RFC 3062

LDAP Password Modify Extended Operation

📅 published February 2001, from ietf

RFC 3062: LDAP Password Modify Extended Operation ✨

okay bestie, let's go 💖 this is RFC 3062, written by Kurt D. Zeilenga (you'll also see him as K. Zeilenga) from the OpenLDAP Foundation. It's a Standards Track doc, dated February 2001. The title block doesn't list anything it obsoletes or updates, so it's standing on its own 🫶

Status of This Memo 🎀

This is an Internet standards track protocol for the Internet community, and the authors are asking for discussion and suggestions for improvements. For the current standardization state and status of this protocol, check the "Internet Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1). Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice 🌸

Abstract 🦋

LDAP has been hanging out with external authentication services, which means users can now have non-DN identities, and passwords can live somewhere that isn't the directory 👀 That's a problem, because update mechanisms like Modify work on the directory, so they can't change a user's password in these setups. This document describes an LDAP extended operation for changing user passwords that doesn't care what form the authentication identity takes or where the password gets stored 💅

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", and "MAY" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119.

1. Background and Intent of Use ✨

Okay so, LDAP [RFC2251] is built to support a number of authentication mechanisms, including simple username/password pairs 🔑 Back in the day, LDAP users were identified by the Distinguished Name [RFC2253] of a directory entry, and that entry held a userPassword [RFC2256] attribute with one or more passwords in it.

The protocol doesn't require passwords to be stored in the directory server. The server can use any attribute that's suitable for password storage (for example, userPassword), or it can use non-directory storage 🧚

Then came the integration [RFC2829] of application-neutral SASL [RFC2222] services that support simple username/password mechanisms (like DIGEST-MD5). That brought in non-LDAP DN authentication identity forms and handed the job of storing passwords over to the SASL service provider 🫠

LDAP update operations are designed to act on attributes of an entry in the directory. So they can't change a user's password when the user has no DN, has no entry, or when the server's password isn't stored as an attribute of an entry. We need another way 😤

So this document describes an LDAP Extended Operation that lets directory clients update user passwords. The user may or may not have a directory entry, may or may not be represented as an LDAP DN, and the password may or may not be stored in the directory. Iconic flexibility 👑

The operation SHOULD NOT be used without adequate security protection, because it doesn't provide privacy or integrity protection on its own. This operation SHALL NOT be used anonymously. Not okay, no cap 🙅‍♀️

1.1. Dummy Placeholder

2. Password Modify Request and Response 🎀

The Password Modify operation is an LDAPv3 Extended Operation [RFC2251, Section 4.12], identified by the OBJECT IDENTIFIER passwdModifyOID. This section goes through the syntax of the request and response 💜

passwdModifyOID OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= 1.3.6.1.4.1.4203.1.11.1

PasswdModifyRequestValue ::= SEQUENCE {
  userIdentity    [0]  OCTET STRING OPTIONAL
  oldPasswd       [1]  OCTET STRING OPTIONAL
  newPasswd       [2]  OCTET STRING OPTIONAL }

PasswdModifyResponseValue ::= SEQUENCE {
  genPasswd       [0]     OCTET STRING OPTIONAL }

2.1. Password Modify Request 🍓

A Password Modify request is an ExtendedRequest where the requestName field holds the passwdModifyOID OID, and it can optionally include a requestValue field. If requestValue is provided, it SHALL contain a PasswdModifyRequestValue with one or more fields present ✨

The userIdentity field, if present, SHALL contain an octet string representation of the user the request is about. That string may or may not be an LDAPDN [RFC2253]. If there's no userIdentity field, the request acts on the password of whichever user is currently associated with the LDAP session 🫶

The oldPasswd field, if present, SHALL contain the user's current password.

The newPasswd field, if present, SHALL contain the desired password for this user.

2.2. Password Modify Response 🦋

A Password Modify response is an ExtendedResponse where the responseName field is absent and the response field is optional. If the response field is present, it SHALL contain a PasswdModifyResponseValue with the genPasswd field present.

