Customer Reviews

LDAP Programming, Management, and Integration

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm waiting for a book on LDAP and directory services that believes the importance of these tools is not self-evident. When a book on this subject that persuades the reader to learn about it comes around, I'll buy two copies.

Clayton Donley, who details his involvement and contributions to the field in the introduction, is an expert; he might even be *the* expert. Certainly he's been called upon over time to promote these technologies and so has refined his understanding on many subtle issues. Thus the book has a comfortable way of introducing new terms and explains individual points well. The code examples are concise and clean. There are several instances, however, where the author assumes a point is self-explanatory when it isn't. Often the material doesn't seem to hold together for want of a short sidebar.

Some chapters seem stitched together from a collection of such notes and lack flow as well. The outline form of the chapters seems contrived, sometimes overwhelming the content. There are a fair number of forward references too, which I found very distracting. I had to use the index or google often enough that I got annoyed. A comprehensive glossary would have been really helpful.

With so many short, excerpt-like elements making up a chapter, I found it hard to focus. I wouldn't call it a promising reference either. While it is still one of the better books on LDAP I've come across, the weaknesses of make me think I won't consult it very often.

I was looking for a book that covered the basics of LDAP, went through server configuration, schema basics and best practices, and access for a scripting language (e.g. Perl.) I got what I wanted with this book, save the server configuration portion. There was some information on servers, but nothing on how to set one up or get it going. Which makes sense because each server is different, but it would have been nice to see at least one, perhaps OpenLDAP.

Chapters one and two stand out as an ideal introduction to the history of LDAP, it's current structure, and the basics of LDAP schema. Chapter nine, on accessing LDAP operational data, is excellent. The explanations are great, graphics are used effectively, and the code samples are concise.

The only two drawbacks that I can think of are the lack of a server setup and configuration chapter, and the books slight emphasis on Perl as opposed to Java. I personally like the Perl side, but I can see how some folks might prefer Java. There are a lot of Java examples, but there are more examples in Perl.

Just picked this book up and was very pleasantly surprised at the richness of the code examples (lots of good java) as well as the crisp explanations of directory integration concepts and terminology.

I have used some of Clayton Donley's popular LDAP APIs such as PerLDAP on some of my projects and I thought I'd take a chance on a book written by him.

This is the 5th book in my library on LDAP / Directories and I find his book to be the most current and useful. Mr. Donley devotes quite a few pages to the whole issue of LDAP - XML integration and I was able to apply several of his DSML examples to my current work.

If you are a programmer (Perl and Java) and you need to develop an application that needs to talk to LDAP is the right book for you. It's well structured more for a developer's perspective.

It has some concepts and advises on design, implementation and replication, but does not cover the hands-on tips on installing and integrating LDAP servers with various services, such as DNS, NIS, RADIUS, Web server, and etc.

LDAP Programming, Management And Integration by networking software expert Clayton Donley (CTO of OcretString, Inc.) is a straightforward and "user accessible" computer programmer and system administrator's guide to LDAP, the leading Internet protocol for directory-like information using identities, preferences, security privileges, and so on. Instructions for working with LDAP in the Java or Perl computer languages; numerous examples and excerpts of sample code; step-by-step troubleshooting and programming techniques; and much, much more fill the 326-pages of this commendable educational resource and reference.

This has the best explanation on searching I've seen so far; with the Java examples I have already written some sophisticated code to access our LDAP servers. It's thin and to-the-point. I picked this up after reading a glowing recommendation in Dr. Dobb's.

I was happy, but not thrilled, with this book. It does a pretty solid job of covering all the details you really need to know, and provides very good examples (which are quite well explained).
I'm glad it's on my bookshelf, but I'm keeping half an eye open for another book on LDAP that will really knock my socks off.