Password Manipulation Through Database

Mon Jul 15 15:21:11 PDT 2002

iPlanet's LDAP server has matched (enough) OpenLDAP 2.0 in
performance tests the folks I work with run.  The "back-*"
modules open up whole new realms of interesting features.

I've never had issues with ACI's and LDAP and the advantage
provided me by using an Open Source project versus the Netscape,
er, AOL/Sun, er, Sun stuff is pretty clear.

I see solid forward development on OpenLDAP.

I don't trust Sun to sell software that doesn't directly sell
hardware for them.  With Sun's LDAP server, I see them dropping
support for Linux (right after I recommended it to a client
that was trying to get away from the "festival of unixes - all
different" that their minimal staff was having to try to
support).

SunOS 5.9 DOES come with a fairly large (minimal support) license
bundled with the OS for some use.  I forget the license terms.

Either way, LDAP as a protocol can be very useful for things like
user management, asset tracking (where the hell did we leave that
spare RAID controller?  Oh, the LDAP server says it's in the
storage closet in bin 45), mail routing and rewriting, etc.

iPlanet and Open both scale nicely and speak LDAP well.
ActiveDirectory also communicates on port 389 :)

Quoting Jeff Younker (jeff at drinktomi.com):
> Chuck Yerkes said:
> > LDAP.
> > Even LDAP slowed down and backed by a SQL database.  Dunno the state of
> > support for Informix SQL within OpenLDAP 2.1, but the interface API is
> > pretty generic (see also section 1.6 of:
> >    http://www.openldap.org/doc/admin21/guide.html
> > ).
> 
> I was about to say, "use LDAP if you can."  OpenLDAP is nice, but
> if you can use the iPlanet LDAP server then it can take care of
> most of the thorny access control issues for it.  The ACL scheme
> that they implement is incredibly powerful.  Unfortunately I do not
> believe that you have a choice of database backend when using
> the iPlanet server.
> 
> [I believe you get large # of users iPlanet license by default
> with a Solaris OS license, but I may just be imagining things.]