Re: simple user access to X.500

[Tim Howes <[e-mail]>]

> The program should take a simple command, send the request in a simple
> protocol over the network to a more capable program.  This intermediate
> program should convert the request to be an input for a real DUA, 
> such as dish, and get the response back.
> 
> 
> User Workstation	Intermediate		    Servers
> 			Machine
> 
> Simple			Simple	  		
> Access	<---Simple--->	Access<==>DUA <---X.500---> DSA
> Client	   Protocol	Server          Protocol
> 
> 
> Has such a thing been built?  Portability is key, here. I
> know a lot of lightweight DUAs have been built, but I don't know that
> any of them are small enough to easily fit on a workstation.

Tom, there are two ad hoc protocols currently defined that do what
you want.  They are dixie and dad.  Dad is mtr's lightweight protocol
that is used by fred and the psi macintosh white pages client (I forget
what it's called).  Dixie is the lightweight protocol developed here
at UM, and used by our macintosh whitepages client (maX.500) and
our command line unix client (ud), dos client (bud), the Rutgers
whois-like client (wpwhois), and a couple of other clients currently
in development.

Either protocol and any of the clients fit the model you want (they
do not require isode, are very lightweight).  The dixie-1.3 distribution
is available for anonymous ftp from terminator.cc.umich.edu in the
x500/ directory.  Ud, bud, and wpwhois come with it.  maX.500 is
available separately, but from the same location.            -- Tim