RFC 2247 (rfc2247) - Page 2 of 7
Using Domains in LDAP/X
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
RFC 2247 Using Domains in LDAP/X.500 January 1998
LDAP-based directories provide a more general hierarchical naming
framework. A primary difference in specification of distinguished
names from domain names is that each component of an distinguished
name has an explicit attribute type indication.
X.500 does not mandate any particular naming structure. It does
contain suggested naming structures which are based on geographic and
national regions, however there is not currently an established
registration infrastructure in many regions which would be able to
assign or ensure uniqueness of names.
The mechanism described in this document automatically provides an
enterprise a distinguished name for each domain name it has obtained
for use in the Internet. These distinguished names may be used to
identify objects in an LDAP directory.
An example distinguished name represented in the LDAP string format
[3] is "DC=CRITICAL-ANGLE,DC=COM". As with a domain name, the most
significant component, closest to the root of the namespace, is
written last.
This document does not define how to represent objects which do not
have domain names. Nor does this document define the procedure to
locate an enterprise's LDAP directory server, given their domain
name. Such procedures may be defined in future RFCs.
3. Mapping Domain Names into Distinguished Names
This section defines a subset of the possible distinguished name
structures for use in representing names allocated in the Internet
Domain Name System. It is possible to algorithmically transform any
Internet domain name into a distinguished name, and to convert these
distinguished names back into the original domain names.
The algorithm for transforming a domain name is to begin with an
empty distinguished name (DN) and then attach Relative Distinguished
Names (RDNs) for each component of the domain, most significant (e.g.
rightmost) first. Each of these RDNs is a single
AttributeTypeAndValue, where the type is the attribute "DC" and the
value is an IA5 string containing the domain name component.
Thus the domain name "CS.UCL.AC.UK" can be transformed into
DC=CS,DC=UCL,DC=AC,DC=UK
Kille, et. al. Standards Track