One document matched: draft-ietf-ldup-model-08.txt
Differences from draft-ietf-ldup-model-07.txt
Internet Draft John Merrells
Document: draft-ietf-ldup-model-08.txt Sleepy Cat Software, Inc.
Expires: September 2003 Uppili Srinivasan
Oracle, Inc.
Ed Reed
Novell, Inc.
March 2003
LDAP Replication Architecture
Status of this Memo
This document is an Internet-Draft and is subject to all provisions
of Section 10 of RFC2026.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that
other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-
Drafts.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six
months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents
at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as
reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at
http://www.ietf.org/1id-abstracts.html
The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at
http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html
This draft, file name draft-ietf-ldup-model-08.txt, is intended to
be become a Proposed Standard RFC, to be published by the IETF
Working Group LDUP. Distribution of this document is unlimited.
Comments should be sent to the LDUP Replication mailing list
<ldup@imc.org> or to the authors.
This Internet-Draft expires September 2003
1 Abstract
This architectural document outlines a suite of schema and protocol
extensions to LDAPv3 that enables the robust, reliable, server-to-
server exchange of directory content and changes.
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in
this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119
[RFC2119]. The sections below reiterate these definitions and
include some additional ones.
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LDAP Replication Architecture Model March 2003
2 Table of Contents
Status of this Memo................................................1
1 Abstract.......................................................1
2 Table of Contents..............................................2
3 Introduction...................................................2
4 Replication Environment........................................7
5 Information Model..............................................9
6 Replication of Directory Administrative Policy Information....14
7 Change Representation and Update Resolution...................15
8 LDUP Update Transfer Protocol Framework.......................17
9 LDUP Update Protocols.........................................20
10 LDUP Full Update Transfer Protocol............................20
11 LDUP Incremental Update Transfer Protocol.....................21
12 Purging State Information.....................................26
13 Replication Configuration and Management......................27
14 Security Considerations.......................................29
15 Acknowledgements..............................................29
16 References....................................................30
17 Intellectual Property Notice..................................31
18 Copyright Notice..............................................31
19 Authors' Address..............................................31
20 Appendix A _ LDAP Constraints.................................32
3 Introduction
3.1 Scope
This architectural document provides an outline of an LDAP based
replication scheme. Further detailed design documents will draw
guidance from here.
The design proceeds from prior work in the industry, including
concepts from the ITU-T Recommendation X.525 (1993, 1997) Directory
Information Shadowing Protocol (DISP) [X525], experience with widely
deployed distributed directories in network operating systems,
electronic mail address books, and other database technologies. The
emphasis of the design is on:
a) Simplicity of operation.
b) Flexibility of configuration.
c) Manageability of replica operations among mixed heterogeneous
vendor LDAP servers under common administration.
d) Security of content and configuration information when LDAP
servers from more than one administrative authority are
interconnected.
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A range of deployment scenarios is supported, including multi-master
and single-master topologies. Replication networks may include
transitive and redundant relationships between LDAP servers.
The controlling framework used to define the relationships, types,
and state of replicas of the directory content is defined. In this
way the directory content can itself be used to monitor and control
the replication network. The directory schema is extended to define
object classes, auxiliary classes, and attributes that describe
areas of the namespace which are replicated, LDAP servers which hold
replicas of various types for the various partitions (_Replication
Contexts_) of the namespace, LDAP Access Points (network addresses)
where such LDAP servers may be contacted, which namespace replicas
are held on given LDAP servers, and the progress of replication
operations. Among other things, this knowledge of where directory
content is located could serve as the basis for dynamic generation
of LDAP referrals.
An update transfer protocol, which actually brings a replica up to
date with respect to changes in directory content at another
replica, is defined using LDAPv3 protocol extensions. The
representation of directory content and changes will be defined by
the LDAP Replication Update Transfer Protocol sub-team. Incremental
and full update transfer mechanisms are described. Replication
protocols are required to include initial population, change
updates, and removal of directory content.
Security information, including access control policy will be
treated as directory content by the replication protocols.
Confidentiality and integrity of replication information is required
to be provided by lower-level transport/session protocols such as
IPSEC and/or TLS.
3.2 Document Objectives
The objectives of this document are:
a) To present the architecture and theory of operation for LDUP so
that it provides a consistent basis for all detailed design
documents associated with this LDAP replication service. The
Information Model, Update Transfer Protocol, and Update Resolution
Procedure documents are among the targeted LDUP design documents.
b) To provide an architectural solution for each clause of the
requirements document [LDUP Requirements].
c) To collect and summarize LDAP Data Model and Operational Behavior
constraints defined for LDAP in RFC 2251 [See Appendix A], that are
to be preserved in LDAP replication.
d) Where possible, to derive and present appropriate information
from other ongoing IETF work (to the extent necessary to further
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define LDUP). The purpose such an exercise would be to avoid tying
the LDUP working group to the schedule of any other working group.
e) Present some useful concepts and their utility that are supported
in existing commercial directory products. Even if these concepts
were not adopted by subsequent LDUP protocol standards, it would
still be useful to relate the LDUP design choices and alternatives.
In addition to the above objectives document has to address, it
should do so without infringing upon known registered intellectual
property rights.
3.3 Document Non-Objectives
This document does not address the following issues, as they are
considered beyond the scope of the Working Group.
A) How LDAP becomes a distributed directory. There are many issues
beyond replication that should be considered. Such as, support for
external references, algorithms for computing referrals from the
distributed directory knowledge, etc.
B) Specifying management protocols to create Replication Contexts or
new Replicas. LDAP may be sufficient for this. The document
describes how new Replication Contexts and Replicas are represented,
in the directory, as entries, attributes, and attribute values.
C) How transactions will be replicated. However, the architecture
should not knowingly prevent or impede them, given the Working
Group's incomplete understanding of the issues at this time.
D) The problems of replication between implementations without a
common schema representation, and hence require information mapping
to achieve synchronization between them.
3.4 Existing Implementations
In order to define a standard replication scheme that may be readily
implemented we must consider the architectures of current LDAP
server implementations. Existing systems currently support
proprietary replication schemes based on one of two general
approaches: log-based or state-based. The approach chosen in
subsequent LDUP protocol design is neither stipulated nor assumed in
this architecture draft, although certain sections of this document
contain discussions of issues in the above approaches.
Implementations based on the original University of Michigan LDAP
server code record LDAP operations to a operation log. During a
replication session operations are replayed from this log to bring
the Consumer replica up to date. Example implementations of this
type at this time are the IBM SecureWay, Innosoft, Netscape, Open
LDAP and Oracle directory servers.
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3.5 Terms and Definitions
The definitions from the Replication Requirements document have been
copied here and extended.
For brevity, an LDAP server implementation is referred to throughout
as 'the server'.
The LDAP update operations; Add, Delete, Modify, Modify RDN (LDAPv2)
and Modify DN (LDAPv3), are collectively referred to as LDAP Update
Operations.
A Naming Context is a subtree of entries in the Directory
Information Tree (DIT). There may be multiple Naming Contexts
stored on a single server. Naming Contexts are defined in section 17
of [X501].
A _Replication Context_ represents a section of DIT defining a unit
of administration for replication. A Replication Context is based
at an entry identified as its root and includes all its subordinate
entries down the tree to its leaves, or until another Replication
Context is encountered. A Naming Context held by a server may be
made up of one or more non-overlapping Replication Contexts. Non-
replicated portions of a Naming Context may not be explicitly
identified as a Replication Context..
A Replica is a replicated instance of a _Replication Context.
A _Replication Context_ is said to be single-mastered if there is
only one Replica where it may be updated, and multi-mastered if
there is more than one Replica where it may be updated.
A Replication Relationship is established between two or more
Replicas that are hosted on servers that cooperate to service a
common area (the Replication Context) of the DIT.
