Directory Services Activities Report 6/92

[Tom Tignor <[e-mail]>]

								 May 1992
								Issue #15

Directory Services Activities
-----------------------------

This report serves as a forum to distribute information about the
various efforts working to develop directory services that are for, or
affect, the Internet.  It is published as part of the FOX Project's
efforts to facilitate the coordination and cooperation of different
directory services working groups.  This report is distributed
virtually unchanged as part of the Internet Monthly Report, and a
modified version is submitted to the PARADISE International Report.
We would like to encourage any organization with news about directory
service activities to use this forum for publishing brief monthly news
items.  The current reporters list includes:


        o IETF OSIDS Working Group                              [no]
        o IETF DISI Working Group                               [no]
        o Field Operational X.500 Project                       [no]
           - ISI
           - Merit
           - PSI
           - SRI
        o National Institute of Standards and Technology        [included]
        o North American Directory Forum                        [no]
        o OSI Implementor's Workshop                            [no]
        o PARADISE Project                                      [no]
        o PSI DARPA/NNT X.500 Project                           [no]
        o PSI WHITE PAGES PILOT                                 [no]
        o Registration Authority Committee (ANSI USA RAC)       [no]
        o U.S. Department of State, Study Group D,              [no]
            MHS Management Domain subcommittee (SG-D MHS-MD)

                [X] indicates no report this month

Tom Tignor ([e-mail])
DS Report Coordinator



NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY
----------------------------------------------

     Pilot Management
     ----------------

     The  Pilot  Directory  service  has  continued  to   operate
     smoothly.   The  custos implementation appears to be stable.
     Currently, we still have active participation from only GSA,
     NSF,  and NIST as far as providing agency data for inclusion
     in the service.  NASA and HHS are interested in running DSAs
     and  have requested the software.  DoE has an existing X.500
     pilot (as part of the Internet effort), which we are looking
     into incorporating.

     Interop Demonstration Successful
     --------------------------------

     The Pilot was demonstrated at the NIST booth at  Interop  92
     Spring  from  May  20  through  22.  The demonstration setup
     consisted of an OSIWare DUA, running  on  a  system  in  the
     convention  hall, connected via Internet to the Custos Pilot
     DSA, running  at  NIST.  The  database  was  populated  with
     telephone  book  data for NIST, GSA and NSF. Passers by were
     encouraged to suggest a  Directory  search  or  lookup,  and
     various  other  Directory  functions  were demonstrated. The
     demonstration was successful in attracting a  good  deal  of
     interest  from government and industry representatives, with
     several  representatives  of  federal  agencies   expressing
     interest in participating in the Pilot.

     NIST X.500 Implementation
     -------------------------

     May's efforts centered around  preparation  for  the  Custos
     demonstration  at  the  Interop  92  Spring  exhibition. The
     Custos DSA code was enhanced to enable the handling  of  the
     rfc822Mailbox  attribute  type,  and  thus  the  storage and
     retrieval  of  SMTP  mail  addresses  of  individuals  whose
     records  were  to  be  used in the demo. We encountered some
     difficulties in running a SPARCstation  compatible  copy  of
     the  executable  code  for  OSIWare's  DUA, which we believe
     arose as a result of some misalignment  between  the  shared
     runtime  libraries  available  on  the host system and those
     required  by  the  DUA  software.  However,  we  were   able
     interoperate  without  an appreciable loss of functionality.
     Some minor incompatibilities in data representations between
     Custos  and OSIWare were ironed out and the database updated
     to reflect necessary changes.

     Future Plans
     ------------

     With the completion of the Interop demonstration, NIST  will
     be formulating plans for the future of the Pilot.


     Richard Colella ([e-mail])