Re: DN draft and X.500

["Kurt D. Zeilenga" <Kurt@OpenLDAP.org>]

At 12:45 PM 2/9/2004, Hallvard B Furuseth wrote:
>draft-ietf-ldapbis-dn-12.txt says:
>
>> 1.  Background and Intended Usage
>>   The structure of a DN [X.501] is described in terms of ASN.1 [X.680].
>
>Only X.500 DNs.  LDAP DNs are not, and that's the important ones in
>an LDAP draft.

This document does not define the structure of a X.500/LDAP DN,
X.501 does.  (LDAP is defined in terms of X.500 as an X.500 access
mechanism.)  This sentence is correct.

>>   This specification assumes familiarity with X.500 [X.500], and the
>>   concept of Distinguished Name [X.501][Models].
>
>No,

Disagree.  This specification, in fact the whole LDAP TS, assumes
familiarity with X.500.  (LDAP is defined in terms of X.500 as an
X.500 access mechanism.)

>familiarity with Sections 1-2 of [Models] is sufficient - at least
>for a reader who just implements LDAP.

[Models] provides an overview of the data model defined in X.501.
It is quite appropriate to reference both here.

>If he implements a gateway
>to/from X.500, he'll need to know the ASN.1 of various syntaxes too, but
>he needs the references in [Syntaxes] for that, not the rest of
>[Models].
>We do need to know the ASN.1 of DNs and RDNs from X.500, but the ASN.1
>in section 2 of this draft seems to be enough for that.

The section 2 provides a variant ASN.1 for discussion purposes.
To fully understand some aspects of DNs, reading of X.501 may
be necessary, including understanding the definitive DN ASN.1
it provides.

Kurt