Ce contenu n'est pas disponible dans la langue sélectionnée.

A.2. Distinguished Names


Overview

Historically, distinguished names (DN) are defined as the primary keys in an X.500 directory structure. However, DNs have come to be used in many other contexts as general purpose identifiers. In Apache CXF, DNs occur in the following contexts:
  • X.509 certificates—for example, one of the DNs in a certificate identifies the owner of the certificate (the security principal).
  • LDAP—DNs are used to locate objects in an LDAP directory tree.

String representation of DN

Although a DN is formally defined in ASN.1, there is also an LDAP standard that defines a UTF-8 string representation of a DN (see RFC 2253). The string representation provides a convenient basis for describing the structure of a DN.
Note
The string representation of a DN does not provide a unique representation of DER-encoded DN. Hence, a DN that is converted from string format back to DER format does not always recover the original DER encoding.

DN string example

The following string is a typical example of a DN:
C=US,O=IONA Technologies,OU=Engineering,CN=A. N. Other

Structure of a DN string

A DN string is built up from the following basic elements:

OID

An OBJECT IDENTIFIER (OID) is a sequence of bytes that uniquely identifies a grammatical construct in ASN.1.

Attribute types

The variety of attribute types that can appear in a DN is theoretically open-ended, but in practice only a small subset of attribute types are used. Table A.1, “Commonly Used Attribute Types” shows a selection of the attribute types that you are most likely to encounter:
Table A.1. Commonly Used Attribute Types
String RepresentationX.500 Attribute TypeSize of DataEquivalent OID
C
countryName
2
2.5.4.6
O
organizationName
1...64
2.5.4.10
OU
organizationalUnitName
1...64
2.5.4.11
CN
commonName
1...64
2.5.4.3
ST
stateOrProvinceName
1...64
2.5.4.8
L
localityName
1...64
2.5.4.7
STREET
streetAddress
  
DC
domainComponent
  
UID
userid
  

AVA

An attribute value assertion (AVA) assigns an attribute value to an attribute type. In the string representation, it has the following syntax:
<attr-type>=<attr-value>
For example:
CN=A. N. Other
Alternatively, you can use the equivalent OID to identify the attribute type in the string representation (see Table A.1, “Commonly Used Attribute Types” ). For example:
2.5.4.3=A. N. Other

RDN

A relative distinguished name (RDN) represents a single node of a DN (the bit that appears between the commas in the string representation). Technically, an RDN might contain more than one AVA (it is formally defined as a set of AVAs). However, this almost never occurs in practice. In the string representation, an RDN has the following syntax:
<attr-type>=<attr-value>[+<attr-type>=<attr-value> ...]
Here is an example of a (very unlikely) multiple-value RDN:
OU=Eng1+OU=Eng2+OU=Eng3
Here is an example of a single-value RDN:
OU=Engineering
Red Hat logoGithubRedditYoutubeTwitter

Apprendre

Essayez, achetez et vendez

Communautés

À propos de la documentation Red Hat

Nous aidons les utilisateurs de Red Hat à innover et à atteindre leurs objectifs grâce à nos produits et services avec un contenu auquel ils peuvent faire confiance.

Rendre l’open source plus inclusif

Red Hat s'engage à remplacer le langage problématique dans notre code, notre documentation et nos propriétés Web. Pour plus de détails, consultez leBlog Red Hat.

À propos de Red Hat

Nous proposons des solutions renforcées qui facilitent le travail des entreprises sur plusieurs plates-formes et environnements, du centre de données central à la périphérie du réseau.

© 2024 Red Hat, Inc.