CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_
Reported by Thomas Lenggenhager/SWITCH
Minutes of the OSI Directory Services Working Group (OSIDS)
OSIDS met jointly with RARE WG-NAP.
Introduction
The agenda and the minutes of the Columbus meeting (March 1993) were
reviewed and approved without comment.
Liaison Reports
o NADF (Marshall T. Rose)
There was a demo at EMA (Atlanta, May 93). The public namespace is
implemented. The CYN is run by Canada Post, 5 ADDMDs with DSP(88) and
DAP(88), 2 participants with DAP only. The CAN has the knowledge of
the PARADISE pilot, at the moment the CAN is not available from
PARADISE.
o AARNet (Mark Prior)
At the moment internal coordination. Mark has implemented a WHOIS++
server using LDAP.
o PARADISE (Paul Barker)
The usage of the central DUA has stabilized, usage of the central
DSA is still increasing.
The IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) on the software developed
at UCL under the PARADISE contract from COSINE have still to be
solved. The chances seem good that UCL will have the right to
distribute it freely.
The idm and bulkload packages as well as the updated de with the
browser mode will be announced as soon as the IPR are solved.
The Open Interworking Forum & Platform (the part of the PARADISE
Transition Phase contracted to INRIA) is still under preparation but
will soon be ready to take off.
David Goodman took the initiative for a European Directory Forum which
shall be presented at the EEMA in Maastricht, NL (Sept. 1993).
o ISO/ITU (Ken Rossen)
The 1993 standards passed the ballot in June in Yokohama and will be
published by October 1993.
The ISO JTC1 has to accept the interworking with the IETF OSI-DS
group. This is an activity following the cooperation between the
Internet Society and ISO.
ACTION: Ken Rossen to send information to the distribution list about
the OIW archive and the availability of the standards.
There is a paper in ISO about Management of the Directory with CMIP,
a UK contribution. Another paper about Directory Schema Migration.
Distributed Entries are a worktopic in ISO.
The name CCITT disappeared and was replaced by ITU/TS (technical
standards).
o OIW (Ken Rossen)
2 International Standard Profiles (ISP) will go into the next IGOS and
GOSIP. One is for DAP on the side of the DSA.
Use of 93 replication/shadowing for exchanging data with other
databases.
o IDS (Chris Weider)
Please refer to the IDS minutes.
Progression of Documents to Standard Status (Erik Huizer)
o LDAP was delayed due to comments on the lists. Tim Howes has fixed
the document and submitted it directly to the RFC Editor.
o DN and UFN are on the top of the RFC Editor's list of documents to
publish.
o DSA-Metrics was not on the agenda, but was sent to the list already
some time ago. The document was revised by Paul Barker and Roland
Hedberg based on the experience with the Siemens' DSA at SURFnet.
Paul Barker will publish DSA-Metrics as an Informational RFC.
o Steve Kille will make editorial changes to RFC 1278.
Schema Group/RFC 1274 Update
Sri Sataluri will take over the Schema group which will propose and
implement a mechanism on how to maintain RFC 1274. Further volunteers
are Tim Howes, Ken Rossen and Russ Wright; there were no European
volunteers.
Presentation of InterNIC Activity (Sri Sataluri)
The Directory Services part of InterNIC (contracted to AT&T) offers
services on ds.internic.net.
o Directory of Directories
o Directory Services (information about users, institutions,
organizations and resources)
X.500 for White Pages: a position paper is available on ds.internic.net
as /pub/internic-info/x500.position.paper.
o Public DUA (with login name x500)
o LDAP server
o E-mail access via mailserv@ds.internic.net
o WAIS server (people.src)
o Gopher access is planned
Organizations can have up to 50 entries at no charge by using the
template available on ds.internic.net as
/pub/internic-info/org.x500.form.
OSI-DS-41: Guidelines for Directory Structure/RFC 1384 Update
(Thomas Lenggenhager)
This draft document comes out of the RARE WG-NAP Task Force for Data
Management. It tries to summarize all information an organization needs
when it wants to use X.500 as a White Pages service.
o How to structure an organizational DIT
o Naming of entries
o Attribute syntaxes, use of T.61
o Languages (no support in the standard at all)
o How to use selected attribute types for a White Pages service
Privacy and data protection will be covered in a separate RFC by Erik
Huizer (RARE WG-NAP TF-Legal and IDS). It was agreed that this kind of
information shall be integrated into an update of RFC 1384. Paul
Barker, Steve Kille and Thomas Lenggenhager will update RFC 1384.
OSI-DS-40: X.500-based File Archive Searching (Paul Barker)
o It is something like Archie but based on X.500.
o The update since the last meeting dropped many special syntaxes.
o A publically accessible interface will be available within 2 weeks.
o A software package to be available within 3-4 weeks.
o Steve Kille will add this topic to the workplan to be progressed as
an Experimental RFC some time in the future.
Index DSAs (Paul Barker)
He presented his ideas on specialized DSAs which replicate just the part
of the data the DSA administrator is interested in. For the rest of the
information, the DN of the entry is available. This is useful for
Yellow Page services like finding all biologists in a country, all file
archives, or all organizations in the world.
