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Technology Challenges and Solutions

Archive for September, 2009

OpenLDAP on CentOS 5.4 – Part 3 – The Client

Sep 29

Posted by Mike in Servers | 9 Comments

For part 2 of this tutorial, which covers the installation and configuration of the server, click here.

Client Configuration

Now that we’ve gotten our server up and running, it’s time to configure a client to use it. Many Linux distributions require you to manually edit the proper files to configure LDAP authentication, but Red Hat and its derivatives use an automatic system instead. In fact, the files that are required for client configuration should not be configured manually at all. You risk losing your changes since any time you run the configuration wizard it resets the PAM files that allow LDAP authentication.
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OpenLDAP on CentOS 5.4 – Part 2 – The Server

Sep 26

Posted by Mike in Servers | 2 Comments

To see part 1 of this tutorial, which covers the background and planning stages of an LDAP installation, click here.

Installation and Configuration of OpenLDAP

Now that you have a plan in place for how to design your directory, it’s time to start the installation and configuration.  If you’re using CentOS or any other Red Hat based distribution, you have the yum package manager to assist with the installation.  That’s how I’ll demonstrate the installation.  If you need to compile from source, you’ll have to find more details on OpenLDAP’s website or another tutorial.
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OpenLDAP on CentOS 5.4 – Part 1 – Planning the Directory

Sep 23

Posted by Mike in Servers | No Comments

Introduction

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, better known as LDAP, is a great way to store any kind of data you can think of.  Address books, user accounts, system groups, network data, and much more can all be stored in an LDAP database.  The reason for that versatility stems from the way that LDAP stores data.  An LDAP database functions in the same way as any other directory service, such as telephone directories.  It uses a tree structure to organize data and is optimized for reading that data.  Consequently, it is designated as “high read, low write.”  Due to it’s ease of use, LDAP has become the standard for storing data for networks of users big or small.  However, just because it’s easy doesn’t mean you can jump right in without some planning.
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