Re: Abstract object class

[Ed Reed <ED_REED@novell.com>]

As LDAP becomes distributed, and as the namespaces LDAP servers
are interconnected, it's obvious that different administrative domains
will need to manage the schema over their own portion of the namespace
independently of one another.

It's further clear that servers which hold replicas of namespaces need to 
be able to handle each of their schemae separately, else we wind up
with the silly situation that rules today - that schema are server based,
instead of being aligned with the namespaces to which they apply.

I believe that we must, collectively, resolve to move schema definitions
into subentries subordinate to naming context roots within the namespace,
and that NDS, X.500, LDAP, and ADS must all do so.

Note that even within administrative domains (corporations, for instance)
it's vital that departments and org units within the larger namingContext
have their own schema - it's unreasonable for the software purchased
by Sales in NYC to extend the schema for Engineering in Denver when
they have separate internal administrative domains with separate
administrators and namespaces.  But both still reside within the larger
corporate namingContext, and may need to be subject to a common
organizational schema onto which their schema extensions are laid.

This overlay approach was codified in X.500's content rules in 1993.

I'm not entirely sure that's the most effective way to do it, but it does
duck several of the "what do I do with my OIDs when I've added
another attribute to the inetOrgPerson object class definition" questions.

It is clear, though, that applications which need to be schema aware
require a means to read the schema definition which governs entries
in a particular portion of the namespace, so APIs which read schema
need to include a context parameter to specify which portion of the
namespace the schema enquiry or modification applies to.

Ed

----------------------
Ed Reed, Technologist
Novell, Inc.
+1 801 861-3320

>>> K. Senthil Kumar <senthil_k1@catsglobal.com> 11/04/1998 06:26:30 >>>

hi everybody!
	can a Directory Server suppport more than schema? say for example in
different namespace by having directory entry of subschema class. And I
also want to know whether it is mandatory for all objectclass to be
derived from top class.

thanks
Senthil Kumar