RFC1491

Network Working Group C. Weider Request for Comments: 1491 Merit Network, Inc. FYI: 21 R. Wright

                                        Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
                                                           July 1993

              A Survey of Advanced Usages of X.500

Status of this Memo

This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does not specify an Internet standard. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Abstract

This document is the result of a survey asking people to detail their advanced usages of X.500. It is intended to show how various organizations are using X.500 in ways which extend the view of X.500 as a "White Pages" service. This RFC is a product of the Integrated Directory Services Working Group of the Application and User Services Areas of the IETF.

Introduction

As the use of X.500 spreads in the Internet, organizations are finding uses for it which go beyond the "white pages" paradigm which has been used to introduce it to new users. Consequently, to document those new uses and to encourage the wider use of X.500, we sent out a survey to obtain "advanced usages" of X.500.

The survey

The survey we sent out is included here for two purposes:

1) completeness, and 2) we'd like to encourage anyone who retrieves this document to send

  us their advanced usage for inclusion in the next revision.

If you wish to fill this out, please send it to the working group list: [email protected].

_____________________________________________________________________

Application Name:

Author(s):

Company or Institution:

e-mail address for more information:

If this is a product for public distribution, please give us the

 Type: FREE, COMMERCIAL PRODUCT, or PROTOTYPE/RESEARCH
 FREE               - Anyone may obtain this product at zero cost.
 COMMERCIAL PRODUCT - One may purchase this product.
 PROTOTYPE/RESEARCH - This product is not yet available, only a
                      prototype.

If FREE, please give us:

 * FTP and/or FTAM address (if available via FTP and/or FTAM):

If COMMERCIAL, please give us:

 * Directions to obtain product:

Availability: (When will product be available?)

List of platforms product runs on: [The platform list can be general - e.g. UNIX]

Short Description (< 100 words):

Full Description (< 1 page):

               Fig. 1: Advanced Usages Survey Template

______________________________________________________________________

This survey went out to the following mailing lists: osi- [email protected], [email protected] (now [email protected]), and [email protected].

Disclaimer

Descriptions of the advanced usages were written by the implementors, and not by the members of IDS. Although IDS has worked with the description authors to ensure readability, no guarantees can be made regarding the validity of descriptions. Caveat emptor.

The Survey Responses

Index to Responses

Application Page

Survey Responses

Global Time-table Information Service

Application Name: Global Time-table Information Service based on X.500

Date Received: 7/1/1992

Date Last Validated: 7/1/1992

Author(s):

 Jens Hofmann
 Cuno Lanz

Company or Institution:

 Laboratory of Computer Engineering and Networks,
 Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich)
 Switzerland

e-mail address for more information:

 c=CH; a=ARCOM; p=SWITCH; o=ETHZ; ou=TIK; s=Lanz ([email protected])

Type:

 experimental prototype; not public

FTP address: <none>

Short Description:

 This application aims at integrating the time-table information
 services offered by public transport providers of different scope
 (local, regional, national or international) into a homogeneous and
 unified user interface.  X.500 is used to store the information in
 an autonomous and extensible way.

Full Description:

 Most of the public tranport providers offer some kind of time-table
 information service like printed directory, help-desk, telephone
 support or PC software. Unfortunately these services have some of
 the following drawbacks:

     - no automatic update of data (information accuracy)
     - no global availability (place independency)
     - no permanent availability (time independency)
     - no inter-provider service (service integration).

 X.500 may serve as a vehicle to overcome these drawbacks as
 follows: The public transport providers store the time-table
 information in a standardized format on locally managed DSAs. There
 is some kind of special purpose DUA which (1) queries the user for
 the input parameters (date, time, source and destination station)
 then (2) searches for the relevant paths by querying the involved
 DSAs and (3) displays the resulting time-table to the user.

 In a diploma thesis a student is developing a new data model which
 supports easy selection of source and destination station as well
 as fast exploring of the time-table information. He is implementing
 a prototype application onto an existing DUA interface (based on
 HyperCard and running on Apple Macintosh) which is connected to the
 world-wide X.500 pilot service over DIXIE protocol.  In order to
 test the prototype application the time-table information of the
 Swiss national public transport company and of most of the regional
 providers around the city of Zurich is included under the branch:
 c=CH;o=ETH Zurich.

