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Date:      Tue, 14 Nov 2000 15:54:55 -0500 (EST)
From:      Mike <mikey@kappaisle.com>
To:        "Jacques A. Vidrine" <n@nectar.com>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org, freebsd-isp@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: pam_ldap status?
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.4.21.0011141542560.92286-100000@greencreek.kappaisle.com>
In-Reply-To: <20001114142137.A7172@hamlet.nectar.com>

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Thanks alot Jacques, it really gives me a much more clear view on the
differences.

I'm looking forward to integrating LDAP authentication for our
shell/pop/imap/ftp/web/ssh users.

Mike

On Tue, 14 Nov 2000, Jacques A. Vidrine wrote:

> On Tue, Nov 14, 2000 at 02:21:49PM -0500, Mike wrote:
> > Hello all,
> > 
> > What's the update on the pam_ldap development? Is FreeBSD ready for LDAP
> > authentication and overcome the NSS issue?
> 
> You seem to be mixing up two mechanisms:  PAM (Pluggable Authentication
> Modules) and NSS/nsswitch (Name Service Switch).
> 
> 
> The former (PAM) is a mechanism for authenticating a user interactively
> using a user name and password.  For LDAP, you can use pam_ldap from
> http://www.pdal.com/pam_ldap.html.  PAM is supported by several
> platforms (at least Solaris, Linux, and FreeBSD) and the interfaces are
> very similar.
> 
> The latter (nsswitch) is intended to `switch' between different sources
> as used by gethostbyname, getpwent, getgrent, et cetera.  The version of
> nsswitch that is available in FreeBSD-CURRENT (and NetBSD) supports
> files (e.g. /etc/passwd, /etc/hosts), NIS, and Hesiod as sources.
> nsswitch is supported by at least Solaris, Linux, and (Free|Net)BSD, but
> the interfaces are necessarily different between the three.
> 
> I have further developed a version for FreeBSD that allows additional
> sources to be added as dynamic modules, and have ported nss_ldap from
> http://www.padl.com/nss_ldap.html for use with it.  You can find the
> software at http://www.nectar.com/freebsd/nsswitch.  It is a work in
> progress, although I believe it is completely functional [1].  I expect
> it will be ready to commit to -CURRENT sometime next month.
> 
> 
> I hope this information helps,
> -- 
> Jacques Vidrine / n@nectar.com / jvidrine@verio.net / nectar@FreeBSD.org
> 
> 
> [1] The primary deficiency is that the NetBSD nsswitch API is not quite
>     sufficient for all types of sources.  Luke Mewburn <lukem@netbsd.org>
>     and I are hashing out an API that both platforms (FreeBSD and NetBSD)
>     will be able to use -- shortly after we have that settled, I think this
>     nsswitch implementation will be ready for -CURRENT.
> 



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