Is CLDAP connectionless or not?

[Harald Tveit Alvestrand <Harald@Alvestrand.no>]

I think the SASL debate actually evolves out of a deeper problem with the 
CLDAP draft itself:

Is it a specification for running an LDAP session over UDP, or is it a 
specification for running LDAP queries in connectionless mode?

In the first case, the spec is incomplete; it needs to essentially rebuild 
all of TCP's machinery in order to get reliably delivered requests and 
responses.
(Perhaps it wants to use SCTP?)
But the server has to remember which clients are connected; thus, it can 
use SASL.

In the second case, the spec is incomplete, because it needs to guard 
against weird stuff like mismatching responses from old queries with new 
responses, and it needs to pick at least one mandatory-to-implement 
security mechanism if it's going to be applicable to anything but Read.
The server can then just reply to a request and forget about it, saving 
gobs of time by not having state information, just like the DNS does.
But it can't use SASL.

                               Harald


--
Harald Tveit Alvestrand, EDB Maxware, Norway
Harald.Alvestrand@edb.maxware.no