Introducing Project Long Bud: Internet Pilot Project for the Deployment of X.500 Directory Information in Support of X.400 Routing
RFC 1802
Network Working Group H. Alvestrand
Request for Comments: 1802 UNINETT
Category: Informational K. Jordan
Control Data Systems
S. Langlois
Electricite de France
J. Romaguera
NetConsult
June 1995
Introducing Project Long Bud:
Internet Pilot Project for the Deployment of X.500 Directory
Information in Support of X.400 Routing
Status of this Memo
This memo provides information for the Internet community. This memo
does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of
this memo is unlimited.
Abstract
The Internet X.400 community (i.e., GO-MHS) currently lacks a
distributed mechanism providing dynamic updating and management of
message routing information. The IETF MHS-DS Working Group has
specified an approach for X.400 Message Handling Systems to perform
message routing using OSI Directory Services. The MHS-DS approach
has been successfully tested in a number of local environments.
This memo describes a proposed Internet Pilot Project that seeks to
prove the MHS-DS approach on a larger scale. The results of this
pilot will then be used to draw up recommendations for a global
deployment.
1. Background
The 1988 edition of X.400 introduces, among other extensions or
revisions, the concept of O/R Names which assumes the existence of a
widely available Directory Service. This Directory Service is needed
to support several MHS operations (support for names to identify
senders and receivers of messages in a user-friendly fashion, support
for distribution lists, authentication of MHS components, description
of MHS components capabilities...).
The prime advantage of Directory Names, as perceived by many users,
was to release users from the remembering of complex O/R Addresses
for their correspondents.
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RFC 1802 Introducing Project Long Bud June 1995
In the MHS infrastructure, as compared to other protocols, a name by
itself does not contain enough information to allow the Message
Transfer Agents (MTAs) to route a message to the User Agent (UA)
servicing this name. The routing process is based on information
provided by different MHS Management Domains, whether they are public
or private.
An MHS community combines several administrative MHS domains among
which agreements for cooperative routing exist: the GO-MHS community
is the set of MTA's taking care of X.400 mail operations on the
Internet [RFC 1649].
In the absence of a distributed Directory Service, an interim
technique has been developed within the GO-MHS community to collect
and advertise routing information. This resulted in an experimental
IETF protocol [RFC 1465].
2. Rationale
A number of routing problems are preventing the present Internet
X.400 service from expanding its number of participating message
transfer agents to a global scale. The two most critical problems
are:
* The present mechanism of centrally maintained and advertized
MTA routing tables has been optimized as far as possible.
Increasing the number of directly connected MTAs increases also
the workload on the MHS managers. The current solution does
not scale. Routing must be a fully dynamic and distributed
process.
* Manual propagation and installation of routing tables do not
guarantee consistency of routing information (even in a loose
fashion) when it is accessed by different MTAs scattered across
the globe.
It is commonly accepted that a distributed mechanism providing for
dynamic updating and management of X.400 routing information is
highly desirable. The focus of the project is to establish X.500-
based support of X.400 routing, at a very large scale.
3. Benefits
Using the Directory as a dynamic means of information storage and
advertisement will guarantee participants in Project Long Bud that
their updated data are globally available to the community. As a
direct consequence of the above, a participating MHS manager will be
released from configuring connections to the other participants.
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RFC 1802 Introducing Project Long Bud June 1995
Directory-capable MTAs will be able to discover more optimal and more
direct routes to X.400 destinations than are practical today. This
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