Amazon.co.uk Review
Directory services are designed to contain all of an organisation's data in a single large, extensible, fast database. Currently, the hot standard is LDAP, so new that only Netscape currently has a commercial offering.
Mark Wilcox starts by explaining why LDAP is desirable, discusses why it has taken off when X.500 didn't and talks about LDAP's development, APIs and gateway services.
With the background covered chapter three begins with LDAP's structure, including a large section devoted to understanding objects, which are central to understanding LDAP. By the end of the chapter you're writing Perl scripts to convert CVS files to LDIF format.
By chapter five you've deployed a Netscape Directory Server and you're working with Netscape's C LDAP SDK. The section on Microsoft's Active Directory is largely theoretical as it hadn't been released in time for the book. Sun and IBM's LDAP implementations are discussed as is using Java with LDAP.
By chapter 12 you're dealing with advanced topics including replication and security after which there's a relatively large cookbook section. The appendices contain a glossary, a FAQ, reference, a section on common LDAP object classes and attributes.
The last section, which begins with an unusually personal endorsement of LDAP from the author, describes a directory enabled messaging system. Overall, a good practical introduction to LDAP. --Steve Patient
Synopsis
There is growing interest in a standard way of providing access to personal information (e.g. "white pages" data) and reducing the number of logon id's a user is required to remember or administer. The LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) protocol is poised to be the solution to these problems. Since the IETF recently approved the version 3 of the LDAP protocol it is now really gaining steam as companies such as Sun, Novell and Microsoft are making their proprietary networks available as LDAP servers. Netscape has gone as far as to make LDAP (in the form of their Directory server) the linchpin of their overall enterprise strategy. Since the first release of Netscape Communicator and the version 3 of its servers, Netscape has provided the ability to access a LDAP server. Netscape's LDAP API's is derived from the original University of Michigan API and they have made the source public on their mozilla.org site. This means that their API can be used not only with Directory server, but any LDAP server. This book is intended for programmers and system administrators who need to build LDAP clients and install LDAP servers. It likely will also appeal to that group of experienced Web users who have heard about LDAP but wants a definitive reference on the subject. The topics covered in this book include: * The reasoning behind a central, open standard protocol and how the major vendors are planning to expose their current proprietary protocols as LDAP servers * How to implement a LDAP server in an organization's setting including how to migrate data from legacy applications into a LDAP server * The Netscape LDAP API, including practical coded examples in C, Perl and Java. * Sun's Java Naming and Directory Interfaces (JNDI), including practical coded examples * An introduction to Microsoft's ADSI, including practical coded examples * Advanced functionality including referrals, replication, security and LDAP controls. * A comprehensive reference section
