FQDN goes in commonName or domainComponent?

[Brian Korver <briank@xythos.com>]

Re: draft-ietf-ipsec-pki-profile-01.txt

On Wednesday, November 13, 2002, at 08:41 AM, Housley, Russ wrote:
>>> In section 4.1.2.2.2, describing conventions for FQDN Host Names, I 
>>> think that the SHOULD and MAY are backwards.  When a DQDN is carried 
>>> in the subject field of a certificate, the domainComponent attribute 
>>> SHOULD be used.  The commonName attribute MAY be used instead.  I 
>>> prefer dNSName in the SubjectAltName extension to both of these!

Your final statement agrees with the draft's SHOULD NOT.

On the other hand, domainComponent isn't nearly as standard
as commonName for containing FQDNs.  In fact, I'd be surprised
if much software could even process that attribute type and
display it to a user.

Question to the list:  How common is support domainComponent?
Which should be preferred?

-brian
briank@xythos.com