Customer Reviews

LDAP: Programming Directory-Enabled Apps

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

One day I was told I needed to learn LDAP, so I ran out and got this book. The first three chapters basically told me what I needed to know. The rest wasn't as helpful, and I ended up on the web answering questions for myself.

I had a hard time getting the referenced LDAP distribution running, and once I did I found other resources to be of more service. It helped me get a base prototype running, but if I had to develop an LDAP system for production use, I'd probably just buy a package rather than build one myself (and using this book for reference.) My time is more valuable that this.

Its too bad they can't just roll the first three chapters into a far cheaper book. In the end that was the most valuable part, and you could have easily published that content on the web.

Get a used version, or borrow a friend's.

This book contains all of the necessary information to write an LDAP application using the C programming language. This book covers the basics of LDAP directories, available LDAP libraries, and steps you through the basic LDAP API calls.

Both the University of Michigan and Netscape libraries are covered, and the advantages/disadvantages of each. This book also breifly explains command line utilities, such as ldapsearch, that are useful for testing and debugging applications.

The book contains a useful reference of the core LDAP APIs that I keep handy when I am programming.

Another section I found useful pertains to LDAP and threading in applications. The threading section covers information that is very important when developing server applications using LDAP.

This book has the distinction of being written by the two guys who probably know more about LDAP than anyone else. Accordingly, you might expect a great deal of solid technical material about how LDAP works. What this book instead delivers is a 462-page description of the University of Michigan LDAP API routines.

Don't get me wrong-- the documentation is useful, but the examples are all extremely simplistic, and many of them won't even compile or run if you type them in verbatim.

If you need to write LDAP-enabled softare, this is about your only choice. For simple applications, this will probably teach you everything you need. If you want to write a server, or a real LDAP DUA or ADUA, this book will get you started, but no more.

If you are looking to set up LDAP for your organization, this is NOT the book for you. If you want to write a C++ application and use LDAP, you can afford to buy this book and should.

Based on my recent personal experience: The book is worth every penny. It gets me going "from zero to sixty five in milliseconds" ! I had 10+ years of C prog experience but I had virtually zero LDAP knowledge. This book covers the important bases that I need to know to take over a SIMS/LDAP project that another engineer left off. Too bad the book does not include much information about SIMS.

A lot of information about Netscape SDK-LDAP and Michigan University. API documentation is clear, good examples in C and some examples in Shell or Perl (using Netscape LDAP tools, not Perl LDAP package) But you haven't got any info about Java and Perl Package !

Since the amount of books dealing with LDAP is still rather thin, I eagerly anticipated the arrival of this one in hopes that it would help cement my understanding of the topic. I fully-realized that this was a programmer-centric book and as a programmer had no reservations along those lines. My hesitancy was based upon the publisher, New Riders. Unlike O'Reilly, Addison-Wesley or Prentice-Hall, my experience wtth New Riders-published books has been spotty at best.

Nevertheless, I plunged forward and made the purchase in the hopes that the authors (co-authors of the LDAP spec) would be another Kernighan and Ritchie-type duo.

Very little background (and I consider it to be essential) is presented on LDAP. Instead, the authors plunge immediately into code examples. Futhermore, the URLs shown in the code don't work (granted the book was published in 1997). In short terms, there's not much here that can't be gleaned from the man pages or looking at the OpenLDAP source code.

The saving grace of the book reside in the appendices and in chapter 17, "Using the Copmmand Line LDAP Tools". These pages alone (and they constitute a good chunk of the book's volume) are sufficient to make my investment in this volume not wasted. It is hoped that the authors update this title. As recognized authorities on LDAP, they have the means to produce *the* canonical volume on ths subject.

This is a reasonable book and it covers the mechanics of the C/API and the protocol itself well enough. It would be nice to some better real world examples, but you can derive them yourself. ( Perhaps a CD or a disk would be useful ) In the next version, I think Java and C++ coverage is mandatory.

This LDAP Book was a very helpful tool in seting up LDAP servers in Baton Rouge Its neat and has very good explainations. Mabe with the help of this book I can make Baton Rouge the LDAP capital of the World. The book could have been better so I just gave this book 4 Stars.

First, is should be clear that this book is only about programming LDAP applications. It doesn't give a clue about LDAP otherwise, which is a major omission. The book just assumes that you have access to an LDAP server that has been set up for you to write custom applications for.

But my major gripe is that the text and code examples mostly are just plain wrong, at least in a Unix environment, though they claim Unix compatibility. The very first example wouldn't even *compile*, much less work. It's not just bad programming, because many LDAP API-specific details in the book don't work as stated, or don't work at all. I found myself going back to the University of Michigan LDAP docs and sample code (also written by the authors, but much better) to figure things out.

On the other hand, there aren't any other books on LDAP programming, so I guess we're stuck.