A Replication Agreement is defined between two parties of a
Replication Relationship. A Replication Agreement is associated
with a set of replicas and defines properties such as the Update
Transfer Protocol to be used, and the Replication Schedule of a
Replication Session.
A Replication Session is an LDAP session between the two servers
identified by a replication agreement. Interactions occur between
the two servers, resulting in the transfer of updates from the
supplier replica to the consumer replica.
The Initiator of a Replication Session is the initiating server.
A Responder server responds to the replication initiation request
from the Initiator server.
A Supplier server is the source of the updates to be transferred.
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A Consumer server is the recipient of the update sequence.
The Update Transfer Protocol is the means by which the Replication
Session proceeds. It defines the protocol for exchanging updates
between the Replication Relationship partners.
A Replication Update is an LDAP Extended Operation that contains
updates to be applied to the DIT. The Update Transfer Protocol
carries a sequence of these messages from the Supplier to the
Consumer.
The Update Resolution Procedures repair constraint violations that
occur when updates to a multi-mastered Replica collide.
A Fractional Entry Specification is a list of entry attributes to be
included, or a list of attributes to be excluded in a replica. An
empty specification implies that all entry attributes are included.
A Fractional Entry is an entry that contains only a subset of its
original attributes. It results from the replication of changes
governed by a Fractional Entry Specification.
A Fractional Replica is a replica that holds Fractional Entries of
its Replication Context.
3.6 Consistency Models
This replication architecture supports a loose consistency model
between replicas of a naming context. It does not attempt to provide
the appearance of a single copy of a replica. The contents of each
replica may be different, but over time they will be converging
towards the same state. This architecture is not intended to support
LDAP Clients that require a tight consistency model, where the state
of all replicas is always equivalent.
Three levels of consistency are available to LDAP Clients, which are
characterized by their deployment topologies. Single-Server, where
there is just the Replication Context and no replicas. Single-
master, where there are replicas, but only one may be updated. And,
multi-master, where there is more than one replica to which LDAP
update operations may be directed. The consistency properties of
each model are rooted in their serialization of read and write
operations.
1) A single-server deployment of a Replication Context provides
tight consistency to LDAP applications. LDAP Clients have no choice
but to direct all their operations to a single server, serializing
both read and write operations.
2) A single-mastered deployment of a Replication Context provides
both tight and loose consistency to LDAP applications. LDAP Clients
must direct all write operations to the single Master Replica, but
may direct their reads to any of the replicas. A client experiences
tight consistency by directing all its operations to the single
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Master Replica, and loose consistency by directing any read
operations to any other replica.
3) A multi-mastered deployment of a Replication Context can provide
only loose consistency to LDAP applications. Across the system
writes and reads are not serialized. An LDAP Client could direct
their read and write operations to a single Master Replica, but they
will not receive tight consistency as interleaved writes could be
occurring at another replica.
Tight consistency can be achieved in a multi-master deployment for a
particular LDAP application if and only if all instances of its
client are directed towards the same Master Replica, and the
application data is not updated by any other LDAP application.
Introducing these constraints to an application ensures that writes
are serialized providing tight consistency for the application.
Future work could make use of the architecture proposed in this
document as a basis for allowing clients to request session
guarantees from a server when establishing a connection.
3.7 LDAP Constraints
The LDAP-v3 Internet RFC [LDAPv3] defines a set of Data Model and
Operation Behavior constraints that a compliant LDAP server must
enforce. The server must reject an LDAP Update Operation if its
application to the target entry would violate any one of these LDAP
Constraints. [Appendix A contains the original text clauses from RFC
2251, and also a summary.]
In the case of a single-server or single-mastered Replication
Context all LDAP Constraints are immediately enforced at the single
Master Replica. An error result code is returned to an LDAP Client
that presents an operation that would violate the constraints.
In the case of a multi-mastered Replication Context not all LDAP
Constraints can be immediately enforced at the Master Replica to
which the LDAP Update Operation is applied. This loosely consistent
replication architecture ensures that at each replica all
constraints are imposed, but as updates are replicated constraint
violations arise that cannot be reported to the appropriate client.
Any constraint violations that occur are repaired by a set of update
resolution procedures.
Any LDAP client that has been implemented to expect immediate
enforcement of all LDAP Constraints may not behave as expected
against a multi-mastered Replication Context.
4 Replication Environment
The replication environment would consist of two or more replicas,
each characterized with a "replica type". The following replica
types are recognized.
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Note that LDUP protocol design could choose to not support all the
types defined below.
4.1 Primary Replica
NOTE: The requirements document has removed discussion or
reference to a primary replica. At least one of the authors of
this document (hi!;-) still think one will be needed in the
management of the replica topology information itself, but that
remains to be seen.
REQUEST: Will the authors of "Mandatory LDAP Replica Management"
[MRM] please weigh in on the question and tell us whether you need
a Primary replica or not.
The Primary Replica is a full copy of the Replica, to which all
applications that require tight consistency should direct their LDAP
Operations. There can be only one Primary Replica within the set of
Replicas of a given Replication Context. It is also permissible for
none of the Replicas to be designated the Primary. The Primary
Replica MUST NOT be a Fractional Replica.
[NOTE: The following paragraph makes assertions about assumptions
of what who does to whom that should be cleaned up. Some
commercial products use primaries, but don't indicate in schema or
elsewhere the some attributes are to be managed at the Primary,
but rather rely on the applications to know and enforce the rule.
Such a flag could be useful, but let's not assert that it's an
essential part of how Primary replicas have been implemented.]
Some commercial directory products support the notion of a primary
replica. This would mean that one of the replicas can be configured
to be the "primary" (at any point in time) and certain attributes
could be marked as "critical", meaning that they could only be
altered on a primary. This configuration would cause all other
replicas to deny alterations to these critical attributes and to
direct such modifications transparently (via referrals) to the
designated primary.
To remain simple, LDUP Update Protocol is NOT REQUIRED to support
"Primary Replica". Where necessary, it may be possible for
administrators to implement appropriate access policies and other
means of operation redirection to enforce the "primary replica"
conventions.
4.2 Master Replica
[NOTE: Previous drafts of this document called this the
Updateable Replica. The name is changed here to correspond with
the term used in the requirements document.]
A Master Replica is a Replica that accepts all the LDAP Update
Operations, but is not the Primary Replica. There could be none,
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one, or many Master Replicas within the set of Replicas of a given
Replication Context. A Master Replica MUST NOT be a Fractional
Replica for this version of LDUP.
4.3 Read-Only Replica
A Read-Only Replica will accept only non-modifying LDAP operations
against data subject to replication. Modifications to DSA-operation
attributes, which are not replicated, may of course still be
allowed. All other modification operations shall be referred to a
Master Replica. The server referred to may be a Supplier of this
Replica.
NOTE: May a R-O Replica be a supplier of changes to another
replica, either updateable or R-O?
4.4 Fractional Replicas
Fractional Replicas must always be Read-Only. All LDAP Update
Operations must be referred to a Master Replica in this version of
LDUP. The server referred to may be a Supplier of this Fractional
Replica.
5 Information Model
[NOTE: This must be closely realigned with the INFOMOD document,
and with whatever administrative model we're using...In
particular, the abandonment of the ldapSubentry proposal from Reed
leaves open the question of whether hierarchical subentries will
be used or not.]
This section describes the schema elements that represent the
replication topology and replication run time information. The
operational information for replication is administered through
these entries. The LDUP Working Group will work towards defining an
Internet standard to fully detail all these schema elements.
5.1 Sub-Entries
Replication management entries are to be stored at the base of the
Replication Context. They will be of a `ldapSubentry' objectclass
to exclude them from regular searches. Entries with the objectclass
ldapSubentry are not returned as the result of a search unless a
control is included in the request to make them visible.
5.2 Glue Entries
A glue entry is an entry that contains knowledge of its name only.
