[ldapext] empty-groupOfNames-issue

[Michael Ströder <[e-mail]>]

HI!

I try to summarize the pros and cons of approaches dealing with the
empty-groupOfNames-issue raised here and there very often.

Let us please focus on this particular issue.

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1. Modified standard schema descriptions for 'groupOfNames' and
'groupOfUniqueNames':

This is the work-around already chosen by various vendors:
The MUST member or MUST uniqueMember is turned into MAY.

+ it just works, no interop-problems seen so far.
+ no change required in LDAP clients
+ no change required in access control rules
+ no change required in other client or server-side code dealing with groups

- It violates standardization best practices, most notably IANA considerations.
- It could serve as a bad example to change standard schema at will.
-

Hopefully Rolf Sonneveld and Andrew Findlay will clearly comment on IANA
considerations.

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2. new object class 'groupOfEntries'

Andrew kindly wrote an mini I-D defining a new structural object class
'groupOfEntries' simply with MAY member instead of MUST meant as direct
replacement for 'groupOfNames'.

http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-findlay-ldap-groupofentries

+ Very simple
+ Fully compliant to standardization best practices

- It's not clear whether it was widely adopted in deployments.
- small change required in LDAP clients for searching group entries
- small change required in access control rules
- small changes required in other client or server-side code dealing with groups

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3. draft-brooks-ldap-sets

More general approach for solving all kinds of grouping issues by providing a
generic schema for sets.

http://typinganimal.net/rants/textify.php?f=draft-brooks-ldap-sets-00.txt

+ generic solution for everything

- completely new approach not compatible at all to what clients expect today
- access control rules have to be modified (which might also be a pro but not sure)
- I-D did not receive much review so far, review effort needed

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Add more variants if you know about them.

I'd like to get some result soon on which of these solutions have a vague chance
to be adopted at all.  Given the former discussions we likely achieve a quicker
result if we simply rule out approaches first.

Especially some vendors should raise their voice which approaches they are
willing to adopt or not.

Ciao, Michael.