Revision of OSI-DS 16

[Chris Weider <[e-mail]>]

IETF OSI-DS Working Group				Chris Weider
Internet Draft						ANS
							Mark Knopper
							Merit Network
							March 1992

	Schema for Network Information Center (NIC) Profiles
			In X.500

The authors wish to put up a readily accessible, distributed Directory of
Network Information Centers, or NICs. This paper discusses the schema 
used to hold the NIC Profiles, as well as the DIT structure necessary for
this information.

This draft document will be submitted to the RFC editor as a protocol
specification. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. Please send comments
to the authors.


Internet Draft		    NIC Profile Schema			March 1992

1: Introduction

The authors of this document, in conjunction with the chairs of the IETF
Network Information Services Infrastructure (NISI) group, would like to
implement a Directory of Network Information Centers (NICs). This will
enable NICs to locate each other easily, will allow users with access to a DSA
to contacts NICs, and will in general facilitate the distribution of 
information about the Internet and some of its infrastructure.

This document proposes a set of standard schema for this information.

2: Information to be incorporated into the Directory

2.1 Structure of this paper

There are only 3 new attributes to be included in the Directory in addition to
the ones defined in [1]. There is only one new object class necessary for this
paper. The attributes are listed in this section, while the object class is
detailed in section 3.

2.2 New attributes

New attributes proposed for this schema are:
   
	associatedNetwork ATTRIBUTE
		WITH ATTRIBUTE SYNTAX
		CaseIgnoreStringSyntax
		This lists the networks associated with a given NIC, for
		example NSFNet and Michnet for the MERIT NIC. Note that
		this will someday need to be shifted over to an RDN holder,
		but the coverage in the Directory is not yet sufficient to
		support this.

	helpLineTelephoneNumber ATTRIBUTE
		WITH ATTRIBUTE SYNTAX
		TelephoneNumber
		This contains the telephone number for the help line.
	
	helpLineEMailAddress ATTRIBUTE
		WITH ATTRIBUTE SYNTAX
		CaseIgnoreStringSyntax
		This contains an E-Mail address to which to write to receive
		help from a specific NIC. Note that this is not tied to any
		one mail syntax, so that people attempting to reach a NIC
		with the help of the Directory will not have to wade through
		stuff like '822mailaddress' which may confuse novices.

3: Object models and object classes

3.1 Object model

The object model for the new object class looks like this:

  top---organization--*providerOfService*--*networkInformationCenter*

where *providerOfService* is defined in [1]. Conceptually, this models a 
NIC as a special type of service provider, which in turn is a special
type of organization.


Internet Draft              NIC Profile Schema                  March 1992


In our view, the object class in 3.2 would not be useful abstracted off as
a separate object class directly under 'top' as it is not really reusable.

3.2 New Object Class

There is one new object class introduced in this paper:

networkInformationCenter OBJECT-CLASS
        SUBCLASS OF providerOfService
        MUST CONTAIN {associatedNetworks}
        MAY CONTAIN {contactName, helpLineTelephoneNumber, helpLineEMailAddress}


4: DIT structure

The DIT structure for locating NICs is straightforward. There is currently a
section of the DIT called 'o=Internet,ou=NIC Profiles'. One can assume that
a similar structure will be maintained in the future, with all the NICs listed
under a single branch of the DIT. In that tree, one of two things can happen:
either the parent organization of a NIC will not be listed elsewhere in 
the Directory, in which case the NIC entry can contain all the organization 
information as networkInformationCenter is a subclass of organization,
or the organization can be listed elsewhere in the Directory, in which case
the entry can contain the 'parentOrganizationName' attribute inherited from
providerOfService. To determine whether a given organization listed in the
Directory operates a NIC, one would presumably have a RDN of
'o=Foo Com, ou=FOO NIC', under which the NIC services would be detailed or
aliased off to 'o=Internet, ou=NIC Profiles'.

5: Security

Security is not mentioned in this document.

6: References

[1] Weider, C. 'Information Resource Schema', Internet Draft,
	March 1992

7: Who we are

Chris Weider, [e-mail]
Advanced Network and Services
2901 Hubbard, Pod G
Ann Arbor, MI 48105
[phone]

Mark Knopper, [e-mail]
Merit Network
1071 Beal Avenue
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
[phone]