RE: Abandon Modify

[mpana@metasolv.com]

In section 4.6, rfc 2251 specifies: "The entire list of entry modifications
MUST be performed in the order they are listed, as a single atomic
operation."

Wrt. the Abandon operation, the rfc specifies in section 4.11: "Clients
[...] MUST also be prepared to receive results from operations it has
abandoned (since these may have been in transit when the abandon was
requested)."

So:
- given the requirement for atomicity, the modification either happens
entirely or not at all
- if a server receives an AbandonRequest too late in the process, the
ModifyResponse may still be returned. This is an indication for the client
that the AbandonRequest has been ignored/discarded by the server.
- however, "if the connection fails, whether the modification occurred or
not is indeterminate" (rfc2251 section 4.6). 

Regards,
Mircea


-----Original Message-----
From: hmowafy@telcordia.com [mailto:hmowafy@telcordia.com]
Sent: Friday, June 28, 2002 1:07 PM
To: ietf-ldapbis@OpenLDAP.org
Subject: Abandon Modify


Has any thought been given to the handling of an Abandon request for a
Modify operation?

I don't see much discussion or clarification in 2251, Sec 4.11, on how to
handle an Abandon in the middle of processing a modify operation,
especially that the client does not get a response on any Abandon requests.

It could be too late to honor the Abandon request but the client will never
know.

I may have missed earlier decisions on this, but was this deemed acceptable
by the working group?

Does the server administrator have a choice, say to reject "Abandons" on
all Update requests?

Thanks
Hala