# Re: LDAP URL Format

Tim Howes (tim@umich.edu)
Mon, 08 May 1995 13:57:55 -0400

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    Message-Id: <199505081757.NAA15400@terminator.rs.itd.umich.edu>

    From: "Tim Howes" <tim@umich.edu>

    To: ietf-lists@proper.com (Paul Hoffman)

    Subject: Re: LDAP URL Format

    In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 07 May 1995 17:29:40 PDT."

                 <v02120c08abd30f85da66@[165.227.40.11]>

    Date: Mon, 08 May 1995 13:57:55 -0400

> From: ietf-lists@proper.com (Paul Hoffman)
> To: "Tim Howes" <tim@umich.edu>

> Sorry for taking so long to get back to you on this proposal (although I
> noticed that no one else jumped in yet...). In all, I think it looks quite
> good. I'm not yet an X.500 dweeb, but I imagine that you have plenty of
> those in the ASID WG looking out for the X.500 parts of this.

No problem. Thanks for the comments. I will incorporate them as indicated
below.

> Folks in the URI WG should be aware that there is another X.500ish I-D that
> relates to URIs, namely draft-ietf-asid-x500-url-01.txt.

Right, this one defines an X.500 attribute type (and associated object
class) for holding a URI in an X.500 entry. It also allows a text label,
so the URI can be displayed with some chance of knowing what it points to
(e.g., "Bob's Home Page" <url>). I'm sure ASID would appreciate any comments
you have on this one as well.

> >...This document describes a format for an LDAP Uniform Resource
> >Locator which will allow World Wide Web clients to have direct access to
> >the LDAP protocol.
>
> I'd replace "World Wide Web" with "Internet" because there are now many
> non-Web clients that understand URLs.

Will do.

> >An LDAP URL begins with the protocol prefix "ldap" and is defined by the
> >following grammar.
> >
> > <ldapurl> ::= "ldap://" [ <hostport> ] "/" <dn> [ "?" <attributes>
> > [ "?" <scope> "?" <filter> ] ]
>
> The use of multiple question marks with possibly nothing between them bugs
> me a bit here, but I don't have a better delimiter in mind. This might just
> be a visual thing for me.

If you have another suggestion, let me know.

> >... with any URL-illegal charac-
> >ters (e.g., spaces) escaped using the % method.
>
> ... described in RFC 1738.

Will add.

> >Note that if the entry resides in the X.500 namespace, it should be
> >reachable from any LDAP server that is providing front-end access to the
> >X.500 directory. If the <hostport> part of the URL is missing, the URL
> >can be resolved by contacting any X.500-back-ended LDAP server.
>
> Should there be a description (or a reference) of how "any X.500-back-ended
> LDAP server" will resolve the URL? Must *all* such servers resolve requests
> that come from anywhere?

Yes, the idea is for a single namespace that looks and acts the same no
matter what server you contact. So any X.500 LDAP server should know how
to resolve it.

> >5. Security Considerations
> >
> >Security considerations are not discussed in this document.
>
> Should they be? Is there any additional security problems of forcing any
> LDAP server to resolve URLs that aren't for that host? If not, you might
> just point to the X.500 RFC that has the most complete security section.

I don't see any problems with that, but I do think it could use some
words about the fact that we assume no authentication (i.e., there's
no way to pass credentials).

> >7. Bibliography
>
> I noticed a couple of RFCs referred to in the draft that didn't appear in
> the bibliography, such as 1487 and 1558 (and 1738 that I suggested above).

I'll add them.

Thanks again for the comments, and let me know if you (or anybody else)
have more! -- Tim

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