. and S. Kille, "Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (v3)", RFC 2251, December 1997. [RFC2559] Boeyen, S., Howes, T. and P. Richard, "Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Operational Protocols - LDAPv2", RFC 2559, April 1999. [RFC2587] Boeyen, S., Howes, T. and P. Richard, "Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure LDAPv2 Schema", RFC 2587, June 1999. Full Copyright Copyright 2001, 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 LDAPv2 to Historic Status [Page 4]