Re: LDAP Comments

[Tim Howes <[e-mail]>]

> From:    [e-mail]
> To:      [e-mail], [e-mail]

> > > o  Was it intentional that there be no "List" operation?  I suppose a
> > >    DUA could use a "Search" instead, but as a DUA implementor I'd
> > >    rather be able to issue a List operation when all I want is a list
> > >    of subordinates.
> > 
> > It was intentional to leave out both list and read.  These are trivially
> > implemented using search and leaving them out simplifies the protocol.
> 
> Sorry, but I probably missed something.
> Could you elaborate a bit on this?
> Do you mean the LDAP server will convert the simplest searches
> to list/read, or do you mean that every DSA
>    either have to do this
>    or have to present more or less the same level of
>      performance for the simplest search operations than for
>      read/list.

It could be done in the ldap server, or the searches could be left
as-is and passed to the DSA, which could attempt to optimize them or
not.  As you point out, this could result in poor performance for some
implementations.  Our reasoning was that the functionality of list/read
are easily implemented using search.  Performance of such a search (as
for any operation), is up to a particular implementation.  But the DSA
can be insulated from this somewhat if the LDAP server does the
conversion.                                             -- Tim