Beyond the Basics: Directory Services for Intranets and the Internet at Large

A section of An LDAP Roadmap & FAQ: A tutorial aid to navigating various LDAP and X.500 resources on the Internet, v2.0a

Start here if you already know the Basics as well as what's Behind the Basics and are wondering about things such as applications of directories, deploying directories, privacy, building directory-enabled services,

Section Contents

•  Directory Deployment Considerations
• Naming
• Enterprise Email Routing via LDAP Directories
• Distributed Directories
• Privacy and other Legalities
• Applications of Directories
• Whitepages
• Yellowpages
• Directory Enabled Networks
• LDAP over IP Datagram Protocol
• Monitoring and Managing LDAP/X.500 Directories
• X.500-specific stuff

Directory Deployment Considerations

In this section, I have some references which shed light on some of these questions and their answers. First, there are references to material on overall deployment considerations. Second, there's information about the topic of naming.

• Hodges97    Introduction to Directories and LDAP, Jeff Hodges, June 1997.

The section on Deployment Considerations and the Summary in Hodges97 are relevant in this Beyond the Basics context. That section discusses various aspects of general-purpose whitepages directory deployment in terms of the type of enterprise to be served. It then presents an overview of the architecture of the whitepages directory deployment at Stanford University.

You'll note, if you read the Deployment Considerations section, that we're (Stanford University) using a relational database system (RDBMS) in conjunction with our LDAP-based general-purpose whitepages directory service. The talk referenced below does a good job of presenting the sort of considerations we had in arriving at this design.

• Kille98 Why do I need a Directory when I could use a Relational Database?, Steve Kille (of ISODE Ltd), talk presented at EMA '98 in the Directory Rollout panel.

This talk presents an astute discussion of the nature of the differences and similarities of relational database systems (RDBMS) and LDAP/x.500-based directory services (which are object-oriented). It presents several approaches for leveraging the overlap between the two systems to one's advantage.

The next two references present overviews of deploying whitepages directories within large firms.

• Lewis98 Directory Rollout Issues and Strategies, Michael J. Lewis (of Chevron Information Technology Company), talk presented at EMA '98 in the Directory Rollout panel.

Lewis98 presents an overview of the issues relating to data sources and its quality.

• May98 Directory Services at Texas Instruments, Jim May (of Texas Instruments), talk presented at EMA '98 in the Directory Rollout panel.

May98 provides an overview of Chevron's directory deployment, plus suggestions for things to consider in general when deploying a whitepages directory.

Naming

rfc1562   Naming Guidelines for the AARNet X.500 Directory Service. G. Michaelson & M. Prior. December 1993. (Format: TXT=6884 bytes) (Status: INFORMATIONAL)

draft-hodges-ldap-dir-dn-reqs-00.txt   Requirements for Distinguished Names in Autonomous to Loosely-coupled LDAP-based Directory Services. Jeff Hodges. INTERNET-DRAFT, Work in Progress. October, 1997.

I am working on updating draft-hodges-ldap-dir-dn-reqs-00.txt, amongst a zillion other things, so the draft may officially expire from the Internet-Drafts directories before I get to it. It is also available here if the above link becomes stale.

rfc1617   Naming and Structuring Guidelines for X.500 Directory Pilots. P. Barker, S. Kille & T. Lenggenhager. May 1994. (Format: TXT=56739 bytes) (Obsoletes RFC1384) (Status: INFORMATIONAL)

Enterprise Email Routing via LDAP Directories

• draft-ietf-asid-email-routing-su-00.txt   LDAP-based Routing of SMTP Messages: Approach at Stanford University. J. Hodges, B. Bense; INTERNET-DRAFT, Work in Progress. March 1997.

Note: draft-ietf-asid-email-routing-su-00.txt officially expired and has been removed from the Internet Drafts repository. I'm working on an update to it and hope/plan to have it done in the next month or so (i.e. "Reel Soon Now"). Our goal is to submit it as an Informational RFC.

• Bense96   Using LDAP with sendmail.8.[89].x, Booker Bense, Stanford University, October 1996.

[Bense96] provides both links to LDAP-enabled versions of Sendmail, and instructions for how to utilize the LDAP-based email routing capabilities.

• draft-lachman-ldap-mail-routing-01.txt    LDAP-based Routing of SMTP Messages: Approach Used by Netscape. Hans Lachman. INTERNET-DRAFT, Work in Progress. December 1997.

Netscape's MTA server, Messaging Server, is LDAP-enabled. draft-lachman-ldap-mail-routing-01.txt discusses how this is architected.

