Intended Category: Experimental Status of this Memo An Approach for Using Domains in LDAP Distinguished Names

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). 1. Abstract The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) uses X.500-compatible Distinguished Names for providing unique identifcation of entries. Distinguished Names in currently-deployed X.500 directories have the properties that they are descriptive, hierarchical, and follow common organizational models. However, there is not today a universal registration mechanism to permit individuals and organizations to obtain Distinguished Names. This document describes an experimental mechanism by which a name registered with the Internet Domain Name Service, for which there is an active registration service, can be represented as a Distinguished Name so that it may be used with the LDAP protocol. This is not intended to have LDAP replace the DNS protocol, but to permit further deployment of LDAP into organizations connected to the Internet. 2. Domain Names and Distinguished Names The Domain (Nameserver) System (DNS) provides a hierarchical resource labelling system [1]. An example domain name would be "CRITICAL-ANGLE.COM". Entries usually have a single name, although pointers to entries may be provided by CNAME records. Information (resource records) is associated with each entry. Name components are typically chosen to be shortish (e.g., "WWW").