RFC 1417 (rfc1417) - Page 2 of 4

NADF Standing Documents: A Brief Overview

RFC 1417                NADF Standing Documents            February 1993


                No                           Title
               ----    ------------------------------------------------
               SD-0    NADF Standing Documents: A Brief Overview
               SD-1    Terms of Reference
               SD-2    Program Plan
               SD-3    Service Description
               SD-4    The Directory Schema
               SD-5    An X.500 Naming Scheme for National DIT Subtrees
                           and Its Application for c=CA and c=US
               SD-6    Guidelines on Naming and Subtrees
               SD-7    Mapping the North American DIT
                           onto Directory Management Domains
               SD-8    The Experimental Pilot Plan
               SD-9    Charter, Procedures and Operations of the
                       Central Administration for NADF
               SD-10   Security & Privacy: Policy & Services
               SD-11   Directory Security: Mechanisms and Practicality
               SD-12   Registry of ADDMD Names

   SD-1 defines the scope of the NADF, whilst SD-2 describes issue of
   interest to the NADF.

   The remaining documents describe the agreements necessary to achieve
   a cooperative Public Directory Service offered by competing
   providers.  In this context, it should be observed that the NADF
   relies on X.500(88) to the largest extent possible.

   SD-3 contains agreements concerning the Directory "service", e.g.,
   quality of service, whilst SD-4 contains agreements concerning the
   Directory schema.

   SD-5 concerns itself with how a national authority should structure
   its DIT subtree, and then applies these principles to define the
   naming scheme for the c=CA and c=US parts of the DIT.  The NADF's
   approach is to divide a national DIT subtree into two portions: the
   public name-space, which corresponds to information objects having
   some sort of public recognition (e.g., states, counties, businesses,
   etc.), and several private name-spaces, each unilaterally managed by
   a public provider of Directory services.  (SD-12 defines the registry
   of these providers.) Based on the civil standing of an entity, that
   entity may opt to list as one or more entries in the public name-
   space.  That is, registration, per se, occurs outside of the
   Directory.  This is an important concept as it allows an entity to
   list where others are likely to search.

   SD-6 provides guidelines as to how organizations might wish to
   organize their private name-space, and also discusses how multi-
   nationals might choose to list themselves.



NADF