No other information is held with it. Such glue entries will be
distinguished through a special object class defined for that
purpose. Glue entries may be created during a replication session to
repair a constraint violation.
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5.3 Unique Identifiers
Distinguished names can change, so are therefore unreliable as
identifiers. A Unique Identifier must therefore be assigned to each
entry as it is created. This identifier will be stored as an
operational attribute of the entry, named `entryUUID'. The entryUUID
attribute is single valued. A consistent algorithm for generating
such unique identifiers should be defined for use in the LDUP
standards documents that detail the LDUP information model and LDUP
protocols.
5.4 Change Sequence Number
Change Sequence Numbers (CSNs) are used to impose a total ordering
upon the causal sequence of updates applied to all the replicas of a
Replication Context. Every LDAP Update Operation is assigned at
least one CSN. A Modify operation MUST be assigned one CSN per
modification.
5.4.1 CSN Composition
A CSN is formed of four components. In order of significance they
are; the time, a change count, a Replica Identifier, and a
modification number. The CSN is composed thus to ensure the
uniqueness of every generated CSN. When CSNs are compared to
determine their ordering they are compared component by component:
first the time, then the change count, then the replica identifier,
and finally the modification number.
The time component is a year-2000-safe (year 9999-safe, really)
representation of the real world time, with a granularity of one
second.
Because many LDAP Update Operations, at a single replica, may be
applied to the same data in a single second, the change count
component of the CSN is provided to further order the changes. Each
replica maintains a count of LDAP update operations applied against
it. It is reset to zero at the start of each second, and is
monotonically increasing within that second, incremented for each
and every update operation. Should LDAP Update Operations occur at
different replicas, to the same data, within the same single second,
and happen to be assigned the same change count number, then the
Replica Identifier is used to further order the changes.
The Replica Identifier is the value of the RDN attribute on the
Replica Subentry that represents the Replica. The Replica Identifier
could be assigned programmatically or administratively, in either
case short values are advised to minimize resource usage. The
IA5CaseIgnoreString syntax is used to compare and order Replica
Identifier values.
The fourth and final CSN component, the modification number, is used
for ordering the modifications within an LDAP Modify operation.
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5.4.2 CSN Representation
The preferred CSN representation is: yyyy mm dd hh:mi:ssz # 0xSSSS #
replica id # 0xssss
The `z' in the time stipulates that the time is expressed in GMT
without any daylight savings time offsets permitted, and the 0xssss
represents the hexadecimal representation of an unsigned integer.
Implementations must support 16 bit change counts and should support
longer ones (32, 64, or 128 bits).
An example CSN would be " 1998081018:44:31z#0x000F#1#0x0000 ". The
update assigned this CSN would have been applied at time
1998081018:44:31z happened to be the 16th operation which was
applied in that second, was made against the replica with identifier
`1', and was the first modification of the operation that caused the
change.
5.4.3 CSN Generation
Because Change Sequence Numbers are primarily based on timestamps,
clock differences between servers can cause unexpected change
ordering. The synchronization of server clocks is not required,
though it is preferable that clocks are accurate. If timestamps are
not accurate, and a server consistently produces timestamps that are
significantly older than those of other servers, its updates will
not have effect and the real world time ordering of updates will not
be maintained.
However, an implementation may choose to require clock
synchronization. The Network Time Protocol [NTP] [SNTP] offers a
protocol means by which heterogeneous server hosts may be time
synchronized.
The modifications that made up an LDAP Modify operation are
presented in a sequence. This must be preserved when the resultant
changes of this operation are replicated.
5.5 Entries, Semantics and Relationships
This section defines the organization of operational data for
directory replication in terms of the relative placement of the
entries that represent Replication Contexts, its Replicas, and their
associated Replication agreements. This section also describes the
purpose of these objects and abstractly describes their content.
A Replication Context defines an area of DIT with independent
replication policies. There are many mechanisms available to
identify the set of Replication Contexts in a Directory, including
through special auxiliary classes or through operational attributes
in root DSE pointing to such entries. The LDUP information model
standards will detail an appropriate mechanism.
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Entries representing the set of Replicas associated with a
Replication Context are created immediately below (children) the
Replication Context entries. Replica entries are defined as
subentries and are intended to hold attributes that identify the
Replica's LDAP Access Point, its Replica Type, and if it is a
Fractional Replica, the attributes it does or does not hold. The
attribute value of the entry's Relative Distinguished Name (RDN) is
termed the Replica Identifier and is used as a component of each CSN
associated with the replica.
Immediately subordinate to each Replica Subentry are the entries
representing the Replication Agreements between this replica and
another replica on some other server in the network. A Replication
Agreement entry is associated with exactly one remote replica. These
entries are defined to hold attributes identifying the remote
Replica associated with this agreement, the scheduling policy for
replication operations, including times when replication is to be
performed, when it is not to be performed, or the policies governing
event-driven replication initiation another Replica, the scheduling
policy for replication operations, including times when replication
is to be performed, when it is not to be performed, or the policies
governing event-driven replication initiation.
5.6 Root DSE Attributes
The Root DSE attributes carry information that is essential to the
operation of the local DSA itself. Each node has its own
independent copy of such attributes and hence these are not to be
replicated to other nodes. In general this is true for all
operational attributes of type "DsaOperation".
LDUP information model itself will define Root DSE attributes to
identify the set of Replication Contexts and replicas present in an
LDAP server.
5.7 Replication Context Auxiliary Object Class and Entries
Each Replication Context contains attributes that hold common
configuration and policy information for all replicas of the
Replication Context.
A Replication Context Creation attribute records when and where the
Replication Context was created.
The Replication Context is based at the entry given the auxiliary
class, and continues down the tree until leaf entries or another
Replication Context is encountered.
5.8 Replica Object Class and Entries
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A replica type characterizes each Replica. This may be Primary,
Updateable, or Read-Only. The Replica entry will also include a
Fractional Entry Specification for a Fractional Replica.
There is a need to represent network addresses of servers holding
replicas involved in Replication Agreements. For this, the LDUP
information model will define an attribute with an appropriate
syntax to represent an LDAP server addresses with which to contact
replicas.
An Update Vector describes the point to which the Replica has been
updated, in respect to all the other Replicas of the Replication
Context. The vector is used at the initiation of a replication
session to determine the sequence of updates that should be
transferred.
Enabling LDAP to be a fully distributed service is not an objective
for the design of LDUP information model, though the information
stored in replica entries could facilitate certain distributed
operations.
5.9 Lost and Found Entry
When replicating operations between servers, conflicts may arise
that cause a parent entry to be removed causing its child entries to
become orphaned. In this case the Update Resolution Procedures will
make the Lost and Found Entry the child's new superior.
Each Replica Entry names its Lost and Found Entry, which would
usually be an entry below the Replica Entry itself. This well-known
place allows administrators, and their tools, to find and repair
abandoned entries.
5.10 Replication Agreement Object Class and Entries
The Replication Agreement defines:
1. The schedule for Replication Sessions initiation.
2. The server that initiates the Replication Session, either the
Consumer or the Supplier.
3. The authentication credentials that will be presented between
servers.
4. The network/transport security scheme that will be employed in
order to ensure data confidentiality and integrity.
5. The replication protocols and relevant protocol parameters to be
used for Full and Incremental updates. An OID is used to identify
the update transfer protocol, thus allowing for future extensions or
bilaterally agreed upon alternatives.
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6. If the Replica is Fractional, the Fractional Entry Specification,
for the attributes to be included or excluded
Permission to participate in replication sessions will be
controlled, at least in part, by the presence and content of replica
agreements.
The Supplier must be subject to the access control policy enforced
by the Consumer. Since the access control policy information is
stored and replicated as directory content, the access control
imposed on the Supplier by the Consumer must be stored in the
Consumer's Replication Agreement.
