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From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com>
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Subject: Re: WebAdmin
To: rivers@dignus.com (Thomas David Rivers)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 23:50:40 +0000 (GMT)
Cc: mike@smith.net.au, tlambert@primenet.com, capriotti0@hotmail.com,
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> Well - just a heads' up on the LDAP issue.
> 
> Computer Reseller News (www.crn.com) just published a lead article 
> indicating LDAP is soon to be dead... People are finding it to be too
> ill defined producing too much incompatibility.
> 
> Based solely on that article, since that's all I know - I'd suggest staying
> away from LDAP until a presumed newer definition materializes.

I'd say the death of LDAP is much exaggerated.  I think CRN also
had an article on how NT was going to kill UNIX, didn't it?  ;-).

I have an LDAP server here with all of the varios fixes, except for
the cryptographic stuff, already integrated.  I can send out a mega
patch if you are serious about hacking on it for FreeBSD.
 
One thing LDAP is currently missing is a transactioning mechanism.  
You can fake this *if*:

1)	You are guaranteed your last request is committed before
	your next request.

2)	You use a reference object.

Ie: I have a user record for uid 117; it looks like


/ ... / uid-117 / ...

Instead of this being:

/ ... / uid-117 / account=fred
/ ... / uid-117 / group / default=20
/ ... / uid-117 / gid=thwkFIeaA5wpk
/ ... / uid-117 / gecos=Fred The Cat
...

You make it:

/ ... / uid-117=0x800179df

And then in:

/ ... / 0x800179df / account=fred
/ ... / 0x800179df / group / default=20
/ ... / 0x800179df / gid=thwkFIeaA5wpk
/ ... / 0x800179df / gecos=Fred The Cat
...

To modify this (for instance, name and gecos):

/ ... / 0x80017b47 / account=tom
/ ... / 0x80017b47 / group / default=20
/ ... / 0x80017b47 / gid=thwkFIeaA5wpk
/ ... / 0x80017b47 / gecos=Tom Sawyer
...

*Then*

/ ... / uid-117=0x80017b47

...an "atomic" update of the value of uid-117, using a container object.


					Terry Lambert
					terry@lambert.org
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.