WDIFF

draft-zeilenga-ldapv2-00.txt --> draft-zeilenga-ldapv2-01.txt

INTERNET-DRAFT Kurt D. Zeilenga
Intended Category: Informational OpenLDAP Foundation
Expires: 15 March 5 May 2002 15 October 5 November 2001

LDAPv2 to Historical Historic Status
<draft-zeilenga-ldapv2-00.txt>
<draft-zeilenga-ldapv2-01.txt>

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 <ietf-ldapbis@openldap.org>. Please send
editorial comments directly to the document editor
<Kurt@OpenLDAP.org>.

Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task
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The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at
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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 Historical Historic
status.

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Background

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, version 2

LDAPv2 (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, version 2) [LDAPv2] [RFC1777]
was published in 1995 as a Draft Standard. Since publication, a
number of
inadequaces inadequacies in the specification have been discovered.
LDAPv3
[LDAPv3] [RFC2251] was published in 1997 as a Proposed Standard to
resolve these
inadequances. inadequacies. While LDAPv3 is currently be being revised [LDAPbis].
[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) RFC 1777 requires use of the textual string associated with
AttributeType in the X.500 Directory standards. However, most
implementations use the NAME associated with the AttributeType in
LDAPv3 schema [RFC2252]. That is, LDAPv2 requires the
organizational name attribute is named "organizationName" not "o".

2) 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.

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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 as specified 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 recongize recognize that significant interoperability issues existing with
exist between current LDAPv2 implementations. LDAPv3 is the recommended protocol for
accessing X.500-based directory services.

As there seems clearly
technically superior to be no implementations of LDAPv2 as specified, it 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
Historical Historic status.

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INTERNET-DRAFT draft-zeilenga-ldapv2-00.txt 15 October 2001

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),
<http://www.ietf.org/html-charters/ldapbis-charter.html>.

[LDAPv2]

[RFC1777] Yeong, W., Howes, T., and S. Kille, "Lightweight Directory
Access Protocol", RFC 1777, March 1995.

[LDAPv3]

[RFC1778] T. Howes, S. Kille, W. Yeong, C. Robbins, "The String

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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

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.

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