RE: draft-ietf-ldapext-locate-01.txt - Discovering LDAP Services with DNS

[Paul Leach <paulle@Exchange.Microsoft.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bruce Greenblatt [mailto:bgreenblatt@directory-applications.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2000 6:50 PM
> To: Paul Leach; ietf-ldapext@netscape.com
> Subject: RE: draft-ietf-ldapext-locate-01.txt - Discovering LDAP
> Services with DNS
> 
> 
> At 05:33 PM 1/18/00 -0800, Paul Leach wrote:
> >
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: Bruce Greenblatt 
> [mailto:bgreenblatt@directory-applications.com]
> >> Sent: Monday, January 17, 2000 4:36 PM
> >> To: ietf-ldapext@netscape.com
> >> Subject: Re: draft-ietf-ldapext-locate-01.txt - Discovering LDAP
> >> Services with DNS
> >> 
> >> 
> >> I don't understand (or necessarily agree with) the first two 
> >> paragraphs of
> >> this draft.  What difference does it make to this mechanism 
> >> what a "native"
> >> LDAP server is?
> >
> >We needed a word to describe servers whose NCs have DNs that 
> start with a
> >series of "DC=" components. Ones that don't have such names 
> for their NCs
> >are using the X.500 naming model with LDAP front ends -- those are
> >"X.500-ish" LDAP servers.
> >
> 
> OK.  The draft should drop the use of "native", and just say that it
> applies to LDAP servers that have standardiz(s)ed on the "DC" 
> naming RFC.

That's too long and bulky to say everywhere it currently says "native".

I don't see what's wrong with "native" -- it means that they aren't a front
end to X.500. Hence they can't use X.500 capabilities, and clients can
expect service that requires those capabilities. In some cases, that means
both clients and servers are out of luck -- clients have to apriori know the
DNS name of the server that stores a given DN, and a server that recieves a
request for a DN in an NC it doesn't store can't generate a referral.

However, if the DN starts with "DC=", then things can be better if they
follow the proposal in the draft: the client can get to a server, or a
server given a request for such a DN can generate a referral. All the server
has to do is get SRV records registered for the NCs it stores -- ones that
are resolvable by all the clients it cares to serve.

Paul