The genPasswd field, if present, SHALL contain a generated password for the user.

If a resultCode other than success (0) is indicated in the response, the response field MUST be absent. 🙈

3. Operation Requirements 💅

This is where the rules get strict, so pay attention bestie 👀

Clients SHOULD NOT submit a Password Modification request without making sure adequate security safeguards are in place. Servers SHOULD return a non-success resultCode if sufficient security protection is not in place.

Servers SHOULD indicate their support for this extended operation by providing PasswdModifyOID as a value of the supportedExtension attribute type in their root DSE. A server MAY choose to advertise this extension only when the client is authorized and/or has established the necessary security protections to use this operation. Clients SHOULD verify that the server implements this extended operation before trying it, by checking that the supportedExtension attribute contains a value of PasswdModifyOID 🔍

The server SHALL only return success after successfully changing the user's password. Otherwise, the server SHALL leave the password unmodified and return a non-success resultCode 🥺

If the server doesn't recognize the fields provided, or doesn't support the combination of fields provided, it SHALL NOT change the user password.

If oldPasswd is present and the provided value can't be verified or is incorrect, the server SHALL NOT change the user password. If oldPasswd is not present, the server MAY use other policy to decide whether or not to change the password.

The server SHALL NOT generate a password on behalf of the client if the client has provided a newPasswd. If the client hasn't provided a newPasswd, the server SHALL either generate a password on behalf of the client or return a non-success result code. The server MUST provide the generated password upon success as the value of the genPasswd field 🎁

The server MAY return adminLimitExceeded, busy, confidentialityRequired, operationsError, unavailable, unwillingToPerform, or another non-success resultCode as appropriate, to show that it couldn't finish the operation.

Servers MAY implement administrative policies that restrict this operation.

4. Security Considerations 🔥

This part is SERIOUS, bestie 😭

This operation is used to modify user passwords, and the operation itself doesn't provide any security protection for integrity and/or confidentiality of the information. Using it is strongly discouraged when privacy protections aren't in place to guarantee confidentiality, because it may disclose the password to unauthorized parties 💀

This extension MUST be used with confidentiality protection, such as Start TLS [RFC 2830]. The NULL cipher suite MUST NOT be used. Non-negotiable, periodt 🚫

5. Bibliography 📚

[RFC2219]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
           Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

[RFC2222]  Myers, J., "Simple Authentication and Security Layer
           (SASL)", RFC 2222, October 1997.

[RFC2251]  Wahl, M., Howes, T. and S. Kille, "Lightweight Directory
           Access Protocol (v3)", RFC 2251, December 1997.

[RFC2252]  Wahl, M., Coulbeck, A., Howes, T. and S. Kille,
           "Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (v3): Attribute
           Syntax Definitions", RFC 2252, December 1997.

[RFC2253]  Wahl, M., Kille,S. and T. Howes, "Lightweight Directory
           Access Protocol (v3): UTF-8 String Representation of
           Distinguished Names", RFC 2253, December 1997.

[RFC2256]  Wahl, M., "A Summary of the X.500(96) User Schema for use
           with LDAPv3", RFC 2256, December 1997.

[RFC2829]  Wahl, M., Alvestrand, H., Hodges, J. and R. Morgan,
           "Authentication Methods for LDAP", RFC 2829, May 2000.

[RFC2830]  Hodges, J., Morgan, R. and M. Wahl, "Lightweight Directory
           Access Protocol (v3): Extension for Transport Layer
           Security", RFC 2830, May 2000.

6. Acknowledgment 🫶

This document borrows from a bunch of IETF documents and is based on input from the IETF LDAPext working group 🌈

7. Author's Address 💌

Kurt D. Zeilenga
OpenLDAP Foundation

EMail: Kurt@OpenLDAP.org

8. Full Copyright Statement 📜

Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2001).  All Rights Reserved.

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Acknowledgement 🌟

Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the Internet Society. ✨

📦 where this page comes from

ietf: rfc3062 2001-02
💖 girlified by claude-haiku-5-5 on 2026-10-16: a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms