Monday, July 9, 2007

OpenLDAP Book

I've been working on a book, tentatively entitled "OpenLDAP for Developers." It is just about complete, and should be available to buy in August. Like the two OpenCMS books, this one will be published with Packt.

The book covers OpenLDAP -- server, utilities, and clients -- from installation through configuration and integration with other services. The focus is on OpenLDAP 2.3, with some forward-looking information about 2.4.

Here are some of the topics covered:
  • LDAP basics (LDAP operations, binding, searching, etc.)
  • Setting up the server on Ubuntu Linux 7.04
  • Creating a new directory information tree from an LDIF file.
  • Using ldapsearch, ldapadd, ldapmodrdn, ldapdelete, ldapmodify, and ldappassword command line clients.
  • Using slapadd, slapcat, slappasswd, slaptest and other command line utilities.
  • Creating slapd.conf and ldap.conf configuration files.
  • Using common object classes, like inetOrgPerson, groupOfNames, document, and others.
  • Setting up simple and SASL binding. I cover DIGEST-MD5 and EXTERNAL types of SASL binding.
  • Configuring SSL/TLS using both LDAPS and StartTLS.
  • Creating and modifying Access Control Lists (ACLs) for SLAPD.
  • Creating an LDAP proxy
  • Replicating directory information trees with SyncRepl (and the syncprov overlay)
  • Using overlays, including translucent proxies, accesslog logging, refint referential integrity and more.
  • Using and creating custom schemas
  • Building OpenLDAP from source
  • I also cover integration with Apache, and with phpLDAPadmin.
The book should be pretty hefty. It's looking like it will come in around 400 pages.

Special thanks to George Thiruvathukal of ETL for contributing to the book. Also, I have benefited enormously from input from OpenLDAP project members.