On Sat, 2008-06-21 at 15:57 +0100, Timothy Murphy wrote: > Anne Wilson wrote: > > > LDAP does feel a bit daunting. I feel that it should be possible to learn > > and activate one bit of its potential at a time, but after reading a > > couple of > > web pages about it I gave up. Does the book you mention lead you in > > reasonably slowly? I've rather a lot on my plate for the forseeable > > future, so don't want to have to swallow huge amounts of medicine at once > > My view of LDAP is slightly jaundiced. > I've come to the conclusion that it is a very bad way > of creating a system-wide address book, > but unfortunately the only way that actually works. > > (As Winston Churchill said of democracy, > it is a terrible system but better than all the others > that have been tried from time to time.) > > I have the Gerald Carter book (actually I borrowed it) > and I would give it 7/10, or alpha minus. > I was amazed when looking around how bad all the online introductions > on OpenLDAP that I found were. > (If I have to read another history of X509 I may jump out of the window.) > Certainly Carter's book is far better than any of these. > > It still seems to me that there ought to be a simple 10-page exposition > on OpenLDAP, but if there is I haven't found it. ---- here's the thing...LDAP is an erector set that was originally created (X509) to do something entirely different than what most people use it for today. The OpenLDAP developers are only concerned with the mechanics of OpenLDAP software and not interested in providing tutorials about LDAP itself. Their audience is typically the very skilled system administrator who is capable of compiling software (high level compile including linking), and already knowledgeable about things like sasl, kerberos and authentication mechanisms. For the record, OpenLDAP administrator's guide is here... http://www.openldap.org/doc/admin24/ # version 2.4.x http://www.openldap.org/doc/admin23/ # version 2.3.x The various online instructions aren't 'bad', but rather confusing to someone that doesn't understand LDAP because one persons tutorial will vary from another and there really is no set way to do anything on LDAP...it is after all an erector set. Fedora Directory Server is a bit simpler for newbies in that out of the box, it has pre-conceived notions of users and groups, certificates, ACL's/ACI's and has some web/gui based consoles to get you started but still, it doesn't supplant knowledge and some of the twists like importing ldap.schema's can be daunting. There cannot be a simple 10-page exposition on OpenLDAP because that simple exposition pre-supposes what you intend to do with your erector set. In fact, the above mentioned OpenLDAP administrator's guide is over 20 pages and it only covers how to 'use' the software but does not cover any specific projects to build with your erector set. Craig -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