Pre-Message Security Protocol

Application Name:

 Defense Message System Directory

Date Recieved: 7/1/1992

Date Last Validated: 7/1/1992

Author:

 Bob Cooney

Company or Institution:

 The Naval Computer and Telecommunications Station, Washington
 and
 The Defense Information System Agency

E-mail address for more information:

 [email protected]

Type:

 experimental prototype, not public

FTP address: <none>

Short Description:

 The U.S. Navy will build a directory based on X.500 to support the
 distribution of Pre-Message Security Protocol security keys.

Long Description:

 The U.S. Navy has been asked to build a directory service to support
 the distribution of Pre-Message Security Protocol security keys.
 The Pre-Message Security Protocol will provide SMTP/X.400 security
 services for unclassified but sensitive mail on the Defense Data
 Network.

 The directory will be based on QUIPU. Proof of concept is expected
 by October 1992, with initial operational capacity by October 1993.

Electronic Data Interchange

Application Name: An X.500 User Agent for Electronic Data Interchange

Date Received: 7/10/1992

Date Last Validated: 7/10/1992

Author:

 Neil Weldon

Company or Institution:

 Networks Group,
 Computer Science Dept.,
 Trinity College Dublin,
 Ireland

e-mail address for more information:

 [email protected]
 [email protected]

Type:

 Research product and not for public distribution

FTP address: <none>

Short Description:

 The Directory is used to assist in solving the 'first order'
 problem associated with Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). EDI is
 the transfer of trade documents between application processes in a
 processable form.  The 'first order' problem describes the
 agreements that two organizations must come to regarding
 capabilities and preferences, before using EDI.

 To solve this problem we defined object types to allow the storage
 of product catalogues within the Directory, as well as information
 about the EDI readiness of trading partners: addresses, preferences
 and EDI capabilities.

Full Description:

 Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is the means by which
 organizations exchange trade related documents between application
 processes in an format which may be processed electronically.

 Before using EDI an organization must establish a series of goals
 and objectives, to establish what type of documents they wish to be
 able to transmit (invoices, purchase orders etc.) and what their
 communication requirements are. Each of these time consuming and
 tedious steps is usually done in conjunction with trading partners
 where these agreements regarding EDI capabilities and preferences
 must be made.

 To solve this 'first order' problem (the need to come to agreements
 with other organizations before trading using EDI takes place) we
 defined object types to allow the storage of product catalogues
 within the Directory. The Directory may also convey information
 regarding the EDI readiness of trading partners: addresses,
 preferences and EDI capabilities.

 Using an experimental User Agent based on Pod which was developed
 at Brunel in the UK, trade documents may be built up by selecting
 products from the stored catalogues. These documents are then
 encoded as an EDI Interchange after the Directory has been queried
 about addresses, etc.

 The current object types are very basic and may only convey the
 minimal amount of information necessary. We are now in the process
 of extending this further to a full product class hierarchy which
 is being based on information that may be sent within an EDI trade
 document using the EDI standard document syntax EDIFACT.

 By using the Directory as a repository for product information to
 aid in EDI the catalogues become available worldwide. They may be
 replicated at various nodes, and the updating and propagation of
 changes to slave copies becomes trivial.

Network Topology Information

There are two projects in this area; Merit Network's Shared Whois Information Project, and EARN's Network Directory.

Shared Whois Information Project

Application Name: Shared Whois Project

Date Received: 6/1/1993

Date Last Validated: 6/1/1993

Author(s): Sheri Repucci

Company or Institution: Merit Network, Inc.

e-mail address for more information: [email protected]

Availability: June 1993

Type:

 experimental prototype, not public

List of platforms product runs on: UNIX

Short Description:

 The Shared Whois Project merges network data held by various
 organizations.  The principal purpose of merging this data is to
 find and resolve conflicting network information between the
 databases.  The longterm goal of this project is to move away from
 the current model of storing similar and/or duplicate network
 information in multiple databases and to move to a X.500
 distributed database model.  To this end, we are working on loading
 the NSFNET network information into X.500 in anticipation of
 participating in a distributed database trial.