This method would allow subtree searching also near the top without
excessive `costs'. It is just another view to the same data. This
would require the DUAs to `know' where these special DSAs are.
An alternative approach is to have a web of aliases, then query a
special part of the DIT instead of special DSAs.
Currently 3 special DSAs are implemented:
o People in all UK computer departments
o All British librarians
o All companies worldwide
OSI-DS-38: Representing IP information in the DIT (Thomas Johannsen)
There have been some attempts to introduce IP information into the DIT.
This solution has been generalized and will now get implemented for IP.
Thomas Johannsen will submit OSI-DS-37 and 38 for publication as
Experimental RFCs by September of 1993.
Network Information in the Directory: Deployment Strategy
(Thomas Johannsen)
o No migration plans
o If the X.500 solution is useful, it will be used
o Timescale is needed before it can be progressed
o Special DUAs are needed for network and system managers
o The White Pages tree shall be used instead of special trees
Representing the DNS in the Directory/Revising RFC 1279
(Thomas Johannsen)
Changes:
o More administrative and technical aspects
o Distinction of DNS record types
o Linking DNS $ Network info and DNS $ White Pages
Steve Kille will add an update of RFC 1279 to the workplan, and Thomas
Johannsen will publish the OID tables.
Multiple Service Providers and Distributed Entries (Paul-Andre Pays)
o There are only questions, no solutions yet. One real life object
may have several sources of information, either with more or less
complete information each, or with only a few attributes.
o Multiple service providers: proposals by NADF (naming links) and
Bellcore (reference link with context and DN).
o Distributed entries: attributes held in different databases for
one real world object (e.g. phone number in a PABX).
o There were some doubts whether the NADF solution will scale---this
has to be shown first. Could collective attributes solve the
problem?
o The RARE WG-NAP will prepare a document to state the problem, and
OSI-DS will follow up on it.
Next Meeting
OSIDS plans to meet at the Houston IETF in November, towards the end of
the week.
Attendees
Claudio Allocchio Claudio.Allocchio@elettra.trieste.it
Paul Barker p.barker@cs.ucl.ac.uk
Piet Bovenga p.bovenga@uci.kun.nl
C. Allan Cargille allan.cargille@cs.wisc.edu
Robert Cooney cooney@wnyose.nctsw.navy.mil
Thomas DeWitt tdewitt@osi.ncsl.nist.gov
Maria Dimou-Zacharova dimou@dxcern.cern.ch
Urs Eppenberger eppenberger@switch.ch
Tony Genovese genovese@es.net
Christoph Graf graf@switch.ch
Jan Hansen Jan.Hansen@teknologi.agderforskning.no
Jeroen Houttuin houttuin@rare.nl
Erik Huizer Erik.Huizer@SURFnet.nl
Ole Jacobsen ole@interop.com
Thomas Johannsen thomas@ebzaw1.et.tu-dresden.de
Ola Johansson ojn@tip.net
Philip Jones p.jones@jnt.ac.uk
Kevin Jordan Kevin.E.Jordan@cdc.com
Peter Jurg jurg@surfnet.nl
Anders Karlsson sak@cdg.chalmers.se
Steve Kille S.Kille@isode.com
Paul Klarenberg klarenberg@netconsult.ch
Andrew Knutsen andrewk@sco.com
Bruno Koechlin Bruno.Koechlin@inria.fr
Mark Kosters markk@internic.net
Arnold Krechel krechel@gmd.de
Sylvain Langlois Sylvain.Langlois@exp.edf.fr
John Larson jlarson@parc.xerox.com
Erik Lawaetz erik.lawaetz@uni-c.dk
Jose Legatheaux Martins jalm@fct.unl.pt
Thomas Lenggenhager lenggenhager@switch.ch
Paul Lustgarten Paul.Lustgarten@att.com
John Martin John.Martin@newcastle.ac.uk
Ignacio Martinez martinez@rediris.es
Brian May Brian.May@mel.dit.csiro.au
Linda Millington l.millington@noc.ulcc.ac.uk
Jun Murai jun@wide.ad.jp
Paul-Andre Pays pays@faugeres.inria.fr
Geir Pedersen Geir.Pedersen@usit.uio.no
Mark Prior mrp@itd.adelaide.edu.au
Jim Romaguera romaguera@netconsult.ch
Marshall Rose mrose@dbc.mtview.ca.us
Kenneth Rossen kenr@shl.com
Srinivas Sataluri sri@internic.net
Wolfgang Schneider schneiw@darmstadt.gmd.de
Heiner Schorn heiner.schorn@umdac.umu.se
Robert Shirey shirey@mitre.org
John Stewart john@bunter.fdc.iaf.nl
Catherine Treca Catherine.Treca@dione.urec.fr
Panos-Gavriil Tsigaridas Tsigaridas@fokus.gmd.de
Eftimios Tsigros tsigros@helios.iihe.rtt.be
Paul Vetter
Lea Viljanen Lea.Viljanen@helsinki.fi
Ruediger Volk rv@informatik.uni-dortmund.de
Russ Wright wright@lbl.gov
Peter Yee yee@atlas.arc.nasa.gov
Steve Zeber zeber@stc.nato.int