5.10.1 Replication Schedule
There are two broad mechanisms for initiating replication sessions:
(1) scheduled event driven and (2) change event driven. The
mechanism used to schedule replication operations between two
servers is determined by the Schedule information that is part of
the Replication Agreement governing the Replicas on those two
servers. Because each Replication Agreement describes the policy
for one direction of the relationship, it is possible that events
propagate via scheduled events in one direction, and by change
events in the other.
Change event driven replication sessions are, by their nature,
initiated by suppliers of change information. The server that the
change is made against schedules a replication session in response
to the change itself, so that notification of the change is passed
on to other Replicas.
Either consumers or suppliers of change information can initiate
scheduled event driven replication sessions. The schedule defines a
calendar of time periods during which Replication Sessions should be
initiated.
Schedule information may include both scheduled and change event
driven mechanisms. For instance, one such policy may be to begin
replication within 15 seconds of any change event, or every 30
minutes if no change events are received.
6 Replication of Directory Administrative Policy Information
Administrative policy information governs the behavior of the
directory server. Schema, access control, and replication, all
involve administrative policy information. This policy information
(irrespective of how it is represented in the directory- as sub-
entries, attributes, or attribute values) should be consistently
known and enforced by servers managing any replica. Normally,
policy information present within a Replication Context is
replicated in the same manner as any other directory information.
But applicable policy information could reside outside a Replication
Context.
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Administrative policy information associated with directory
replication lies within the replication context to which it applies.
Hence, fortunately, any replica will also contain (include) all of
its applicable replication policy data. On the other hand, some
administrative boundaries (administrative areas) for other services
might extend to subordinate Replication Contexts. For instance, some
prescriptive access control policy applicable to entries in a
Replication Context could be represented by an entry that is an
ancestor of the root of the Replication Context. For access control
policies to be faithfully enforced by a server hosting a replica of
such a Replication Context, all applicable prescriptive policy
information must also be available within that server.
But policy propagation is not an issue for replicated directories
only. These same issues are also relevant to distributed
directories. Many possible protocols could be conceived to ensure
that anywhere in the directory network, all applicable policies are
available so that these are enforced appropriately. To support
flexible and dependable deployments, DSAs supporting LDUP should
also implement IETF standard protocols for policy propagation. It
is expected that such an IETF standard protocol will be defined in a
way relevant for any LDAP directory deployment, be it distributed,
replicated or a combination of both. But defining such a protocol
is outside the scope of LDUP architecture.
6.1 Schema Replication
Given the strict ordering of replication events, schema
modifications will normally be replicated prior to entry operations
that use them, and subsequent to data deletions that eliminate
references to schema elements to be deleted. In a multi-master
environment with multiple suppliers, the order of arrival at a
consumer node of such changes cannot be guaranteed. The LDUP
standards for reconciliation should define procedures for handling
such scenarios.
7 Change Representation and Update Resolution
The state changes in a replica can be introduced via either LDAP
Update Operations or via Replication Updates. A CSN is included with
all changes made to an entry, its attributes, and attribute values.
This state information must be recorded for the entry to enable a
total ordering of updates.
When an update is performed, the CSN recorded is the CSN assigned at
the server where the change was first made. In other words, CSNs are
only assigned to changes performed by LDAP client updates and are
propagated with other change information. When Replication update
is performed at the target replica node the CSN associated with the
replicated change being processed is recorded.
Each of the LDAP Update operations changes their target entry in
different ways, and records the CSN of the change differently. The
state information for the resultant state changes is recorded at
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three levels: the entry level, attribute level, and attribute value
level.
7.1 Entry Creation and Deletion
When an entry is created the CSN of the change is added to the entry
as an operational attribute.
Deleted entries are marked as deleted through some means such as
addition of an object class denoting this sate. Deleted entries are
not visible to LDAP clients - they may not be read, they don't
appear in lists or search results, and they may not be changed once
deleted. Names of deleted entries are available for reuse by new
entries immediately after the deleted entry is so marked. It may be
desirable to allow deleted entries to be accessed and manipulated by
management and data recovery applications, but that is outside the
scope of this document.
A CSN is recorded for both the RDN, and the Superior DN of the
entry.
7.2 Attribute Creation and Deletion
When all values of an attribute have been deleted, the attribute is
marked as deleted and the CSN of the deletion is recorded. The
deleted state and CSN are represented and stored by the server in an
implementation dependent way and hence may not be accessible by
search operations. This state information must be stored to enable
the Update Resolution Procedures to be performed. It may be
desirable to allow the deleted state and CSN information to be
accessed and manipulated by management and data recovery
applications, but that is outside the scope of this document.
7.3 Attribute Value Changes
The Modification CSN for each value is to be set by the server when
it accepts a modification request to the value, or when a new value
with a later Modification CSN is received via Replication. The
modified value and the Modification CSN changes are required to be
atomic, so that the value and its Modification CSN cannot be out of
synch on a given server. The server stores the state information,
but it has no representation on the entry, and may not be the
subject of a search operation. It may be desirable to allow the
state information to be accessed and manipulated by management and
data recovery applications, but that is outside the scope of this
document.
When the value of an attribute is deleted the state of its deletion
must be recorded, with the CSN of the modifying change. It must be
stored to enable the Update Resolution Procedures to be performed.
7.4 Update Inconsistency
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The server must reject LDAP client update operations with a CSN that
is older than the state information that would be replaced if the
operation were performed. This could occur in a replication topology
where the difference between the clocks of Master Replicas was too
large.
8 LDUP Update Transfer Protocol Framework
A Replication Session occurs between a Supplier server and Consumer
server over an LDAP connection. This section describes the process
by which a Replication Session is initiated, started and stopped.
The session initiator, termed the Initiator, could be either the
Supplier or Consumer. The Initiator sends an LDAP extended operation
to the Responder identifying the replication agreement being acted
on. The Supplier then sends a sequence of updates to the Consumer.
All transfers are in one direction only. A two-way exchange
requires two replication sessions - one session in each direction.
8.1 Replication Session Initiation
The Initiator starts the Replication Session by opening an LDAP
connection to its Responder. The Initiator binds using the
authentication credentials provided in the Replication Agreement.
The LDUP Update Transfer Protocol will define the LDAP extended
operation the Initiator should perform to initialize an LDUP
session. For the sake of convenience, this extended LDAP operation
for initializing a replication session is referred to as the _Start
Replication_ operation. Among other things, this operation will
identify the role each server will perform, and what type of
replication is to be performed. One server is to be the Consumer,
the other the Supplier, and the replication may be either Full or
Incremental. LDUP Update Transfer protocol could define additional
protocol primitives that allow the replicating nodes to reverse
their "supplier/consumer" role without having to reinitiate a new
replication cycle.
8.1.1 Authentication
The initiation of a Replication Session is to be restricted to
privileged clients. The identity and the credentials for the client
eligible for initiating a replication session will be specified as
attributes within Replication Agreements.
8.1.2 Consumer Initiated
The Consumer binds to the Supplier using the authentication
credentials specified in the Replication Agreement. The Consumer
sends the Start Replication extended request to begin the
Replication Session. The Supplier returns a Start Replication
extended response containing a response code. The Consumer then
disconnects from the Supplier. If the Supplier has agreed to the
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replication session initiation, it binds to the Consumer and behaves
just as if the Supplier initiated the replication.
8.1.3 Supplier Initiated
The Supplier binds to the Consumer using the authentication
credentials provided in the Replication Agreement. The Supplier
sends the _Start Replication_ extended request to begin the
Replication Session. The Consumer returns a _Start Replication_
extended response containing a response code, and possibly its
Update Vector. If the Consumer has agreed to the Replication Session
initiation, then the transfer protocol begins.
8.2 Start Replication Session
8.2.1 Start Replication Request
The LDUP Update Transfer Protocol will define an LDAP Extended
Request, referred to in this document as _Start Replication Request,
which is sent from the Initiator to Responder. The parameters of the
_Start Replication Request_ would identify the Replication Agreement
associated with the session, the Update Transfer Protocol associated
with the replication session, and other state information necessary
to initiate a replication session between the two servers.
