Re: I-D ACTION:draft-mmeredit-rootdse-vendor-info-00.txt

[Mark Smith <mcs@netscape.com>]

Peter Strong wrote:
> ...
> As a user of multiple directory products, I think that some manner of
> determining the type of directory I'm connected to is crucial! We currently
> support Netscape, Novell and (soon) Active Directory as the storage
> repository for our product. We need to know which directory we're talking to
> because
> of the differences that exist in such things as schema update mechanisms and
> change notification strategys.
> ...

But it is a slippery slope to provide a vendor name and version.  The
danger is that people will start to rely on that rather than encouraging
development of appropriate standards.  I don't know how to reconcile the
short term need for clients to identify what server they are talking to
with the long term need to rely on standard compliance to achieve
interoperability.  The two examples you cite above are interesting. 
LDAPv3 includes a standard for schema updates (although I know some
implementations -- including ours -- have quirks in this area that we
are working to fix).  For change notification, all the mechanisms I know
of rely on an LDAPv3 control which you can test support for by reading a
server's rootDSE supportedControl attribute.

-- 
Mark Smith
iPlanet Directory Architect / Sun-Netscape Alliance
My words are my own, not my employer's.   Got LDAP?