Centroids

[Mark Prior <[e-mail]>]

Since the IETF I have been trying to work out if it is possible to
make my server do the centroids bit. I think it might be possible to
do a limited version but that will cause a problem as the current spec
only allows an all or nothing approach.

The problem I see is that I may (with a suitably configured DSA) be
able to provide a list of names from the DN's of each entry but there
is no way I will be able to index the entries themselves (that it too
great a cost). This would mean that if you wanted indexing info for
just names then I could respond but if you wanted e-mail addresses my
server would have to respond with "can't do". The way I see it there
needs to be some added negotiation put in place for the centroids
stuff. Also as I said at the meeting it would be useful if there was a
"maybe" response if your server if queried by an indexing server.

I haven't got to Peter's latest draft yet (left for the IETF too
early, and have only just got back) so I'm not going to attempt to
suggest any syntax but what I would like is some mechanism so a server
can be queried if it has a label. A full centroid capable server would
respond with a definative yes/no respond, whereas a server not capable
of doing centroid could respond with "maybe". You would also need to
send an indication of what type of attribute you want a reponse for so
that I could respond with "maybe" for things I don't index.

Mark.

PS Sorry about the X.500'isms but translating Peter's proposal from
his terms into mine gave me such a headache that I can't cope with
doing the reverse! :-)