Internet DRAFT - draft-smith-ldap-psearch

draft-smith-ldap-psearch



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Network Working Group                                           M. Smith
INTERNET-DRAFT                                                   G. Good
Intended Category: Standards Track                              T. Howes
Expires: October 1998                                         R. Weltman
                                           Netscape Communications Corp.

                                                        11 February 1998


     Persistent Search: A Simple LDAP Change Notification Mechanism
                   <draft-smith-ldap-psearch-01.txt>



1.  Status of this Memo

This draft document will be submitted to the RFC Editor as a Standards
Track document. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. Please send com-
ments to the authors.

This document is an Internet-Draft.  Internet-Drafts are working docu-
ments of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its
working groups.  Note that other groups may also distribute working
documents as Internet-Drafts.

Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material
or to cite them other than as ``work in progress.''

To learn the current status of any Internet-Draft, please check the
``1id-abstracts.txt'' listing contained in the Internet-Drafts Shadow
Directories on ds.internic.net (US East Coast), nic.nordu.net (Europe),
ftp.isi.edu (US West Coast), or munnari.oz.au (Pacific Rim).

Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1997,1998). All Rights Reserved.

Please see the Copyright section near the end of this document for more
information.


2.  Introduction

This document defines two controls that extend the LDAP [1] search
operation to provide a simple mechanism by which an LDAP client can
receive notification of changes that occur in an LDAP server.  The
mechanism is designed to be very flexible yet easy for clients and
servers to implement.



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The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED",  and "MAY" in this document are
to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [2].


3.  General Approach

The approach taken by the Persistent Search mechanism described in this
document is to alter the standard LDAP search operation so that it does
not end after the initial set of entries matching the search criteria
are returned.  Instead, LDAP servers keep the search operation going.
This provides clients and servers participating in Persistent Search
with an active channel through which entries that change (and additional
information about the changes that occur) can be communicated.


4.  Persistent Search Control

This control may be included in the Controls portion of an LDAPv3 Sear-
chRequest message.  The controlType is "2.16.840.1.113730.3.4.3".

           PersistentSearch ::= SEQUENCE {
                   changeTypes INTEGER,
                   changesOnly BOOLEAN,
                   returnECs BOOLEAN
           }

Upon receiving this control, a server that supports it MUST process this
as a standard LDAPv3 search with the following exceptions:


   a)   If changesOnly is TRUE, the server MUST NOT return any existing
        entries that match the search criteria.  Entries are only
        returned when they are changed (added, modified, deleted, or
        subject to a modifyDN operation).


   b)   The server MUST NOT return a SearchResult message.  Instead, the
        search operation MUST be kept active until it is abandoned by
        the client or until the client unbinds.


   c)   As changes are made to the server, the effected entries MUST be
        returned to the client if they match the standard search cri-
        teria and if the operation that caused the change is included in
        the changeTypes field.  The changeTypes field is the logical OR
        of one or more of these values: add (1), delete (2), modify (4),
        modDN (8).



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   d)   If returnECs is TRUE, the server MUST return an Entry Change
        Notification control with each entry returned as the result of
        changes.  This control is described in the next section.


5.  Entry Change Notification Control

This control provides additional information about the change the caused
a particular entry to be returned as the result of a persistent search.
The controlType is "2.16.840.1.113730.3.4.7".  If the client set the
returnECs boolean to TRUE in the PersistentSearch control, servers MUST
include an EntryChangeNotification control in the Controls portion of
each SearchResultEntry that is returned due to an entry being added,
deleted, or modified.

           EntryChangeNotification ::= SEQUENCE {
                     changeType ENUMERATED {
                             add             (1),
                             delete          (2),
                             modify          (4),
                             modDN           (8)
                     },
                     previousDN   LDAPDN OPTIONAL,     -- modifyDN ops. only
                     changeNumber INTEGER OPTIONAL     -- if supported
           }

changeType indicates what LDAP operation caused the entry to be
returned.

previousDN is present only for modifyDN operations and gives the DN of
the entry before it was renamed and/or moved.  Servers MUST include this
optional field when returning change notifications as a result of
modifyDN operations.

changeNumber is the change number [3] assigned by a server for the
change.  If a server supports an LDAP Change Log it SHOULD include this
field.


6.  Security Considerations

In some situations, it may be important to prevent general exposure of
information about changes that occur in an LDAP server.  Therefore,
servers that implement the mechanism described in this document SHOULD
provide a means to enforce access control on the entries returned and
MAY also provide specific access control mechanisms to control the use
of the PersistentSearch and EntryChangeNotification controls.




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7.  Copyright

Copyright (C) The Internet Society (date). All Rights Reserved.

This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to oth-
ers, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it or
assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and dis-
tributed, 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 Stan-
dards 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 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 FIT-
NESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.


8.  Bibliography

[1]  M. Wahl, T. Howes, S. Kille, "Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
     (v3)", RFC 2251.

[2]  S. Bradner, "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Lev-
     els", RFC 2119.

[3]  G. Good, "Definition of an Object Class to Hold LDAP Change
     Record", INTERNET-DRAFT <draft-ietf-asid-changelog-01.txt>, July
     1997.


9.  Author's Addresses

   Mark Smith
   Netscape Communications Corp.
   501 E. Middlefield Rd., Mailstop MV068
   Mountain View, CA 94043
   USA



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   +1 650 937-3477
   mcs@netscape.com


   Gordon Good
   Netscape Communications Corp.
   501 E. Middlefield Rd., Mailstop MV068
   Mountain View, CA 94043
   USA
   +1 650 937-3825
   ggood@netscape.com


   Tim Howes
   Netscape Communications Corp.
   501 E. Middlefield Rd., Mailstop MV068
   Mountain View, CA 94043
   USA
   +1 650 937-3419


   Rob Weltman
   Netscape Communications Corp.
   501 E. Middlefield Rd., Mailstop MV068
   Mountain View, CA 94043
   USA
   +1 650 937-3301
   rweltman@netscape.com


10.  Appendix A:  Changes since draft-smith-ldap-psearch-00.txt


10.1.  Added Missing OIDs

The OIDs for the controls (controlType) were left out of the previous
draft.  They have been added.


10.2.  Corrected ASN.1

The ASN.1 was not quite correct.  The extra commas have been removed.


10.3.  Updated References

LDAPv3 has now been issued as an RFC, so we now reference it as such.




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1.     Status of this Memo............................................1
2.     Introduction...................................................1
3.     General Approach...............................................2
4.     Persistent Search Control......................................2
5.     Entry Change Notification Control..............................3
6.     Security Considerations........................................3
7.     Copyright......................................................4
8.     Bibliography...................................................4
9.     Author's Addresses.............................................4
10.    Appendix A:  Changes since draft-smith-ldap-psearch-00.txt.....5
10.1.     Added Missing OIDs..........................................5
10.2.     Corrected ASN.1.............................................5
10.3.     Updated References..........................................5