LDAP Directories Explained: An Introduction and Analysis [Paperback]

Brian Arkills (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 020178792X | ISBN-13: 978-0201787924 | Publication Date: March 2, 2003 | Edition: 1

Directory services matter to nearly every organization because they help centrally manage information and thereby reduce the costs of computing services. LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) is a set of protocols that have become the internet standard for accessing directories. Many people need to understand directory services and LDAP in order to make decisions for their business. The books currently available are too advanced for technical managers and those new to directory services. This book is designed to fill that need. The author spends the first half of the book exploring how directory services and LDAP work and then the second half discussing the most popular implementations - OpenLDAP, Microsoft Active Directory, and Directory Server - for those who are trying to compare products. This book provides the technical foundation that will enable IT managers to make sound business decisions and developers to move on to more advanced books.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Directory technology promises to solve the problem of decentralized information that has arisen with the explosion of distributed computing. Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) is a set of protocols that has become the Internet standard for accessing information directories. Until now, however, those curious about LDAP had no introductory source to learn how the technology can help them centrally manage information and reduce the cost of computing services.

LDAP Directories Explained provides technical managers and those new to directory services with a fundamental introduction to LDAP. This concise guide examines how the technology works and gives an overview of the most successful directory products in an easy-to-reference format.

Key topics include:

• An overview of LDAP, including how directories differ from databases
• The LDAP namespace, with an overview of DNS, LDAP object structure, and LDAP object naming
• Client LDAP operations, including directory-enabled services and applications, searches, and the LDAP protocol
• LDAP schema, including object classes, attributes, syntaxes, matching rules, and more
• Directory management, including directory integration strategies, metadirectories, security, and more
• LDAP vendors OpenLDAP, Microsoft Active Directory, and Directory Server
• A case study of Stanford University's directory architecture, which illustrates how integral an LDAP directory can become to a business

If you are an information technology manager, LDAP Directories Explained will provide the technical foundation you need to make sound business decisions about LDAP. If you're a developer, this straightforward reference will bring you quickly up to speed on LDAP and directories.

020178792XB01292003

About the Author

Brian Arkills works as a software engineer at the University of Washington, where he performs systems administration, analysis, and project management. While at Stanford University, Brian used LDAP technology to extend Stanford's existing Netscape Directory Services to Microsoft clients via Microsoft Active Directory. In doing so, he found that there were no quality books that provided a basic introduction to the technology. He wrote this guide to fill that need.

020178792XAB01292003

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Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional; 1 edition (March 2, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 020178792X
• ISBN-13: 978-0201787924
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,378,452 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Am I missing something?, December 8, 2004

By 

Michael Wallette (Anchorage, AK United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: LDAP Directories Explained: An Introduction and Analysis (Paperback)

Perhaps I just bought the wrong book for what I wanted to do, or maybe I just don't get it, but in either case, this book left me very underwhelmed.

I work at an ISP where we use LDAP for a number of purposes, from authenticating customers connecting to our network, to e-mail filtering, to htaccess authentication on our internal-use web servers. While I am comfortable using an LDAP browser to manage our users in LDAP, I really wanted more of an idea about how to set up and run an LDAP directory, so I bought this book to help me understand LDAP schemas.

While this book does describe a lot of the background to LDAP directories, it really didn't do much to fill in what I am missing. How do you design an LDAP schema? How do you know when to use ou=, o=, etc.?

On the plus side, I really *DID* appreciate the overview of various LDAP products currently available, and was pleased to see that all of the LDAP products I have used at work (OpenLDAP, iPlanet Directory Server and, or course, Active Directory) were described, along with their relative strengths and weaknesses. However, I really expected a little more meat--and maybe not quite as much background--about implementing an LDAP directory than I found in this book.

In short, if you want a general overview of LDAP directories, this might be what you want, but if you are looking for a "how to" guide, you probably should keep looking.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A BEGINNER'S DEPENDABLE 'LDAP' HANDBOOK, March 23, 2003

By 

reviewer (Zurich, Switzerland.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: LDAP Directories Explained: An Introduction and Analysis (Paperback)

In his book, "LDAP Directories Explained: An Introduction and Analysis", Brian Arkills used subtle analysis to unveil the underlying principles of Lightweight Directory Access Protocol. This book employed a very practical approach; and included the most recent advances in LDAP technology.
Both newcomers and intermediates would cherish how it explained the basics of the TCP/IP stacks; particularly, how it can be used to extract information from a hierarchial directory such as the X.500. It also gave useful suggestions on how LDAP learners could comb through data when surmising or searching for a particular piece of information, (e.g. a security certificate, an e-mail address, or similar information).
In conclusion, this is an essential guide, which should provide any LDAP beginner (or enthusiast) with all the information he (or she) may need concerning this network protocol. It is worth taking a look at!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect Introduction to LDAP, April 29, 2005

By 

pewis "pewis" (Germany) - See all my reviews

This review is from: LDAP Directories Explained: An Introduction and Analysis (Paperback)

Suppose you were an administrator who is asked to run an LDAP-Server, but the only thing you know about LDAP is, that it is a fashionable IT-buzzword. Then this book is for you! If your task is to create a directory infrastructure for a whole company or organization, "LDAP Directories Explained" could be a perfect first read, but after it you will want to turn to a more comprehensive book. This book also does not claim to contain installation guides for any specific LDAP server implementation (though it has some links on this topic in one of its appendixes).

"LDAP Directories Explained" is well organized, specialized terms are being defined before they are used, there are no obvious typos and no useless digressions. Brian Arkills does a perfect job to make you understand the basic concepts of LDAP. He also makes you feel, that the LDIF-syntax which looks so deterring and obscure at the first look is in fact quite simple and he teaches you how to query an LDAP server. This is exactly the knowledge that is sufficent for 90% of the IT staff concerned with LDAP. Brain Arkill conveys it on only 200 pages. In the second half of the book he assesses three major LDAP-implementations: OpenLDAP, Microsoft Active Directory and Netscape Directory Server. We use neither of these, but the book was invaluable to me though.

I remember from my last job that the basic concepts of LDAP never were adequately explained in the Microsoft curricula, so I can also heartily recommend this book to Windows sysadmins.