Distributed Directories

centroids and indexing
  http://www.iihe.ac.be/internal-report/stc-96-26.html  Centroid500, an X.500 Indexing System
 
 

Privacy and other Legalities

Applications of Directories

• rfc1491   A Survey of Advanced Usages of X.500. C. Weider & R. Wright. July 1993. (Format: TXT=34883 bytes) (Also FYI0021) (Status: INFORMATIONAL)

 

Whitepages

• rfc2218   A Common Schema for the Internet White Pages Service. T. Genovese, B. Jennings. October 1997. (Format: TXT=16258 bytes) (Status: PROPOSED STANDARD)

• rfc2148   Deployment of the Internet White Pages Service. H. Alvestrand, P. Jurg. September 1997. (Format: TXT=31539 bytes) (Also BCP0015) (Status: BEST CURRENT PRACTICE)

• rfc2120   Managing the X.500 Root Naming Context. D. Chadwick.  March 1997. (Format: TXT=30773 bytes) (Status: EXPERIMENTAL)

• draft-ietf-lsd-ldapv3-wp-00.txt   A Minimum LDAPv3 White Pages Schema. C. Apple, T. Howes, C. Weider, M. Wahl. INTERNET-DRAFT, Work in Progress. January 1998.

• rfc1943   Building an X.500 Directory Service in the US. B. Jennings. May 1996. (Format: TXT=51266 bytes) (Status: INFORMATIONAL)

• rfc1803   Recommendations for an X.500 Production Directory Service. R. Wright, A. Getchell, T. Howes, S. Sataluri, P. Yee, & W. Yeong. June 1995. (Format: TXT=14721 bytes) (Status: INFORMATIONAL)

• rfc1588   White Pages Meeting Report. J. Postel & C. Anderson. February 1994. (Format: TXT=77945 bytes) (Status: INFORMATIONAL)

• rfc1430   A Strategic Plan for Deploying an Internet X.500 Directory Service. S. Hardcastle-Kille, E. Huizer, V. Cerf, R. Hobby & S. Kent. February 1993. (Format: TXT=47587 bytes) (Status: INFORMATIONAL)

• rfc1330   Recommendations for the Phase I Deployment of OSI Directory Services (X.500) and OSI Message Handling Services (X.400) within the ESNET Community. ESCC X.500/X.400 Task Force, ESnet Site Coordinating Committee (ESCC). May 1992. (Format: TXT=192925 bytes) (Status: INFORMATIONAL)

Yellowpages

• rfc2307   An Approach for Using LDAP as a Network Information Service. L. Howard. March 1998. (Format: TXT=41396 bytes) (Status: EXPERIMENTAL)

• rfc1609   Charting Networks in the X.500 Directory. G. Mansfield, T.  Johannsen & M. Knopper. March 1994. (Format: TXT=30044 bytes) (Status: EXPERIMENTAL)

• rfc1608   Representing IP Information in the X.500 Directory. T. Johannsen, G. Mansfield, M. Kosters & S. Sataluri. March 1994. (Format: TXT=40269 bytes) (Status: EXPERIMENTAL)

• rfc1279   X.500 and Domains. S.E. Hardcastle-Kille. November 1991. (Format: TXT=26669, PS=170029 bytes) (Status: EXPERIMENTAL)

• Meulemans96   A Yellow Pages service based on X.500.

Directory Enabled Networks

LDAP over IP Datagram Protocol

•  rfc1798   Connection-less Lightweight X.500 Directory Access Protocol. A. Young. June 1995.

 

 

RFC1798 specifies how LDAP is carried over a datagram protocol such as IP, rather than via a connection-based, streaming protocol like TCP. This document applies to LDAPv2. Developing a successor document for LDAPv3 is a work item for the LDAPEXT working group (see this page).

rfc1804   Schema Publishing in X.500 Directory. G. Mansfield, P. Rajeev, S. Raghavan, T. Howes. June 1995. (Format: TXT=18268 bytes) (Status: EXPERIMENTAL)

Monitoring and Managing LDAP/X.500 Directories

rfc1567   X.500 Directory Monitoring MIB. G. Mansfield & S. Kille. January 1994. (Format: TXT=33527 bytes) (Status: PROPOSED STANDARD)

X.500-specific stuff

rfc2116   X.500 Implementations Catalog-96. C. Apple, K. Rossen. April 1997. (Format: TXT=243994 bytes) (Obsoletes RFC1632) (Also FYI0011) (Status: INFORMATIONAL)

Chadwick96   Understanding X.500 - The Directory. David Chadwick, University of Salvord, UK. International Thomson Computer Press edition 1996. ISBN 185 0332 813.

•  rfc1727   A Vision of an Integrated Internet Information Service. C. Weider & P. Deutsch. December 1994. (Format: TXT=28468 bytes) (Status: INFORMATIONAL)

From the abstract...
This paper lays out a vision of how Internet information services might be integrated over the next few years, and discusses in some detail what steps will be needed to achieve this integration.