LDAP

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IBM, Lotus, Microsoft

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LDAP, or Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, is an Internet protocol used by client programs to query information from servers. For example, an email client may use LDAP to query email addresses where LDAP server works as an address book organizer. Or a secure client may use LDAP to query public keys where LDAP server works as a security service. One key thing in understanding LDAP is that LDAP only defines a protocol for communication between client and server. It doesnot require any specific techniques on either the client side or the server side. Or, in other words, LDAP only defines the language between a client and an LDAP server. For example, the server could use database or even plain text query as long as it supports LDAP language to talk to clients.

LDAP server was designed at the University of Michigan and is supported by major companies such as IBM, Microsoft, Lotus, etc. LDAP is defined in RFC2251 "The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (v3).

1 Quickstart: setting up LDAP service on fedora core 4[OL]

1.1 Get the software

Check if you have already have openldap installed by

does /usr/sbin/ldap/slapd exist If you do, it usually means that you already have openldap installed
run "yum info openldap"

If you donot have openldap, try the following to install it

Get the package from http://www.openldap.org/software/download/
gunzip -c openldap-VERSION.tgz | tar xvfB -
cd openldap-VERSION
./configure
make depend
make 
make test
su root -c 'make install'

1.2 Configure ldap

Use your favorite editor to edit the default slapd.conf file (/etc/openldap/slap.conf), make it contain a BDB database definition of the form:

database bdb
suffix "dc=your,dc=full,dc=domain,dc=name"
rootdn "cn=Manager,dc=your,dc=full,dc=domain,dc=name"
rootpw secret
rootpw *** (refer to /usr/sbin/slappasswd for how to generate this passwd)
directory /usr/local/var/openldap-data

1.3 Start ldap

su root -c /usr/sbin/slap

1.4 Try it out

ldapsearch -x -b '' -s base '(objectclass=*)' namingContexts

1.5 Add your customized ldap entry

Create a text file example.ldif anywhere in your file system:

dn: dc=host-4067 objectclass: dcObject objectclass: organization o: Example Company dc: host-4067

dn: cn=Manager,dc=host-4067 objectclass: organizationalRole cn: Manager

and then run this command to insert the records:

ldapadd -x -D "cn=Manager,dc=your,dc=full,dc=domain,dc=name" -W -f example.ldif

1.5.1 No superior knowlege

Make sure in your dn attribute, you have dc="what you defined in -D param of the ldapadd command"

2 LDAP Browser/Editor

http://www-unix.mcs.anl.gov/~gawor/ldap/

3 Links

LDAP Linux HOWTO

Comments

References

[OL] http://www.openldap.org/doc/admin23/quickstart.html