INTERNET-DRAFT Kurt D. Zeilenga Intended Category: Standard Track OpenLDAP Foundation Expires in six months 17 May 2002 LDAP "Who am I?" Operation 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 Extension 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 This specification provides a mechanism for Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) clients to obtain the authorization identity which the server has associated with the user or application entity. This mechanism is specified as an LDAP extended operation called the LDAP "Who am I?" operation. Zeilenga LDAP "Who am I?" [Page 1] INTERNET-DRAFT draft-zeilenga-ldap-authzid-06 17 May 2002 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 BCP 14 [RFC2119]. 1. Background and Intent of Use This specification describes a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) [RFC2251] extended operation which clients can use to obtain the primary authorization identity in its primary form which the server has associated with the user or application entity. Servers often associate multiple authorization identities with the client and each authorization identity may be represented by multiple authzId [RFC2829] strings. This operation requests and returns the authzId the server considers to be primary. In the specification, the term "the authorization identity" and "the authzid" are to generally read as "the primary authorization identity" and the "the primary authzid", respectively. This specification is intended to replace the existing [AUTHCTL] mechanism which uses Bind request and response controls to request and return the authorization identity. Bind controls are not protected by the security layers established by the Bind operation which they are transferred as part of. While it is possible to establish security layers prior to the Bind operation, it is often desirable to only use security layers established by the Bind operation. An extended operation sent after a Bind operation is protected by the security layers established by the Bind operation. There are other cases where it is desirable to request the authorization identity which the server associated with the client separately from the Bind operation. For example, the "Who am I?" operation can be augmented with a Proxied Authorization Control [PROXYCTL] to determine the authorization identity which the server associates with the identity asserted in the Proxied Authorization Control. The "Who am I?" operation can also be used prior to the Bind operation. The LDAP "Who am I?" operation is named after the UNIX whoami(1) command. The whoami(1) command displays the effective user id. 2. The "Who am I?" Operation The "Who am I?" operation is defined as an LDAP Extended Operation Zeilenga LDAP "Who am I?" [Page 2] INTERNET-DRAFT draft-zeilenga-ldap-authzid-06 17 May 2002 [RFC2251, Section 4.12] identified by the whoamiOID Object Identifier (OID). This section details the syntax of the operation's whoami request and response messages. whoamiOID ::= "1.3.6.1.4.1.4203.1.11.3" 2.1. The whoami Request The whoami request is an ExtendedRequest with the requestName field containing the whoamiOID OID and an absent requestValue field. For example, a whoami request could be encoded as the sequence of octets (in hex): 2.2. The whoami Response The whoami response is an ExtendedResponse where the responseName field is absent and, if present, the response field is empty or an authzId [RFC2829]. For example, a whoami response returning the authzid "u:kurt@OPENLDAP.ORG" (in response to the example request) would be encoded as the sequence of octets (in hex): 3. Operational Semantics The function of the "Who am I?" operation is to request that the server returns the authorization identity it currently associates with the client. The client requests this authorization identity by issuing a whoami Request. The server responds to this request with a whoami Response. If the server is willing and able to provide the authorization identity it associates with the client, the server SHALL return a whoami Response with a success resultCode. If the server is treating the client as an anonymous entity, the response field is empty. Otherwise the server is to provide the authzId [RFC2829] representing the authorization identity it currently associates with the client in the response field. If the server is unwilling or unable to provide the authorization identity it associates with the client, the server SHALL return a whoami Response with an appropriate non-success resultCode (such as operationsError, protocolError, confidentialityRequired, insufficientAccessRights, busy, unavailable, unwillingToPerform, or other) and an absent response field. Zeilenga LDAP "Who am I?" [Page 3] INTERNET-DRAFT draft-zeilenga-ldap-authzid-06 17 May 2002 As described in [RFC2251] and [RFC2829], an LDAP session has an "anonymous" association until the client has been successfully authenticated using the Bind operation. Clients MUST NOT invoke the "Who Am I?" operation while any Bind operation is in progress, including between two Bind requests made as part of a multi-stage Bind operation. 4. Extending the "Who am I?" operation with controls Future specifications may extend the "Who am I?" operation using the control mechanism. When extended by controls, the "Who am I?" operation requests and returns the authorization identity the server associates with the client in a particular context indicated by the controls. 4.1. Proxied Authorization Control The Proxied Authorization Control [PROXYCTL] is used by clients to request that the operation it is attached to operates under the authorization of an assumed identity. The client provides the identity to assume in the Proxied Authorization request control. If the client is authorized to assume the requested identity, the server executes the operation as if the requested identity had issued the operation. As servers often map the asserted authzId to another identity [RFC2829], it is desirable to request the server provide the authzId it associates with the assumed identity. When a Proxied Authorization Control is be attached to the "Who Am I?" operation, the operation requests the return of the authzid the server associates with the identity asserted in the Proxied Authorization Control. The TBD result code is used to indicate that the server does not allow the client to assume the asserted identity. [[Note to RFC Editor: TBD is to be replaced with the name/code assigned by IANA for [PROXYCTL] use.]] 5. Security Considerations Identities associated with users may be sensitive information. When so, security layers [RFC2829][RFC2830] should be established to protect this information. This mechanism is specifically designed to allow security layers established by a Bind operation to protect the integrity and/or confidentiality of the authorization identity. Zeilenga LDAP "Who am I?" [Page 4] INTERNET-DRAFT draft-zeilenga-ldap-authzid-06 17 May 2002 Servers may place access control or other restrictions upon the use of this operation. As with any other extended operations, general LDAP considerations apply. These are detailed in [RFC2251], [RFC2829], and [RFC2830]. 6. IANA Considerations No IANA assignments are requested. This document uses the OID 1.3.6.1.4.1.4203.1.11.3 to identify the LDAP "Who Am I? extended operation. This OID was assigned [ASSIGN] by OpenLDAP Foundation under its IANA assigned private enterprise allocation [PRIVATE] for use in this specification. 7. Acknowledgment This document borrows from prior work in this area including "Authentication Response Control" [AUTHCTL] by Rob Weltman, Mark Smith and Mark Wahl. 8. Author's Address Kurt D. Zeilenga OpenLDAP Foundation 9. 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. [RFC2829] M. Wahl, H. Alvestrand, J. Hodges, RL "Bob" Morgan, "Authentication Methods for LDAP", RFC 2829, June 2000. [RFC2830] J. Hodges, R. Morgan, and M. Wahl, "Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (v3): Extension for Transport Layer Security", RFC 2830, May 2000. [PROXYCTL] R. Weltman, "LDAP Proxied Authentication Control", draft- weltman-ldapv3-proxy-xx.txt (a work in progress). Zeilenga LDAP "Who am I?" [Page 5] INTERNET-DRAFT draft-zeilenga-ldap-authzid-06 17 May 2002 10. Informative References [ASSIGN] OpenLDAP Foundation, "OpenLDAP OID Delegations", http://www.openldap.org/foundation/oid-delegate.txt. [AUTHCTL] R. Weltman, M. Smith, M. Wahl, "LDAP Authentication Response Control", draft-weltman-ldapv3-auth-response- xx.txt (a work in progress). [PRIVATE] IANA, "Private Enterprise Numbers", http://www.iana.org/assignments/enterprise-numbers. Copyright 2002, The Internet Society. All Rights Reserved. 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