Network Working Group K. Zeilenga Request for Comments: 3673 OpenLDAP Foundation Category: Standards Track December 2003
Lightweight Directory Access Protocol version 3 (LDAPv3): All Operational Attributes
Status of this Memo
This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) supports a mechanism for requesting the return of all user attributes but not all operational attributes. This document describes an LDAP extension which clients may use to request the return of all operational attributes.
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 the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) [RFC3377] to provide a simple mechanism which clients may use to request the return of all operational attributes. The mechanism is designed for use with existing general purpose LDAP clients (including web browsers which support LDAP URLs) and existing LDAP APIs.
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].
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RFC 3673 LDAPv3: All Operational Attributes December 2003
The presence of the attribute description "+" (ASCII 43) in the list of attributes in a Search Request [RFC2251] 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. Client 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' [RFC3674] attribute in the root DSE.
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 including those supporting LDAP URLs [RFC2255].
The addition of this mechanism to LDAP is not believed 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 [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.
This document provides a general mechanism which clients may use to discover operational attributes. Prior to the introduction of this mechanism, operational attributes were only returned when requested by name. Some might have viewed this as obscurity feature. However, this feature offers a false sense of security as the attributes were still transferable.
Implementations SHOULD implement appropriate access controls mechanisms to restricts access to operational attributes.
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RFC 3673 LDAPv3: All Operational Attributes December 2003
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.
Registration of this feature has been completed by IANA [RFC3674], [RFC3383].
Subject: Request for LDAP Protocol Mechanism Registration
Object Identifier: 1.3.6.1.4.1.4203.1.5.1
Description: All Op Attrs
Person & email address to contact for further information: Kurt Zeilenga <kurt@openldap.org>
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RFC 3673 LDAPv3: All Operational Attributes December 2003
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