8.2.2 Start Replication Response
The LDUP Update Transfer Protocol will define an LDAP Extended
Response, _Start Replication Response_, sent in reply to a Start
Replication Request, from the Responder to the Initiator. The
parameters of the Start Replication Response include a response
code, and an optional Update Vector.
8.3 Update Transfer
Each Update Transfer Protocol is identified by an OID. An LDUP
conformant server implementation must support those update protocols
that are defined as mandatory in the Update Transfer Protocol
standard, and may support many others. A server will advertise its
protocols in the Root DSE multi- valued attribute
'supportedReplicationProtocols'.
The Update Transfer Protocol would define the mechanisms for a
Consumer to receive a complete (full) update or incremental update
based on the current state of replication represented in the Update
Vector. A full update is necessary for initializing a consumer
replica upon establishment of replication agreements.
8.4 End Replication Session
The _End Replication Request_ initiated by the supplier terminates a
Replication Session. The purpose of this request and response is to
secure the state of the Update Vector associated with the two
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replicas that participated in replication. This is necessary for
proper resumption of replication during subsequent LDUP sessions.
8.5 Major States of Replicas
The state of a Replica controls the activities of the DSA that holds
the replica as well as that of other replicas with which it has a
replication agreement. This state represents whether a DSA is
available for replication with another DSA or not.
The following states of replica are envisioned.
1) A particular instance of a directory is NOT PARTICIPATING in
replication for a given area of replication and a given second
instance. In this state the instance need not record change
information for changes made in the context.
2) A particular instance of a directory is PARTICIPATING but NOT
ONLINE for a given area of replication and second instance. In
this case changes are recorded and will be sent when the instance
goes ONLINE.
3) A particular instance is PARTICIPATING and ONLINE for a given
area of replication and second instance. In this case changes are
being exchanged (subject to replication schedules, etc.). It is
possible for a given server to be ONLINE with some of the other
servers in the replica group and NOT ONLINE with others.
The fourth case (ONLINE and NOT PARTICIPATING) cannot occur.
8.5.1 Replica State Changes
Replica state changes are expected to trigger as a result of
administrative actions such as creation of a new replica instance,
removal of a replica, and creation of a replication-agreement
referring to a set of replicas.
LDUP information model defines a Replica "subentry". The state of a
replica is represented within attributes in this Replica subentry.
Some of these attributes are of significance and specific to the
local DSA (attributes of type "dsaOperation") and hence are not
replicated to any other node. Others, however, may be useful to
clients and other DSAs (for instance, whether the replica is
"ONLINE", it's update vector, or the result of the last replication
session for each replica agreement).
Each Replica would contain a Replica subentry, one representing
itself and one each for all other replicas (associated with the same
Replication Context) in the network. A DSAÆs actions w.r.t to
another replica (based on a binding replication agreement) would
depend on the replicas own state, as well as that of the state of
the latter. These states can be manually set to maintain control
over the DSA behavior. Hence, in addition to automatically
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triggered state changes, it should be possible to manually set these
attributes as well.
8.6 Integrity & Confidentiality
Data integrity (i.e., protection from unintended changes) and
confidentiality (i.e., protection from unintended disclosure to
eavesdroppers) SHOULD be provided by appropriate selection of
underlying transports, for instance TLS, or IPSEC. Replication MUST
be supported across TLS LDAP connections. Servers MAY be configured
to refuse replication connections over unprotected TCP connections.
9 LDUP Update Protocols
This Internet-Draft defines two transfer protocols for the supplier
to push changes to the consumer. Other protocols could be defined to
transfer changes, including those that pull changes from the
supplier to the consumer, but those are left for future work.
9.1 Replication Updates and Update Primitives
LDUP Update Protocol defines how Replication Updates are transferred
from the Supplier to the Consumer. Each Replication Update consists
of a set of Update Primitives that describe the state changes that
have been made to a single entry. Each Replication Update is
associated with a single entry identified by its UUID.
The Update Transfer Protocol would define a set of Update Primitives
each of which codifies an assertion about the state change of an
entry that resulted from a directory update operation. The
primitives will include sufficient data to allow recreation of
corresponding state changes on the consumer's replica. An assertion-
based approach has been chosen in such a way that the Primitives are
idempotent, meaning that re-application of a Primitive to an Entry
will cause no change to the entry. This is desirable as it provides
some resilience against some kinds of system failures.
Each Update Primitive contains a CSN that represents an ordering
among all such primitives generated anywhere in the network. The
consumer uses this ordering information to reconcile among those
primitives that lead to consistency violation.
9.2 Fractional Updates
When fully populating or incrementally bringing up to date a
Fractional Replica each of the Replication Updates must only contain
updates to the attributes in the Fractional Entry Specification.
10 LDUP Full Update Transfer Protocol
10.1 Full Update Transfer
This Full Update Protocol provides a bulk transfer of the replica
contents for the initial population of new replicas, and the
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refreshing of existing replicas. The LDUP Update Transfer protocol
standard will define the ways for this transfer is initiated. The
Consumer must replace its entire replica contents with that sent
from the Supplier.
The Consumer MUST NOT service any requests for this Naming Context
whilst the full update is being applied. The Consumer should instead
return a referral to another replica, possibly the supplier. [REF]
10.2 Replication Update Generation
The entire state of a Replicated Area can be mapped onto a sequence
of Replication Updates, each of which contains a sequence of Update
Primitives that describe the entire state of a single entry.
The sequence of Replication Updates must be ordered such that no
entry is created before its parent.
10.3 Replication Update Consumption
A Consumer will receive the Replication Updates, extract the
sequence of Update Primitives, and must apply them to the DIB in the
order provided.
10.4 Full Update, End Replication Session
A Full Update should also result in the replication of all
appropriate LDUP meta-data (which are part of the Replication
Context), such as the sub-entry representing the Replica being
updated and the Update Vector associated with it. The Supplier could
be accepting updates whilst the update is in progress. Once the
Full Update has completed, an Incremental Update should be performed
to transfer these changes.
10.5 Interrupted Transmission
If the Replication Session terminates before the End Replication
Request is sent, then the Replica could be in an inconsistent state.
Until the replica is restored to a consistent state, the consumer
MUST NOT permit LDAP Clients to access the incomplete replica. The
Consumer could refer the Client to the Supplier Replica, or return
an error result code.
11 LDUP Incremental Update Transfer Protocol
For efficiency, the Incremental Update Protocol transmits only those
changes that have been made to the Supplier replica that the
Consumer has not already received. In a replication topology with
transitive redundant replication agreements, changes may propagate
through the replica network via different routes.
The Consumer must not support multiple concurrent replication
sessions with more than one Supplier for the same Replication
Context. A Supplier that attempts to initiate a Replication Session
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with a Consumer already participating as a Consumer in another
Replication Session should receive an appropriate error.
11.1 Update Vector
The Supplier uses the Consumer's Update Vector to determine the
sequence of updates that should be sent to the Consumer.
Each Replica entry includes an Update Vector to record the point to
which the replica has been updated. The vector is a set of CSN
values, one value for each known Master Replica. Each CSN value in
the vector corresponds to the most recent change known locally that
occurred in the Master Replica that this Update Vector value
represents.
For example, consider two Master Replicas of a Replication Context,
one is assigned replica identifier `1', the other replica identifier
`2'. Each is responsible for maintaining its own update vector,
which will contain two CSNs, one for each replica. So, if both
replicas are identical they will have equivalent update vectors.
Both Update Vectors =
{1998081018:44:31z#0x000F#1#0x0000,
1998081018:51:20z#0x0001#2#0x0000}
Subsequently, at 7pm, an update is applied to replica `2', so its
update vector is updated.