Full Description:

 The Shared Whois Project is a collection of programs and shell
 scripts which collectively merges the network data held by each of
 the participating organizations.  Currently this includes Merit,
 the RIPE-NCC and the InterNIC.  The principal purpose of merging
 this vast quantity of data is to find and resolve conflicting
 network information between the various databases.  It is our
 intent to merge this data bi-weekly and thus rapidly reach, and
 thereafter maintain, a stable set of commonly held network
 information.

 While there is a common set of information all three of the
 participants hold in their various databases, additional
 information unique to the function of each organization is also
 held.  Furthermore, the resulting set of data created by the merger
 holds only one entry per network without attempting to combine the
 variations.  Thus, each entry includes a listing of all databases
 found to contain information for that network as well as all
 databases found to be in conflict with the entry held in the
 resultant set.

 The longterm goal of this project is to move away from the current
 model of storing similar and/or duplicate network information in
 multiple databases and to move to a X.500 distributed database
 model.  To this end, Merit is working to load the NSFNET network
 information into X.500 in anticipation of participating in a trial
 with the InterNIC and others on the road to a globally distributed
 database model.

EARN's Network Directory

Application Name: Ditnet/EARN Network Directory

Date Received: 7/7/1992

Date Last Verified: 7/7/1992

Author(s):

 Peter Sylvester

Company or Institution:

 Inria Rocquencourt - France

e-mail address for more information:

 [email protected]

Type: FREE (data owned by EARN/Bitnet)

Short Description:

 The EARN/Bitnet Network database consists of descriptions of all
 participating members, network nodes, adminstrators, and topology
 information. This database commonly known as BITEARN NODES is being
 made available through x.500.

Full Description:

 A full description of the contents of the EARN/Bitnet database
 can be found in some EARN internal document which is available
 as a file BITEARN NODES from any NETSERV in EARN/Bitnet. The
 contents of this file is mapped into an X.500 subtree containing
 descriptions of network nodes, adminstrational personnel, and
 topology information.

 The first version of the directory subtree will be created using a
 simple textual mapping to a flat directory tree using private
 attributes.

Soft Pages

Application Name: Soft Pages

Date Received: 9/25/1992

Date Last Validated: 9/25/1992

Author(s):

 Thomas Johannsen
 Glenn Mansfield

Company or Institution:

 AIC Systems Laboratory,
 Tohoku University Sendai

e-mail address for more information:

 [email protected]

Type:

 Intended for public distribution, not yet public

FTP address: <none>

Short Description:

 A file name look-up services for anonymous FTP servers, provides ls
 -lR information and FTP server address. Additionally, the nearest
 FTP site (from user's site) which holds the requested file is
 chosen.

Full Description:

 With the growing of number and size of electronic archives for
 documents, programs and the like, the problem of finding and
 retrieving a specific file becomes more and more complex.
 Furthermore, bandwidth in the Internet is still limited. Users
 should be encouraged and supported to do local FTP sessions as often
 as possible instead of getting everything from the other end of the
 world (i.e., the net).

 The Soft Pages Project combines an Archie-like file look-up service
 with network configuration knowledge.  A dedicated User Agent gives
 a suggestion how to retrieve a document in a network traffic
 optimized manner.

 Basically, Directory information introduced by Soft Pages falls
 into two parts: A file information part and a network configuration
 part.

 The file information part describes objects and attributes for file
 servers and their contents. For each file server, names and
 attributes of its files are stored and updated periodically. This
 provides global access to Archie-like information for all
 registered file servers and, furthermore, opens the way to store
 document description together with the file name.  Thus, document
 search is not restricted to file name matches but might be run for
 keywords as well.

