RE: naming contexts

Kurt,

Kurt D. Zeilenga wrote:
> At 04:30 PM 2001-12-06, Steven Legg wrote:
> >Kurt D. Zeilenga wrote:
> >> At 11:35 PM 2001-12-05, Steven Legg wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> >Kurt,
> >> >
> >> >> It seems to me that the definition of a "naming context"
> >> >> in LDAP/X.500 makes little sense in the face of multi-master
> >> >> replication.  A LDAP/X.500 naming context is subtree of
> >> >> entries held in a single master DSA.
> >> >>
> >> >> Consider three DSAs A, B, C where
> >> >>       A masters subtree X
> >> >>       B masters subtree Y
> >> >>       C masters subtrees X and Y, and
> >> >>       Subtrees X and Y are adjacent.
> >> >
> >> >>From what follows, I assume that Y is subordinate to X.
> >> >
> >> >> If A and B are masters and C is a shadow of each,
> >> >> LDAP/X.500 says that
> >> >>       A holds context X, B holds context Y, and
> >> >>       C holds contexts X and Y.
> >> >
> >> >C holds a shadow copy of contexts X and Y.
> >>
> >> Yes, but the distinction here is what values go into
> >> the root DSE namingContexts attribute of each server.
> >>   A publishes the name of the vertex of X.
> >>   B publishes the name of the vertex of Y.
> >>   C publishes the names of the vertex of X and Y.
> >
> >Strictly speaking, C holds no naming contexts because it only
> >has shadow entries. Its namingContexts attribute should be absent.
> 
> RFC 2256, 5.2.1. namingContexts
>    The values of this attribute correspond to naming contexts
>    which this server masters or shadows.

Of course you mean RFC 2252, but I take the point. I didn't look
beyond the description in RFC 2251 (doh!). However, I wonder if it
should instead say: "The values of this attribute correspond to the context
prefixes of naming contexts which this server masters and the names
of the base entries for replication areas that this server shadows." ?

In X.525, the root of a shadowed subtree doesn't have to correspond
to a context prefix entry. It can be a subordinate of a context prefix.
Perhaps it is more useful to a client to know the topmost shadowed
entry rather than the context prefix ?

Regards,
Steven