RFC 1779 (rfc1779) - Page 2 of 8
A String Representation of Distinguished Names
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
RFC 1779 DN Representation March 1995 1. Why a notation is needed Many OSI Applications make use of Distinguished Names (DN) as defined in the OSI Directory, commonly known as X.500 [1]. This specification assumes familiarity with X.500, and the concept of Distinguished Name. It is important to have a common format to be able to unambiguously represent a distinguished name. This might be done to represent a directory name on a business card or in an email message. There is a need for a format to support human to human communication, which must be string based (not ASN.1) and user oriented. This notation is targeted towards a general user oriented system, and in particular to represent the names of humans. Other syntaxes may be more appropriate for other uses of the directory. For example, the OSF Syntax may be more appropriate for some system oriented uses. (The OSF Syntax uses "/" as a separator, and forms names in a manner intended to resemble UNIX filenames). 2. A notation for Distinguished Name 2.1 Goals The following goals are laid out: o To provide an unambiguous representation of a distinguished name o To be an intuitive format for the majority of names o To be fully general, and able to represent any distinguished name o To be amenable to a number of different layouts to achieve an attractive representation. o To give a clear representation of the contents of the distinguished name 2.2 Informal definition This notation is designed to be convenient for common forms of name. Some examples are given. The author's directory distinguished name would be written: CN=Steve Kille, O=ISODE Consortium, C=GB Kille