 The network configuration part provides information on networks
 (subnetworks), nodes and lines in the Internet. Furthermore, IP
 numbers can be mapped to network and node objects. In order to
 evaluate file server sites, Internet (site to site) connections are
 given a cost index and then alternatives are compared by their cost
 index. Cost index is a calculated parameter representing properties
 of a connection like speed, average traffic, charges etc. where
 values for the latter are hold as attributes to line objects.

 If a document is stored at two or more sites, the site with the
 lowest cost index (which naturally will be the "nearest" in network
 terms) will be chosen for retrieval.  A Soft Pages User Agent
 basically interacts with the Directory for finding a pointer to the
 "best" copy of a file wanted by a user.

X-Tel

Application Name: X-Tel's advanced applications

Date received: 7/1/1992

Date last verified: 7/1/1992

Author(s):

 Colin Robbins
 Julian Onions
 Graeme Lunt

Company or Institution: X-Tel Services Ltd.

e-mail address for more information:

 [email protected]

Type:

 Commercial Products / Ideas

Short Description:

 1) Product Information.  Products that have DUA facilites built in
 have a "latest info" button or other request method.  When
 "pressed" a well known node below the X-Tel part of the tree is
 read.  The attributes contain descriptions of the latest version of
 the software, new features etc.  If you decide you would like the
 new version, a second read obtains the information required for a
 template order form.

 2) BUG Status.  As above, but obtains details of known bugs in the
 version of software you are running.  (If only we could find a way
 of putting fixes in, and automatically updating the software
 itself!)

 3) X-Terms.  We have a conferencing product, allowing X users to
 "talk" and share windows.  The problem is identifying which X
 Terminal device a particular user is currently on.  One solution we
 are using is modify a users directory entry during login to say
 which X display they have logged into.  The conference can the
 query the directory, and open windows on the appropriate device.
 The directory is also used to store details of current conferences,
 so new delegates can join the conference easily.

 4) Organisation browsing.  There are a rich set of attributes about
 people and their roles stored in the directory.  We have a special
 purpose DUA that exploits this information, and presents
 information on who manages who, who is secretary for who etc.  This
 is very useful when combined with the search ACL mechanism defined
 in OSI-DS 21 as different views can be given to different
 catergories of users.

 5) MHS use of directory.  The directory is use to store MHS routing
 information (as per the MHS DS working group documents)

 6) Mail Lists.  Details of mailing lists are stored in the
 directory.  With careful use of access control, users can be given
 access so that they can subscribe and unsubscribe themselves
 to/from a list.

 7) Details of restuarants in the Nottingham area are stored in the
 directory!

 8) We plan to use the directory as a rendevuz for a multi-user
 adventure game.  Each "room" will be a different entry, and modify
 operations will be used to pick up and put down objects!

 The next two are "advanced" features of our DUA, they may not be
 considered relevant to this document!

 9) Templates.  The directory is used to store template entries.
 Our DUA then uses this template when adding new users.  Very
 useful, as a number of default attributes can be set.

 10) Editors.  Special purpose editors for a number of complex
 attribute syntaxes are built in to our DUAs.  This includes QUIPU
 ACLs, and X.400 OR Addresses.

Xerox Clearinghouse

Application Name: Clearinghouse Interface

Date Received: 7/1/1992

Date Last Validated: 7/1/1992

Author(s):

 Margaret Avino

Company or Institution:

 Xerox Corporation

e-mail address for more information

 [email protected]

Type:

 Early Design/Implementation stages

Short Description:

 X.500 DSA interface to XNS (Xerox Network Services) Clearinghouse
 directory to provide access to Xerox Corporation's Clearinghouse via
 X.500 DUAs.

Full Description:

 Xerox uses the XNS network protocol suite to provide Mail, Filing,
 Directory, Authentication, etc. network services for the installed
 based of 45,000+ Xerox workstations.  The Directory is based on the
 XNS Clearinghouse protocol which is similar to X.500 in that it
 contains objects which have properties (attributes) and is a fully
 distributed, replicatable directory.  The searching capabilities of
 the Clearinghouse protocol are not as robust as the X.500 search
 operation and the physical structure of the original database is
 not amenable to complex searches as it could be if it were stored
 in a relational database.

