CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_
Reported by Tim Howes/University of Michigan
Minutes of the Integrated Directory Services Working Group (IDS)
Review of Previous Minutes
The minutes from the Amsterdam meeting were accepted without change.
Liaison Reports
o North American Directory Forum (NADF)
Tim Howes served as unofficial liaison to the NADF and reported
that the NADF continues its piloting activities and has opened up
its membership to user organizations (as well as service provider
organizations). The next NADF meeting is in Reston, VA the week of
November 8.
o Whois and Network Information Lookup Service Working Group (WNILS)
Chris Weider reported that the centroids and overall architecture
documents have been out for some time and that the WHOIS++ document
would be out shortly.
Status Reports
o WHOIS++
Chris reported there were now 4 implementations of WHOIS++ servers,
one of which supports centroids. Client development is proceeding
or promised for several client platforms, but none are available
yet.
o Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)
Tim reported that version 3.0 of the University of Michigan LDAP
distribution was released just before the Houston IETF. It includes
a server and several client implementations.
Progress of Documents
o X.500 Implementation Catalog - Sri Sataluri and Arlene Getchell
This document was to be considered for publication as an FYI. There
was general disappointment at the lack of response from many
vendors who are known to have X.500 products, despite the valiant
and tenacious efforts of Sri and Arlene. Ken Rossen volunteered to
beat up on the delinquent vendors and try to extract some more
responses, as he has some contact with them at the OIW. It was
agreed that progression of this document would be held up pending
these responses. It was further agreed that in order to avoid
beatings for the delinquent co-chairs, we would only wait until
November 24 for responses, after which time the document would be
progressed ASAP.
ACTION: Ken to get a stick and beat up on vendors.
o Pilot Project Catalog - April Marine
April was not at the meeting, but had expressed a desire to
withdraw this document, since she found much of the same
information in a Paradise document. The group had two concerns.
First, there was concern that the Paradise document might not be as
timely as it needed to be, and that the Paradise project itself is
going to be shutting down in April of 94. Second, there was
concern that a document was needed in the RFC/FYI series, even if
it just pointed to another document.
ACTION: Tim and Chris to talk to April and Paradise about this
document.
o WHOIS++ Implementation Catalog - Chris Weider
Chris reported that this document would be out as an Internet-Draft
within the next month. Chris will use a template similar to the
one used for the X.500 catalog, but the X.500 compliance section
will be replaced with an options implemented section, in which
implementors can describe which of the WHOIS++ options they have
implemented.
o Model for Information Privacy of Directories - Barbara Jennings
Apologies were made to Barbara and the group for not distributing
her document to the IDS discussion list. Barbara presented the
main ideas in the document, including considerations that directory
managers of personal data should have in the following areas:
- Data collection (inform users, include only necessary info,
allow opting out)
- Data integrity (provide easy updating, disclose source, check
for out-of-date data, conduct regular audits for errors)
- Data security (keep a record of searches, limit information to
a need-to-know basis)
- Data marketing (ask permission before selling data, provide a
complete dissemination list)
- Legal protection in the US (Privacy Act, Freedom of Information
Act)
ACTION: Barbara to flesh out her document and submit it to the
entire list.
o Legal Issues for Directories in Europe - Erik Huizer
Erik was not present, so discussion was postposed. Erik later
reported that only small changes have been made since the Amsterdam
meeting.
o Introduction to White Pages Services Based on X.500 - A.P. Jurg
The group discussed how this document differed from the Executive
Introduction to X.500 (FYI 1308/1309).
o Overview of Directory Services - Marco Hernandez
Marco reported that his document would be submitted to the list
within a matter of days. There was general agreement that this
should be pursued as an Informational RFC.
ACTION: Marco to submit his document to the list.
New Directory Services
The Computing Services Office (CSO) Nameserver protocol was discussed.
In lieu of Joel Cooper from Notre Dame, Chris led the discussion. CSO
is currently a local directory service, but the consensus of the group
was that there is work to be done in the ``common schema and access''
area, which makes it appropriate for inclusion in IDS.
Chris will talk to Joel Cooper about getting the CSO documents (or
pointers to them) submitted to the list.
AOB
In the CSO discussion it was brought up that a relevant meeting had
occurred earlier in the week. Tim gave a brief summary of the purpose
and results of the meeting. The National Science Foundation, finding
itself inundated with many requests to fund directory service efforts,
convened a group of experts in the Internet community for the purpose of
advising NSF on how best to allocate its limited funds to these
projects.
The consensus of the group was that no single white pages directory
service was about to take over the Internet any time soon. Sites have
extensive flexibility to run whatever they please, for a variety of
reasons. Therefore, the informal recommendation of the group was for
NSF to diversify itself and fund a variety of white pages directory
service efforts. Furthermore, the group recommended that another area
worthy of research is a system to tie together the various disparate
white pages directory services. Tim introduced the basics of one such
plan which had been presented at the meeting by Marshall Rose. Much
interesting discussion ensued.
Next Meeting
The next meeting of the IDS Working Group will be at the March IETF in
Seattle, WA.
Attendees
Harald Alvestrand Harald.T.Alvestrand@uninett.no
Sepideh Boroumand sepi@aol.com
Luc Boulianne lucb@cs.mcgill.ca
Glen Cairns cairns@mprgate.mpr.ca
Peter Deutsch peterd@bunyip.com
Urs Eppenberger eppenberger@switch.ch
Qin Fang qin_fang@unc.edu
Jill Foster Jill.Foster@newcastle.ac.uk
Jisoo Geiter geiter@mitre.org
Arlene Getchell getchell@es.net
Mei-Jean Goh goh@mpr.ca
Chris Gorsuch chrisg@lobby.ti.com
Judith Grass grass@cnri.reston.va.us
Roland Hedberg Roland.Hedberg@rc.tudelft.nl
Marco Hernandez marco@cren.net
Tim Howes tim@umich.edu
Richard Huber rvh@ds.internic.net
Barbara Jennings bjjenni@sandia.gov
Michael Kornegay mlk@bir.com
John Kunze jak@violet.berkeley.edu
Ben Levy seven@ftp.com
Wayne McDilda wayne@dir.texas.gov
Michael McLay mclay@eeel.nist.gov
Lars-Gunnar Olsson Lars-Gunnar.Olsson@data.slu.se
Scott Paisley paisley@central.bldrdoc.gov
Rakesh Patel rapatel@pilot.njin.net
Karen Petraska-Veum karen.veum@gsfc.nasa.gov
Richard Rodgers rodgers@nlm.nih.gov
Kenneth Rossen kenr@shl.com
Srinivas Sataluri sri@internic.net
Richard Schmalgemeier rgs@merit.edu
Rickard Schoultz schoultz@sunet.se
Sam Sjogren sjogren@tgv.com
Mark Smith mcs@umich.edu
Milan Sova sova@feld.cvut.cz
Margaret St. Pierre saint@wais.com
David Staudt dstaudt@nsf.gov
Chris Weider clw@bunyip.com
Brien Wheeler blw@mitre.org
Jackie Wilson Jackie.Wilson@msfc.nasa.gov
Russ Wright wright@lbl.gov