1. LDAP: Introduction CNS 4650 Fall 2004 Rev. 2

2. LDAP History Simplify directory access protocol Front-end to X.500 Developed my UMich

3. LDAP Benefits Lower overhead (No OSI stack) TCP/IP based Can use DNS for namespace Simple APIs

4. LDAP Standards Protocol is developed and enhanced by the IETF RFC model used to define standard LDAPv3 current standard LDAPv2 still relatively popular

5. Standards Bodies OASIS (Directory Service Markup Language [DSML]) Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) (Common Information Model [CIM]) Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) (LDAP Standards) Network Applications Consortium (NAC) (Users Group) Open Group Directory Interoperability Forum (DIF) (LDAP2000 Interoperability)

6. Core RFCs RFC 2251 (Protocol) RFC 2252 (MandatorySchema) RFC 2256 (User Schema) RFC 2256 (Distinguished Names) RFC 2829 (Authentication Methods) RFC 2254 (LDAP URLs) RFC 2830 (Transport Layer Security) RFC 2255 (Security Filters) RFC 2830 (Digest Authentication)

7. Lacking Standards Access Control Each to his own Most servers are or are adding support to simulate Microsoft ACLs Replication No clear standard This area is very proprietary Not a lot of willingness to share :-(

8. Directory Integration Usually pretty difficult Import schema from one to other Useful data stored in proprietary database No LDAP Interface Not just simply synchronization Can be expensive and time consuming

9. Meta-Directories Front-end directory Users view as a single directory Gathers data from different sources Synchronizes data to the various sources All servers required to run provisioning software Manages updates and changes Novell’s DirXML

10. Meta-Directories

11. Virtual Directories LDAP front-end Backend speaks other directories “language” SQL COBOL Does not require provisioning software on every server Virtual directory server does all the translating OctectString’s Virtual Directory

12. Virtual Directories