 The first piece of this project is to transfer the data into an
 Oracle relational database and create a new Clearinghouse server
 which accesses the oracle database and is a full fledged member of
 the Clearinghouse, sending and receiving updates to other servers
 using the XNS Clearinghouse protocol.  This will allow powerful SQL
 queries to be performed on the data which will provide some very
 desired functionality such as: list all of the Distribution Lists
 of which this name is a member.

 To build on the new database, we are probing the implementation of
 an X.500 DSA interface to the Oracle Clearinghouse Directory.  This
 would allow X.500 DUAs to access the data and utilize the powerful
 search operations.  It will require the definition of one or more
 new object classes and several new attributes and some thought
 about the appropriate schema.

X.500 Sendmail

Application Name: X.500 Sendmail

Date Received: 9/25/1992

Date Last Verified: 9/25/1992

Author(s):

 Tim Howes

Company or Institution:

 University of Michigan

e-mail address for more information:

 [email protected]

Type:

 FREE

FTP address: terminator.cc.umich.edu

Directions to obtain product:

 get x500/sendmail-5.65.x500.tar.Z

Short Description:

 Modifications to sendmail-5.65 to do X.500 lookups.

Full Description:

 We have modified sendmail-5.65 so that it does X.500 lookups,
 returning the value of a user's rfc822Mailbox attribute. It
 handles multiple matches by sending a message containing the
 choices back to the sender.  If the user has no email address in
 X.500, the sender is sent a message containing postal and phone
 information on the user. Both exact and approximate matching is
 supported.

Transparent ODA Conversion

Application Name: Transparent ODA Conversion

Date Received: 7/16/1992

Date Last Verified: 7/16/1992

Author(s):

 MacFarland Hale (MITRE Open Systems Group)

Company or Institution:

 The MITRE Corporation

e-mail address for more information:

 [email protected]

Type:

 Not Yet Available

Short Description:

 Plan to use X.500 in conjunction with X.400 and Open Document
 Architecture (ODA) to provide transparent translation of compound
 documents between a sender and one or more recipients.

Full Description:

 In the future, MITRE would like to combine X.500, X.400 and Open
 Document Architecture (ODA) to automate the conversion of compound
 documents in such a way that the users need not know about ODA or
 even that the conversion is taking place.  This will require new
 and/or updated X.400 products.

 A preferred compound document format (e.g., Microsoft Word,
 FrameMaker, etc.)  for each user is stored in the X.500 directory.
 Each X.400 Message Transfer Agent (MTA) host also houses converters
 between each such format and the Open Document Interchange Format
 (ODIF).

 A user (sender) creates a document with his or her preferred
 compound document editor.  Ideally, the editor software will have a
 link (e.g., button or pull-down menu) to the X.400 User Agent (UA).
 The user invokes the X.400 UA (either using this link, or outside
 of the editor software) to send the document as an X.400 message to
 one or more recipients.  Next, the document may need to be
 converted to ODIF, and this may be done in one of two ways.

 Preferably, the X.400 MTA will be responsible for the ODIF
 conversion.  The UA must somehow be told what format the original
 document is in.  This may be done via the UA invocation from inside
 the editor, via a UA configuration file, by examining the filename
 extension, etc.  It then tags the document to indicate the
 document's original format using one of the body parts:
 "Bilaterally Defined" (body part 14), "Nationally Defined" (body
 part 7) or "Externally Defined" (body part 15).  The UA then sends
 the message, and the MTA interprets the tag to determine the
 document's format.

 For messages internal to MITRE, the MTA will look up the
 recipient's preferred document format.  If it is different than the
 sender's format, the MTA calls the appropriate ODIF converter and
 sends the message.  If the recipient's preferred format is the same
 as that of the document being sent, then no conversion is
 performed.  For messages going outside MITRE, the document is
 always converted to ODIF.  The user may prevent this by specifying
 that the enclosed document is not to be converted, in which case
 the UA simply sends the document in binary form with no special
 tag.

