Directory Information Services (pilot) Chris Weider Infrastructure Working Group Mark Knopper INTERNET--DRAFT Merit Network March 1991 Interim Schema for Network Infrastructure Information in X.500 Status of this Memo As the OSI Directory progresses into an operational structure which is being increasingly used as a primary resource for Directory Information, it was perceived that having the Internet Site Contacts and some limited network information in the Directory would be immediately useful and would also provide the preliminary framework for some distributed NIC functions. This paper describes the interim schema used to contain this information. This draft document will be submitted to the RFC editor as an informational document. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. Please send comments to the authors or to the discussion group disi@merit.edu. INTERNET--DRAFT Interim Network Information Schema March 1991 SECTION 1: PRELIMINARIES 1.1 Introduction Information related to the Interent Network Infrastructure is stored and created by a number of different organizations, such as the Network Information Center (NIC), the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), and the NSFNet Network Operations Center (NOC). The information is in general "mastered" (stored and maintained) by these organizations on a centralized basis, i.e. there is a single place to look for a definitive list of entries for these categories. This has worked well in the past but given the tremendous growth of the Internet and its number of users and networks, it is essential that a distributed scheme be used. An example of where this kind of scheme has worked is the domain name system for host naming and addressing information. The X.500 Directory standard seems to be an ideal technology for implementing this distributed method of managing network infrastructure information. X.500 allows distributed ownership of different parts of the global Directory Information Tree, and with replication can provide this information on a query basis to users rapidly. The access control and security capabilities exist in the current standards and implementation and also are being developed by IETF working groups and implementors. A worldwide pilot project involving over 20 countries is in progress, primarily for the purpose of making "white pages" or people-oriented information available. The Field Operational X.500 (FOX) project is a funded project involving several US organizations who are committed to advancing the X.500 projects to an operational status. This Internet Draft proposes a set of interim schema to be used to hold this information in the Directory. It also discusses some limitations of the schema proposed and some possible resolutions of these limitations. 1.2 Information to be incorporated The Site Contacts information that is being loaded into the MERIT DSA is being generated weekly by the SRI NIC, and is output into two text files NETINFO:NETWORK-CONTACTS.TXT and NETINFO:ASN.TXT, both of which are available via anonymous FTP. Representative entries from both files are on the next page: INTERNET--DRAFT Interim Network Information Schema March 1991 __ __ __ __ __ 3.0.0.0 GE-INTERNET Bradt, James E. (JEB50) bradt@CRD.GE.COM (518) 387-7170 Representative entry from the Network-Contacts file __ __ __ __ __ ASN Numbers 1 The BBN Core Gateways [MB] Representative entry from the ASN.TXT file _______________________________________________________________________________ SECTION 2: NEW SCHEMA 2.1 Evolution of schema design In the initial phases of incorporating this information into the Directory, we constrained ourselves to working with object classes that had already been defined. This forced some highly nonintuitive choices for mapping the data into the object classes, but it did make the information widely available. In choosing the object class schema we did for the current implementation of the data, we wanted to contain the new NIC information, and build a schema structure which was logically appealing. 2.2 New attributes for this information New attributes used for this information are IpNetworkNumber; a string containing the network number. WhoisIdent; which has been semi-officially added to the pilotPerson object class; which is a string containing the NIC handle of the contact for the network or AS. AsNumber; a string containing the AS number. TechnicalContact; a seeAlso type reference to the technical contact for this net or AS. AdministrativeContact; a seeAlso type reference to the administrative contact for this net or AS. The ASN.1 descriptions of these attributes are on the next page. INTERNET--DRAFT Interim Network Information Schema March 1991 __ __ __ __ __ IpNetworkNumber ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE SYNTAX caseIgnoreStringSyntax (SIZE (1 .. ub-ipnetnum)) ub-ipnetnum INTEGER ::= 15 whoisIdent ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE SYNTAX caseIgnoreStringSyntax (SIZE (1 .. ub-whois)) ::= { psiAttributeType.13 } ub-whois INTEGER ::= 15 AsNumber ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE SYNTAX caseIgnoreStringSyntax (SIZE (1 .. ub-asnum)) ub-asnum INTEGER ::= 20 TechnicalContact ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE SYNTAX distinguishedNameSyntax AdministrativeContact ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE SYNTAX distinguishedNameSyntax NetworkName ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE SYNTAX distinguishedNameSyntax AutonomousSystemName ATTRIBUTE WITH ATTRIBUTE SYNTAX distinguishedNameSyntax _____________________________________________________________________________ ASN.1 definitions for new attributes. INTERNET--DRAFT Interim Network Information Schema March 1991 2.3 New object classes There are three new object classes to hold this information; IPNetwork, which holds ip network contact information; AutonomousSystem, which holds AS contact info; and NetworkManager, which holds personal information for Network and AS managers and contacts. These are detailed in ASN.1 below. _____________________________________________________________________________ IPNetwork OBJECT-CLASS SUBCLASS OF pilotObject MUST CONTAIN { commonName, ipNetworkNumber } MAY CONTAIN { TechnicalContact, AdministrativeContact } AutonomousSystem OBJECT-CLASS SUBCLASS OF pilotObject MUST CONTAIN { commonName, asNumber } MAY CONTAIN { TechnicalContact, AdministrativeContact } NetworkManager OBJECT-CLASS SUBCLASS OF pilotPerson MAY CONTAIN { NetworkName, AutonomousSystemName } _____________________________________________________________________________ ASN.1 definitions for new object classes The NetworkName and AutonomousSystemName attributes are needed for the NetworkManager object class because the parallel information is contained in the commonName attribute in the IPNetwork and AutonomousSystem object classes. This allows us to extend a standard RDN to each of these new object classes. 2.4 RDNs for new object classes The RDNs for each object class is as follows: IPNetwork: @o=Internet@ou=ipnetworks@cn=35.0.0.0 for network 35.0.0.0 AutonomousSystem: @o=Internet@ou=autonomous systems@cn=267 for AS 267 NetworkManager: @o=Internet@ou=Managers@cn=Hans-Werner Braun for Hans-Werner Braun INTERNET--DRAFT Interim Network Information Schema March 1991 SECTION 3: WHO WE ARE 3.1 Author's addresses Chris Weider, clw@merit.edu Mark Knopper, mak@merit.edu Merit Network, Inc. 1075 Beal Avenue Ann Arbor, MI 48109 SECTION 4: REFERENCES [Kil89] S.E. Kille. X.500 and domains. Research Note RN/89/47, Department of Computer Science, University College Lon- don, May 1989. Also Internet Draft: DRAFT-UCL-KILLE- X500DOMAINS-00.PS [Kil90] S.E. Kille. The COSINE and Internet X.500 Naming Architecture. Internet Draft: DRAFT-IETF-OSIDS-COSINEX500-02.TXT