Replica `1' Update Vector =
{1998081018:44:31z#0x000F#1#0x0000,
1998081018:51:20z#0x0001#2#0x0000}
Replica `2' Update Vector =
{1998081018:44:31z#0x000F#1#0x0000,
1998081019:00:00z#0x0000#2#0x0000}
Since the Update Vector records the state to which the replica has
been updated, a supplier server, during Replication Session
initiation, can determine the sequence of updates that should be
sent to the consumer. From the example above no updates need to be
sent from replica `1' to replica `2', but there is at least one
update pending from replica `2' to replica `1'.
Because the Update Vector embodies knowledge of updates made at all
known replicas it supports replication topologies that include
transitive and redundant connections between replicas. It ensures
that changes are not transferred to a consumer multiple times even
though redundant replication agreements may exist. It also ensures
that updates are passed across the replication network between
replicas that are not directly linked to each other.
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It may be the case that a CSN for a given replica is absent from the
update vector, for one of two reasons.
1. CSNs for Read-Only replicas might be absent because no changes
will have ever been applied to that Replica, so there are no changes
to replicate.
2. CSNs for newly created replicas may be absent because no changes
from that replica have yet been propagated.
An Update Vector might also contain a CSN for a replica that no
longer exists. The replica may have been temporarily taken out of
service, or may have been removed from the replication topology
permanently. An implementation may choose to retire a CSN after some
configurable time period.
11.2 Supplier Initiated, Incremental Update, Start Replication Session
The Consumer Responder must return its Update Vector to the Supplier
Initiator. The Supplier uses this to determine the sequence of
Replication Updates that need to be sent to the Consumer.
11.3 Replication Update Generation
The Supplier generates a sequence of Replication Updates to be sent
to the consumer. To enforce LDAP Constraint LDAP Constraints
Clauses.6, that the LDAP Modify must be applied atomically, each
Replication Update must contain the entire sequence of Update
Primitives for all the LDAP Operations for which the Replication
Update contains Update Primitives.
Stated less formally, for each primitive the update contains, it
must also contain all the other primitives that came from the same
operation.
A log-based implementation might take the approach of mapping LDAP
Operations onto an equivalent sequence of Update Primitives. A
systematic procedure for achieving this will be fully described in
the standard document defining Update Reconciliation Procedures.
The Consumer Update Vector is used to determine the sequence of LDAP
Operations in the operation log that the Consumer has not yet seen.
11.4 Replication Update Consumption
A Consumer will receive Replication Updates, extract the sequence of
Update Primitives, and must apply them to the DIB in the order
provided. LDAP Constraint LDAP Constraints Clauses.6 states that the
modifications within an LDAP Modify operation must be applied in the
sequence provided.
Those Update Primitives must be reconciled with the current replica
contents and any previously received updates. In short, updates are
compared to the state information associated with the item being
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operated on. If the change has a more recent CSN, then it is applied
to the directory contents. If the change has an older CSN it is no
longer relevant and its change must not be effected.
If the consumer acts as a supplier to other replicas then the
updates are retained for forwarding.
11.5 Update Resolution Procedures
The LDAP Update Operations must abide by the constraints imposed by
the LDAP Data Model and LDAP Operational Behavior, Appendix A. An
operation that would violate at least one of these constraints is
rejected with an error result code.
The loose consistency model of this replication architecture and its
support for multiple Master Replicas of a Replication Context means
that LDAP Update Operations could be valid at one replica, but not
in another. At the time of acceptance, the accepting replica may not
have received other updates that would cause a constraint to be
violated, and the operation to be rejected.
Replication Updates must never be rejected because of a violation of
an LDAP Constraint. If the result of applying the Replication Update
causes a constraint violation to occur, then some remedial action
must be taken to satisfy the constraint. These Update Resolution
Procedures are introduced here, and fully described in These Update
Resolution Procedures are introduced here will be fully defined
within LDUP Update Resolution Procedures.
11.5.1 URP: Distinguished Names
LDAP Constraints 20.1.1 and 20.1.10 ensure that each entry in the
replicated area has a unique DN. A Replication Update could violate
this constraint producing two entries, with different unique
identifiers, but with the same DN. The resolution procedure is to
rename the both entries so that its RDN includes its own unique
identifier. This ensures that the DN of both the entries shall be
unique.
11.5.2 URP: Orphaned Entries
LDAP Constraints 20.1.11 ensures that every entry must have a parent
entry. A Replication Update could violate this constraint producing
an entry with (as yet) no parent entry. The resolution procedure is
to create a Glue Entry to take the place of the absent parent. The
Glue Entry's superior will be the Lost and Found Entry. This well-
known place allows administrators and their tools (including
subsequent Replication Sessions) to find and repair orphaned
entries.
11.5.3 URP: Schema - Single Valued Attributes
LDAP Constraint 20.1.7 enforces the single-valued attribute schema
restriction. A Replication Update could violate this constraint
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creating a multi-value single-valued attribute. The resolution
procedure is to replace the earlier value of a single-valued
attribute with the newer value. In this way the most recently added
value will be retained, and the older one discarded.
11.5.4 URP: Schema - Required Attributes
LDAP Constraint 20.1.7 enforces the schema objectclass definitions
on an entry. A Replication Update could violate this constraint
creating an entry that does not have attribute values for required
attributes. The resolution procedure is to ignore the schema
violation and mark the entry as a glue entry for administrative
repair or correction in a subsequent replication session.
11.5.5 URP: Schema - Extra Attributes
LDAP Constraint 20.1.3 and 20.1.7 enforces the schema objectclass
definitions on an entry. A Replication Update could violate this
constraint creating an entry that has attribute values not allowed
by the objectclass values of the entry. The resolution procedure is
to ignore the schema violation and mark the entry as a glue entry
for administrative repair or correction in a subsequent replication
session.
11.5.6 URP: Duplicate Attribute Values
LDAP Constraint 20.1.5 ensures that the values of an attribute
constitute a set of unique values. A Replication Update could
violate this constraint. The resolution procedure is to enforce this
constraint, recording the most recently assigned CSN with the value.
11.5.7 URP: Ancestry Graph Cycle
LDAP Constraint 20.4.2.1 prevents against a cycle in the DIT. A
Replication Update could violate this constraint causing an entry to
become it's own parent, or for it to appear even higher in it's
ancestry graph. The resolution procedure is to break the cycle by
changing the parent of the entry closest to be the lost and found
entry.
11.6 Incremental Update, End Replication Session
If the Supplier sent none of its own updates to the Consumer, then
the Supplier's CSN within the Supplier's update vector should be
updated with the earliest possible CSN that it could generate, to
record the time of the last successful replication session. The
Consumer will have received the Supplier's Update Vector in the
replica sub- entry it holds for the Supplier replica.
The Consumer's resultant Update Vector CSN values will be at least
as great as the Supplier's Update Vector.
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The Supplier may request that the Consumer return its resultant
Update Vector so that the Supplier can update its replica sub-entry
for the Consumer Replica. The Supplier requests this by setting a
flag in the End Replication Request. The default flag value is TRUE
meaning the Consumer Update Vector must be returned.
11.7 Interrupted Transmission
If the Replication Session terminates before the End Replication
Request is sent then the Consumer's Update Vector may or may not be
updated to reflect the updates received. The Start Replication
request includes a Replication Update Ordering flag that states
whether the updates were sent in CSN order per replica.
Since updates are sent in CSN order per replica then it is possible
to update the Consumer Update Vector to reflect that some portion of
the updates to have been sent have been received and successfully
applied. The next Incremental Replication Session will pick up where
the failed session left off.
12 Purging State Information
The state information stored with each entry need not be stored
indefinitely. A server implementation may choose to periodically, or
continuously, remove state information that is no longer required.
