INTERNET-DRAFT Kurt D. Zeilenga Intended Category: Informational OpenLDAP Foundation Expires in six months 17 May 2002 LDAPv3: Requesting Attributes by Object Class 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 an Informational 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) search operation provides mechanisms for clients to request all user application attributes, all operational attributes, or attributes selected by their description. This document extends LDAP to provide a mechanism for LDAP clients to request the return of all attributes of an object class. Zeilenga Requesting Attributes by Object Class [Page 1] INTERNET-DRAFT draft-zeilenga-ldap-adlist-01 17 May 2002 1. Overview LDAP [RFC2251] search operations support mechanisms for requesting sets of attributes. This set is determined by a list of attribute descriptions. Two special descriptors are defined to request all user attributes ("*") and all operational attributes ("+"). However, there is no convenient mechanism for requesting pre-defined sets of attributes. This document extends LDAP to allow an object class identifier to be specified in search request attributes list to request the return all attributes allowed by object class. 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. Return of all Attributes of an Object Class This extension allows object class identifiers is to be provided in the attributes field of the LDAP SearchRequest [RFC2251]. For each object class identified in the attributes field, the request is to be treated as if each attribute allowed by that class (by "MUST" or "MAY", directly or by SUPerior) was itself listed. For example, a request for "country" [RFC2256] is treated as if "c", "searchGuide", "description", and "objectClass" were requested. As a special case, requesting extensibleObject [RFC2252] is treated as if "objectClass,*,+" was requested [RFC2251][OPATTRS]. If the object class identifier is unrecognized, it is be treated an an unrecognized attribute description. This extension redefines the attributes field of the SearchRequest to be a DescriptionList described by the following [ASN.1]: DescriptionList ::= SEQUENCE OF Description Description ::= LDAPString The Description is string conforming to the [ABNF]: Description ::= AttributeDescription | ObjectClassDescription. ObjectDescription ::= ObjectClass *( ";" options ) where AttributeDescription and options productions are as defined in Section 4.1.5 of [RFC2251] and an ObjectClass is an objectIdentifier, in either numericoid or descr form [RFC 2252], of an object class. ObjectDescription options are provided for extensibility. This Zeilenga Requesting Attributes by Object Class [Page 2] INTERNET-DRAFT draft-zeilenga-ldap-adlist-01 17 May 2002 document only defines semantics of ObjectDescriptions with zero options in the attributes field of a SearchRequest. Other uses may be defined in future specifications. Servers supporting this feature SHOULD publish the Object Identifier 1.3.6.1.4.1.4203.1.5.2 as a value of the supportedFeatures [FEATURES] attribute in the root DSE. 3. Security Considerations This extension provides a shorthand for requesting all attributes of an object class. As these attributes which could have been listed individually, this short hand is not believed to raises additional security considerations. Implementors of this (or any) LDAP extension should be familiar with general LDAP general security considerations [LDAPTS]. 4. IANA Considerations No IANA assignments are requested. This document uses the OID 1.3.6.1.4.1.4203.1.5.2 to identify the LDAP feature it details. This OID was assigned [ASSIGN] by OpenLDAP Foundation under its IANA assigned private enterprise allocation [PRIVATE] for use in this specification. 5. Author's Address Kurt D. Zeilenga OpenLDAP Foundation 6. 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. [RFC2252] M. Wahl, A. Coulbeck, T. Howes, S. Kille, "Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (v3): Attribute Syntax Definitions", RFC 2252, December 1997. Zeilenga Requesting Attributes by Object Class [Page 3] INTERNET-DRAFT draft-zeilenga-ldap-adlist-01 17 May 2002 [LDAPTS] J. Hodges, R. Morgan, "Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (v3): Technical Specification", draft-ietf-ldapbis-ldapv3-ts-xx.txt (a work in progress). [FEATURES] K. Zeilenga, "Feature Discovery in LDAP", draft-zeilenga-ldap-features-xx.txt (a work in progress). [OPATTRS] K. Zeilenga, "LDAPv3: All Operational Attributes", draft-zeilenga-ldap-opattrs-xx.txt (a work in progress). 7. Informative References [RFC2256] Wahl, M., "A Summary of the X.500(96) User Schema for use with LDAPv3", RFC 2256, December 1997. [X.500] ITU-T Rec. X.500, "The Directory: Overview of Concepts, Models and Service", 1993. [X.511] ITU-T Rec. X.511, "The Directory: Abstract Service Definition", 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. Zeilenga Requesting Attributes by Object Class [Page 4] INTERNET-DRAFT draft-zeilenga-ldap-adlist-01 17 May 2002 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 Requesting Attributes by Object Class [Page 5]