A Common Schema for the Internet White Pages Service
Extracted elements (23)
Database structure and schema are intentionally excluded from this specification to avoid restricting implementations (e.g., X.500-based vs. DNS-based). It is treated as a separate research topic.
LDAP attribute syntax was adopted for defining IWPS information object templates to provide a clear, precise, and consistent method; some syntaxes are listed as requirements rather than specific encodings to avoid restricting IWPS implementations.
Size recommendations are expressed in characters rather than bytes because many character encodings (e.g., UTF-8 for ISO 10646) require more than one byte per character, making byte-count limits implementation-dependent.
The IWPS schema is independent of any specific directory access protocol (WHOIS++, LDAP, DAP, etc.). Any technology deploying a White Pages service must publish a companion document specifying how the general IWPS attributes are expressed in that technology's schema.
All conforming IWPS implementations must support, at minimum, the core attributes listed in Section 5.0. Implementations may include additional local attributes and still be considered conformant.
Any production IWPS provider must ensure that all data is reasonably correct and up-to-date, as a White Pages service will not be used if its information is stale or incorrect.
Attributes that contain multiple-line text (e.g., Address) must use the folding procedure defined in RFC 822, Section 3.1.1, for handling long header lines.
GeneralizedTime values must include a time zone specification; use of Zulu time zone is strongly recommended. Example format: 199412161032Z.
IWPS client applications should use the recommended field sizes as maximum sizes, but must be able to handle attributes of arbitrary size returned by a non-compliant server. All size recommendations are in characters, not bytes.
Mailbox implementations must clearly distinguish between different types of mailbox addresses (e.g., X.400 vs. Internet) and must provide a way to represent any mailbox type.
Phone numbers are recommended to use the full international form (e.g., +1 206 703 0852); the field may contain additional information such as extensions following the number.
The Address syntax must be able to represent at least 6 lines of 40 characters, per Universal Postal Union standards.
The IWPS User Agent must be able to retrieve and display Ancillary Attributes; retrieval and display may be performed as separate operations.
The WhitepageString syntax must be able to encode arbitrary ISO 10646 characters; UTF-8 is given as one acceptable encoding.
The Working Group recommends that all information object templates used for the IWPS be published. Information an organization wishes to expose via IWPS must use a published IWPS information object template.
Privacy legislation varies by country and US state. Directory administrators are strongly advised to verify applicable privacy law. Each provider should publish a clear statement of the directory's purpose, its data contents, and a privacy policy including data dissemination restrictions—required by many EU countries and strongly recommended for the US and Canada.
Ancillary Attributes track data provenance: Creation Date (24 chars, GeneralizedTime), Creator Name (255 chars, URI), Modified Date (24 chars, GeneralizedTime), and Modifier Name (255 chars, URI). These are recommended as the minimum set for any new IWPS information object template.
The IWPS Person Object Template defines General Attributes: Email (360 chars, Mailbox, multivalued), Cert (4000 chars, Certificate, multivalued), Home Page (128 chars, URI), Common Name (64 chars, multivalued), Given Name (48 chars), Surname (48 chars), Organization (64 chars), Locality (20 chars), Country (2 chars, ISO 3166), Language Spoken (128 chars, RFC 1766, multivalued).
The IWPS Person Object Template defines Organizational Attributes: Title (64 chars), Office Phone, Fax, Mobile Phone, and Pager (30 chars each, PrintableString), and Office Postal Address (255 chars, Address).
The IWPS Person Object Template defines Personal Attributes: Personal Phone, Fax, Mobile Phone, and Pager Number (30 chars each, PrintableString); Personal Postal Address (255 chars, Address); Description (255 chars, WhitepageString).
Security is declared implementation- and deployment-specific and is not addressed in this memo, except that security mechanisms must enforce the data privacy constraints described in Section 8.0.
Certificate field (max 4000 chars) is intended to hold any type of certificate, including X.509. The mapping to a specific implementation schema must specify how the certificate type is indicated.
PrintableString is restricted to the characters defined by production <p>: upper- and lowercase letters, digits, and the symbols ' ( ) + , - . / : ? and space. No other characters are permitted.