The mechanism is implementation- dependent, but to ensure
interoperability between implementations, the state information must
not be purged until all known replicas have received and
acknowledged the change associated with a CSN. This is determined
from the Purge Vector [Purge Vector].
All the CSNs stored that are lower than the Purge Vector may be
purged, because no changes with older CSNs can be replicated to this
replica.
12.1 Purge Vector
The Purge Vector is an Update Vector constructed from the Update
Vectors of all known replicas. Below the root of a Replication
Context is one sub-entry for each known replica of that Replication
Context. Each of those entries contains the last known update vector
for that replica. The lowest CSN for each replica are taken from
these update vectors to form the Purge Vector. The Purge Vector is
used to determine when state information and updates need no longer
be stored.
12.2 Purging Deleted Entries, Attributes, and Attribute Values
The following conditions must hold before an item can be deleted
from the Directory Information Base.
1) The LDAP delete operation has been propagated to all replication
agreement partners.
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2) All the CSNs in other replica Update Vectors representing changes
to be sent to the server holding the deleted entry have advanced
beyond the CSN on the deletion (similarly for deleted attributes and
attribute values).
3) The CSN generator of the other Replicas must have advanced beyond
the deletion CSN of the deleted entry. Otherwise, it is possible for
one of those Replicas to generate operations with CSNs earlier than
the deleted entry.
13 Replication Configuration and Management
Replication management entries, such as replica or replication
agreement entries can be altered on any Master Replica. These
entries are implicitly included in the directory entries governed by
any agreement associated with this Replication Context. As a
result, all servers with a replica of a Replication Context will
have access to information about all other replicas and associated
agreements.
The deployment and maintenance of a replicated directory network
involves the creation and management of all the replicas of a
Replication Context and replication agreements among these replicas.
This section outlines, through an example, the administrative
actions necessary to create a new replica and establish replication
agreements. Typically, administrative tools will guide the
administrator and facilitate these actions. The objective of this
example is to illustrate the architectural relationship among
various replication related operational information.
A copy of an agreement should exist on both the supplier and
consumer side for the replication update transfer protocol to be
able to start. For this purpose, the root of the Replication
Context, replica objects and the replication agreement objects are
created first on one of the servers. A copy of these objects is then
manually created on the second server associated with the agreement.
The scenario below starts with a server (named DSA1) that holds a
Master Replica of a Replication Context, RC1. Procedures to
establish a Master Replica of the Replication Context on a second
server (DSA2) are outlined.
Note that when entries are created on two or more separate servers
in the operations described below, they need to be created with the
same entry UUIDs so that they don't collide with one another when
replication of their information actually occurs. This may be done
through some administrative control that allows the entry UUID to be
set by the create entry operation.
1. On DSA1: Add RC1's context prefix to the value of Root DSE
attribute 'replicaRoot'.
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2. On DSA1: Alter the 'ObjectClass' attribute of the root entry of
RC1 to include the "replicationContext" auxiliary class.
3. On DSA1: Create a replica object, RC1-R1, (as a child of the root
of RC1) to represent the replica on DSA1. The attributes include
replica type (updateable, read-only etc.) and DSA1 access point
information.
4. On DSA2: Add RC1's context prefix to the value of Root DSE
attribute 'replicaRoot'.
5. On DSA2: Create a copy of the root entry of RC1 as a copy of the
one in DSA1 (including the replicationContext auxiliary class)
6. On DSA2: Create a copy of the replica object RC1-R1
7. On DSA2: Create a second replica object, RC1-R2 (as a sibling of
RC1-R1) to represent the replica on DSA2.
8. On DSA1: Create a copy of the replica object RC1-R2
9. On DSA1: Create a replication agreement object, RC1-R1-R2 to
represent update transfer from RC1-R1 to RC1-R2. This object is a
child of RC1-R1.
10. On DSA2: Create a copy of the replication agreement, RC1- R1-R2.
11. On DSA2: Create a replication agreement, RC1-R2-R1, to represent
update transfer from RC1-R2 to RC1-R1. This object is a child of
RC1-R2.
12. ON-DSA1: Create a copy of the replication agreement, RC1- R2-R1.
After these actions update transfer to satisfy either of the two
agreements can commence.
If data already existed in one of the replicas, the update transfer
protocol should perform a complete update of the data associated
with the agreement before normal replication begins.
13. Time
The server assigns a CSN for every LDAP update operation it
receives. Since the CSN is principally based on time, the CSN is
susceptible to the Replica clocks drifting in relation to each other
(either forwards or backwards).
The server must never assign a CSN older than or equal to the last
CSN it assigned.
The server must reject update operations, from any source, which
would result in setting a CSN on an entry or a value that is earlier
than possible. The error code serverClocksOutOfSync (72) should be
returned if it is clear that the update is not simply an old one
that should be silently ignored. In particular, additions or
Merrells, Srinivasan, Reed September 2003 Page 28
LDAP Replication Architecture Model March 2003
modifications with CSNs prior to those on the servers Purge Vector
should be rejected.
14 Security Considerations
The preceding architecture discussion covers the server
authentication, session confidentiality, and session integrity in
sections Authentication and Integrity & Confidentiality.
The IETF draft "Authentication Methods" for LDAP, provides a
detailed LDAP security discussion. Its introductory passage is
paraphrased below. [AUTH]
A Replication Session can be protected with the following security
mechanisms.
1) Authentication by means of the SASL mechanism set, possibly
backed by the TLS credentials exchange mechanism,
2) Authorization by means of access control based on the Initiators
authenticated identity,
3) Data integrity protection by means of the TLS protocol or data-
integrity SASL mechanisms,
4) Protection against snooping by means of the TLS protocol or data-
encrypting SASL mechanisms,
The configuration entries that represent Replication Agreements may
contain authentication information. This information must never be
replicated between replicas.
Updates to a multi-mastered entry may collide causing the Update
Resolution Procedures [Update Resolution Procedures] to reject or
reverse one of the changes to the entry. The URP algorithms resolve
conflicts by using the total ordering of updates imposed by the
assignment of CSNs for every operation. As a consequence updates
originating from system administrators have no priority over updates
originating from regular system users.
14.1 Audit Capabilities
LDAP servers should enhance their audit capabilities to support
collection and management of audit logs about replication
activities. Much of replication management operations is sensitive
in nature and hence should be auditable. Also important is the
auditability of replication sessions by maintaining history log of
replication sessions, capturing the servers a node had engaged in
replication with in either direction.
15 Acknowledgements
This document is a product of the LDUP Working Group of the IETF.
The contribution of its members is greatly appreciated.
Merrells, Srinivasan, Reed September 2003 Page 29
LDAP Replication Architecture Model March 2003
16 References
[AUTH] _ M. Wahl, H. Alvestrand, J. Hodges, RL "Bob" Morgan,
"Authentication Methods for LDAP", Internet Draft, draft-ietf-
ldapext-authmeth-02.txt, June 1998.
[BCP-11] _ R. Hovey, S. Bradner, "The Organizations Involved in the
IETF Standards Process", BCP 11, RFC 2028, October 1996.
[LDAPv3] _ M. Wahl, S. Kille, T. Howes, "Lightweight Directory
Access Protocol (v3)", RFC 2251, December1997.
[LDUP Requirements] - R. Weiser, E. Stokes 'LDAP Replication
Requirements', Internet Draft, draft-weiser- replica-req-02.txt,
October, 1999.
[NTP] _ D. L. Mills, "Network Time Protocol (Version 3)", RFC 1305,
March, 1992.
[RFC2119] _ S. Bradner, "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", RFC 2119.
[RFC2252] _ M. Wahl, A. Coulbeck, T. Howes, S. Kille, _Lightweight
Directory Access Protocol (v3): Attribute Syntax Definitions_, RFC
2252, December 1997.
[SNTP] _ D. L. Mills, "Simple Network Time Protocol (SNTP) Version 4
for IPv4, IPv6 and OSI", RFC 2030, University of Delaware, October
1996.
