RFC 2247 (rfc2247) - Page 2 of 7

Using Domains in LDAP/X

Alternative Format: Original Text Document


RFC 2247              Using Domains in LDAP/X.500           January 1998


   LDAP-based directories provide a more general hierarchical naming
   framework. A primary difference in specification of distinguished
   names from domain names is that each component of an distinguished
   name has an explicit attribute type indication.

   X.500 does not mandate any particular naming structure.  It does
   contain suggested naming structures which are based on geographic and
   national regions, however there is not currently an established
   registration infrastructure in many regions which would be able to
   assign or ensure uniqueness of names.

   The mechanism described in this document automatically provides an
   enterprise a distinguished name for each domain name it has obtained
   for use in the Internet.  These distinguished names may be used to
   identify objects in an LDAP directory.

   An example distinguished name represented in the LDAP string format
   [3] is "DC=CRITICAL-ANGLE,DC=COM".  As with a domain name, the most
   significant component, closest to the root of the namespace, is
   written last.

   This document does not define how to represent objects which do not
   have domain names.  Nor does this document define the procedure to
   locate an enterprise's LDAP directory server, given their domain
   name.  Such procedures may be defined in future RFCs.

3. Mapping Domain Names into Distinguished Names

   This section defines a subset of the possible distinguished name
   structures for use in representing names allocated in the Internet
   Domain Name System.  It is possible to algorithmically transform any
   Internet domain name into a distinguished name, and to convert these
   distinguished names back into the original domain names.

   The algorithm for transforming a domain name is to begin with an
   empty distinguished name (DN) and then attach Relative Distinguished
   Names (RDNs) for each component of the domain, most significant (e.g.
   rightmost) first. Each of these RDNs is a single
   AttributeTypeAndValue, where the type is the attribute "DC" and the
   value is an IA5 string containing the domain name component.

   Thus the domain name "CS.UCL.AC.UK" can be transformed into

        DC=CS,DC=UCL,DC=AC,DC=UK







Kille, et. al.              Standards Track

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