RE: AttributeTypeValue and binary

["Ramsay, Ron" <Ron.Ramsay@ca.com>]

Steven,

I believe that BER encodings (except the binary syntax) must be transferred
with the ;binary option. For the binary syntax I thought that the option
should not be sent though some on this list or the LDAPEXT list thought that
the relevant text was ambiguous. I think the LDAP founding fathers believed
that string encodings would exist for all attributes defined in LDAP. The
mirrored cracked on certificate syntax.

Ron.

-----Original Message-----
From: Steven Legg [mailto:steven.legg@adacel.com.au]
Sent: Thursday, 25 January 2001 14:10
To: 'Kurt D. Zeilenga'
Cc: ietf-ldapbis@OpenLDAP.org
Subject: RE: AttributeTypeValue and binary



Kurt,

> userCertificate is to be transferred using the binary option
> regardless of whether the binary option is present in the request.

RFC 2252, Section 6.5 says userCertificate MUST be *requested* as
userCertificate;binary as well, but since I've encountered clients that
use userCertificate with the values BER encoded I'm not against relaxing
this apparent restriction.

A couple of questions come to mind. If an attribute's syntax has no
string encoding (like Access Point) must the attribute be requested
and returned with the ;binary option ? What about attributes with the
Binary syntax ? Consistency would require that they be requested
with the ;binary option as well.

I'm happy for the attribute to be returned as requested, with or without
the ";binary" option, with the default encoding applying where there
is no encoding option given. The only thing this would break is clients
that ask for, e.g. userCertificate, but expect to be returned
userCertificate;binary. According to 6.5 these clients are already broken.

Regards,
Steven