[TLS] _ J. Hodges, R. L. "Bob" Morgan, M. Wahl, "Lightweight
Directory Access Protocol (v3): Extension for Transport Layer
Security", Internet draft, draft-ietf-ldapext-ldapv3-tls-01.txt,
June 1998.
[X501] _ ITU-T Recommendation X.501 (1993), ) | ISO/IEC 9594-
2:1993, Information Technology _ Open Systems Interconnection _ The
Directory: Models
[X680] _ ITU-T Recommendation X.680 (1994) | ISO/IEC 8824- 1:1995,
Information technology _ Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1):
Specification of Basic Notation
[X525] _ ITU-T Recommendation X.525 (1997) | ISO/IEC 9594- 9:1997,
Information Technology _ Open Systems Interconnection _ The
Directory: Replication
Merrells, Srinivasan, Reed September 2003 Page 30
LDAP Replication Architecture Model March 2003
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Merrells, Srinivasan, Reed September 2003 Page 31
LDAP Replication Architecture Model March 2003
17 Authors' Address
Uppili Srinivasan Oracle, Inc., Redwood Shores, CA
E-mail: Uppili.Srinivasan@oracle.com
John Merrells Sleepy Cat Software, Inc., Lincoln, MA
E-mail: merrells@sleepycat.com
Edwards E. Reed Novell, Inc., Provo, UT
E-mail: ereed@novell.com
LDUP Working Group Mailing List: ietf-ldup@imc.org
18 Appendix A _ LDAP Constraints
18.1 LDAP Constraints Clauses
This is an enumeration of the Data Model and Operation Behaviour
constraint clauses defined in RFC 2251. [LDAPv3]
1) Data Model - Entries have names: one or more attribute values
from the entry form its relative distinguished name (RDN), which
MUST be unique among all its siblings. (p5)
2) Data Model - Attributes of Entries - Each entry MUST have an
objectClass attribute. (p6)
3) Data Model - Attributes of Entries - Servers MUST NOT permit
clients to add attributes to an entry unless those attributes are
permitted by the object class definitions. (p6)
4) Relationship to X.500 - This document defines LDAP in terms of
X.500 as an X.500 access mechanism. An LDAP server MUST act in
accordance with the X.500 (1993) series of ITU recommendations when
providing the service. However, it is not required that an LDAP
server make use of any X.500 protocols in providing this service,
e.g. LDAP can be mapped onto any other directory system so long as
the X.500 data and service model as used in LDAP is not violated in
the LDAP interface. (p8)
5) Elements of Protocol - Common Elements - Attribute - Each
attribute value is distinct in the set (no duplicates). (p14)
6) Elements of Protocol - Modify Operation - The entire list of
entry modifications MUST be performed in the order they are listed,
as a single atomic operation. (p33)
7) Elements of Protocol - Modify Operation - While individual
modifications may violate the directory schema, the resulting entry
after the entire list of modifications is performed MUST conform to
the requirements of the directory schema. (p33)
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LDAP Replication Architecture Model March 2003
8) Elements of Protocol - Modify Operation - The Modify Operation
cannot be used to remove from an entry any of its distinguished
values, those values which form the entry's relative distinguished
name. (p34)
9) Elements of Protocol - Add Operation - Clients MUST include
distinguished values (those forming the entry's own RDN) in this
list, the objectClass attribute, and values of any mandatory
attributes of the listed object classes. (p35)
10) Elements of Protocol - Add Operation - The entry named in the
entry field of the AddRequest MUST NOT exist for the AddRequest to
succeed. (p35)
11) Elements of Protocol - Add Operation - The parent of the entry
to be added MUST exist. (p35)
12) Elements of Protocol - Delete Operation - ... only leaf entries
(those with no subordinate entries) can be deleted with this
operation. (p35)
13) Elements of Protocol - Modify DN Operation - If there was
already an entry with that name [the new DN], the operation would
fail. (p36)
14) Elements of Protocol - Modify DN Operation - The server may not
perform the operation and return an error code if the setting of the
deleteoldrdn parameter would cause a schema inconsistency in the
entry. (p36)
18.2 LDAP Data Model Constraints
The LDAP Data Model Constraint clauses as written in RFC 2251
[LDAPv3] may be summarised as follows.
a) The parent of an entry must exist. (LDAP Constraint 11 & 12.)
b) The RDN of an entry is unique among all its siblings. (LDAP
Constraint 1.)
c) The components of the RDN must appear as attribute values of the
entry. (LDAP Constraint 8 & 9.)
d) An entry must have an objectclass attribute. (LDAP Constraint 2 &
9.)
e) An entry must conform to the schema constraints. (LDAP
Constraint 3 & 7.)
f) Duplicate attribute values are not permitted. (LDAP Constraint
5.)
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LDAP Replication Architecture Model March 2003
18.3 LDAP Operation Behaviour Constraints
The LDAP Operation Behaviour Constraint clauses as written in RFC
2251 [LDAPv3] may be summarized as follows.
A) The Add Operation will fail if an entry with the target DN
already exists. (LDAP Constraint 10.)
B) The Add Operation will fail if the entry violates data
constraints:
a - The parent of the entry does not exist. (LDAP Constraint 11.)
b - The entry already exists. (LDAP Constraint 10.)
c - The entry RDN components do not appear as attribute values on
the entry. (LDAP Constraint 9.)
d - The entry does not have an objectclass attribute. (LDAP
Constraint 9.)
e - The entry does not conform to the schema constraints. (LDAP
Constraint 9.)
f - The entry has no duplicated attribute values. (LDAP
Constraint 5.)
C) The modifications of a Modify Operation are applied in the order
presented. (LDAP Constraint 6.)
D) The full set of modifications of a Modify Operation are applied
as one atomic unit. (LDAP Constraint 6.)
E) A Modify Operation will fail if it results in an entry that
violates data constraints:
c - If it attempts to remove distinguished attribute values.
(LDAP Constraint 8.)
d - If it removes the objectclass attribute. (LDAP Constraint
2.)
e - If it violates the schema constraints. (LDAP Constraint 7.)
f - If it creates duplicate attribute values. (LDAP Constraint
5.)
F) The Delete Operation will fail if it would result in a DIT that
violates data constraints:
a - The deleted entry must not have any children. (LDAP
Constraint 12.)
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LDAP Replication Architecture Model March 2003
G) The ModDN Operation will fail if it would result in a DIT or
entry that violates data constraints:
b - The new Superior entry must exist. (Derived LDAP Data Model
Constraint A)
c - An entry with the new DN must not already exist. (LDAP
Constraint 13.)
c - The new RDN components do not appear as attribute values on
the entry. (LDAP Constraint 1.)
d - If it removes the objectclass attribute. (LDAP Constraint
2.)
e - It is permitted for the operation to result in an entry that
violates the schema constraints. (LDAP Constraint 14.)
18.4 New LDAP Constraints
The introduction of support for multi-mastered entries, by the
replication scheme presented in this document, necessitates the
imposition of new constraints upon the Data Model and LDAP Operation
Behaviour.
18.4.1 New LDAP Data Model Constraints
1) Each entry shall have a unique identifier generated by the UUID
algorithm available through the `entryUUID' operational attribute.
The entryUUID attribute is single valued.
18.4.2 New LDAP Operation Behaviour Constraints
1) The LDAP Data Model Constraints do not prevent cycles in the
ancestry graph. Existing constraints Data Model Constraint _ New
LDAP Data Model Constraints _ (a) and Operation Constraint _ New
LDAP Operation Behaviour Constraints _ (B) would prevent this in the
single master case, but not in the presence of multiple masters.
2) The LDAP Data Model Constraints state that only the LDAP Modify
Operation is atomic. All other LDAP operations, namely, ADD, DELETE
and MODDN are also considered to be atomically applied to the DIB.
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