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ldap binary attributes
> My understanding of the ldap v3 "binary" syntax is that it is similar
> to the ASN.1 "any" type in that it requires a true BER encoding for
> the value (the same thing is accomplished with the "binary" attribute
> description qualifier. See 4.3.1 of rfc 2252). If one wants to add raw
> non-ASN.1 binary objects such as binary files to the directory, you
> must find a generic attribute syntax supported universally. The only
> thing which exists is the "octet string" syntax (because "binary"
> requires a BER encoding).
>
> If this is the case, is it necessary to encode the value as an octet
> string (i.e. explicitly add the octet string Tag/Length headers)
> before sending the value to the directory (in this case there would be
> the octet string headers for the value plus the octet string wrapper
> required by the ldap AttributeValue protocol element)? Or can you
> simply send the raw value without the octet string header? By the way,
> if you need to add the octet string header, it follows that you end up
> with a true BER encoded value and you could therefore use the ldap v3
> "binary" syntax.
>
If the ldap server is configured to expect the octet string syntax for a
given attribute and the values must be explicitly encoded as octet
string, what does the ldap C API draft require? Binary values added in
the ldapmod struct must be added via the mod_bvalues variant. Does this
(combined with paragraph 4.1.6 of rfc 2251) indicate that the
implementation must automatically encode such a binary value as an octet
string? Or does the user do it with ber_printf? And what is the server
expected to do with these values when decoding and when encoding for a
response to the client (i.e. will the value returned by the server need
to be decoded by the client using ber_scanf to remove the octet string
header)?
Chris.
-----------------------------------------
Chris Oliva
Entrust Technologies
(613) 248-3014
Chris.Oliva@entrust.com
http://www.entrust.com
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