 Alternatively, the UA may do the conversion.  As above, the UA must
 be told the document's original format.  The UA may then call the
 appropriate local ODIF converter, and then send the message.  There
 are some disadvantages to this approach:

   1) ODIF converters must be purchased for and maintained on many
      more hosts;

   2) the document is always converted to ODIF (unless the UA
      accesses the directory, but...);

   3) conversion overhead could be traumatic on a small PC.

 At each recipient host, the X.400 MTA catches the incoming message,
 recognizing the contents as ODIF.  It then looks up the recipients'
 preferred compound document formats, calls the appropriate
 converters to translate the contents, and then delivers the
 messages to the recipients.  If the incoming message contains one
 of the format tags described above, then no conversion is performed
 (since the document is not in ODIF).

 Please note that MITRE is a not-for-profit organization.  We will
 not produce commercial products to support this scenario, but we
 are anxious to encourage and work with companies interested in
 doing so.

2.2.10 X.500 and the WHOIS protocol

Application Name: Phone Book

Date Received: 7/15/1992

Date Last Verified: 7/15/1992

Author(s):

 Steven Schoch

Company or Institution:

 NASA Ames Research Center

e-mail address for more information:

 [email protected]

Type:

 FREE, see Steve

Short Description:

 On-line edition of our phone book, using X.500 for storage and
 retrieval.

Full Description:

 Phone Book is a user application which communicates using the
 Internet WHOIS protocol.  It is listed in the Internet Resources
 Guide as such.  The latest incarnation, however, does not make use
 of a flat file -- it gets information from a DUA that performs
 conversions between information received via DAP and the format that
 users expect to get back from our Phone Book queries.  The change to
 X.500 has allowed us to supply additional data such as E-mail
 address which do not normally appear in the phone book.  The fields
 supplied in response to a query include:

       Name
       Telephone Number
       Mail Stop
       Office Number
       Organizational Affiliation (either a NASA organization code
               or a contractor name)
       E-mail address

Queries may be made on any of the fields specified, with the office being divided into building and room components. A sample lookup might be:

trident:297-->phbook yee Name Phone M/S Office Organization

---

-------- ------- --------- ------------

Arnold M. Yee 4-4315 258-6 N258/134 COMPSCICOR Cindy Yee 226-3 N226/105 CALSPAN

                                    [email protected]

David H. Yee 4-4106 213-8 N213/256 EEF

                                    [email protected]

Dr. Helen M C. Yee 4-4769 202A-1 N202A/216 RF Harry Yee 4-6557 213-2 N213/101F EES Peter Edmond Yee 4-3812 233-18 N233/240 EDC

                                    [email protected]

Robert Yee 4-4122 T041-3 TA20/155 SFA

                                    [email protected]

2.2.11 X.400 table handling

Application Name: X.400 table handling

Date Received: 7/15/1992

Date Last Verified: 7/15/1992

Author(s):

 Julian Onions
 Colin Robbins

Company or Institution:

 X-Tel Service Limited,
 Nottingham, England

e-mail address for more information:

 [email protected]

Type:

 FREE, not yet available to the general public

Short Description:

 Implementation of the work of the IETF MHS-DS group. The goal is to
 put X.400 tables into X.500 in order to facilitate gateway and
 routing functions.

Full Description:

 See the Internet drafts for MHS-DS. NASA Ames Research Center is
 participating in the testing and development of the next release of
 the PP message handling software. The latest update (alpha test)
 contains usage of X.500 by X.400 for RFC 822<->X.400 gatewaying, as
 well as hooks for X.400 intelligent routing. Use of X.500 to
 eliminate static tables will greatly improve the ability to
 maintain the information necessary for mail gatewaying and routing,
 while making it easier to keep this data current and well
 distributed.

Security Considerations

Security issues are not discussed in this memo.

Authors' Addresses

Chris Weider 2901 Hubbard, Pod G Ann Arbor, MI 48105

Phone: (313) 747-2730 EMail: [email protected]

Russ Wright Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory 1 Cyclotron Road Berkeley, CA 94720

Phone: (415) 486-6965 EMail: [email protected]