Re: LCUP Issue: UUID

                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               


I think that some reasonable uses of the attribute warrant a string
representation.  For example, an application may want to search for an
entry with a specific entryuuid.  And some LDUP conflict resolution
procedures call for renaming an entry to have a DN like "cn=some value +
entryuuid=xxxx".  Constructing such search filters and DNs is much cleaner
if entryuuid has a string syntax.  Granted, a well-written application
should be able to construct search filters and DNs containing binary
values.  Case ignore match may be too restrictive.  Certainly, there is no
reason why an application can't use the entry uuid in the case provided by
the originating server.

That aside, don't we have to define what an entry uuid looks like?  The
remaining LDUP drafts, at least, requires that a given server be able to
generate a entryuuid that is unique across all entries on all servers.  I
don't see how a server can generate a unique entryuuid without knowing the
format or generation algorithm.  If we don't want to specify an algorithm
(DCE UUIDs have been bandied about, but there seems to be some reluctance
to agree to specify them), then we at least need to define a format that
includes the algorithm, and a mechanism for uniquely identifying the
algorithm.  A maximum size would probably be helpful to server vendors so
as to not have to provide a search and storage mechanism (DB table for
example) that has to support arbirary length values generated by other
servers.

Just to get things started, I propose that we use the DCE UUID algorithms,
which have a well defined string representation.  And we should be able to
define a entryuuid syntax with a string representation, which is probably a
bit cleaner than using "directory string" or "octet string."


John  McMeeking



                                                                                                                             
                      "Jim Sermersheim"                                                                                      
                      <jimse@novell.           To:       <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>                    
                      com>                     cc:       <[email protected]>                                     
                      Sent by: owner-          Subject:  LCUP Issue: UUID                                                    
                      ietf-ldup@mail.                                                                                        
                      imc.org                                                                                                
                                                                                                                             
                                                                                                                             
                      09/03/2002 11:48                                                                                       
                      AM                                                                                                     
                                                                                                                             
                                                                                                                             




The syntax of UUID is directory string, and moreover, the matching rule
is case ignore match. I see this as overly limiting and suggest that the
syntax be changed to octet string. This is made even more apparent by
the fact that this document leaves standardization of the value
generation to a future specification.