OpenLDAP proxy is used to proxy ldap request and response between clients and servers, different servers may have different representations/attributes to mean the same thing. For example, in one LDAP server, the firstName may be represented by firstName, it may be represented by givenName in a different server. However, from the client perspective, it only wants to get the firstName, it doesn't care about the backend attributes.In this case, attribute mapping can help provide a virtual view of the backend data. In another post OpenLDAP Proxy -- Tricks and tips, we have introduced how attribute...

Just like other software configuration, there would be issues encountered during the OpenLDAP proxy setup process. In this post, we would try to summarize some of the tricks and tips for OpenLDAP proxy setup.OpenLDAP VersionWe would always recommend that you install the latest version of the OpenLDAP because they contain the latest features, bug fixes and security patches. You should always refer to the latest release notes for new changes. In case you have used an earlier version of OpenLDAP and encountered some bizarre behavior, please try to update to the latest OpenLDAP version first....

After understanding what the configuration would be for an OpenLDAP proxy, it's time to explain the installation of OpenLDAP proxy and how to make it run. In this post, we will cover how to install OpenLDAP proxy both locally and using docker.Local installationThe installation is quite easy, there are a few packages to be installed including the ldap server, ldap client and some utilities. Below steps are for CentOS, the instructions for other platforms should be similar with minor differences on packages names and package locations.Install openldap openldap-clients openldap-serversyum in...

In the introductory post of OpenLDAP proxy, we mentioned that slapd.conf is the configuration file which tells the slapd service what to do.  Apart from this, there is a dynamic way of configuring slapd where the configurations are stored in LDIF database. In the future, LDIF database will be the one for configuring slapd, the old style of slapd.conf is deprecated. The slapd.conf can be converted to LDIF style using the slapdtest command.slapdtest -f /etc/ldap/slapd.conf -F /etc/ldap/slapd.dFor demonstration purpose, we will use slapd.conf to explain how to configure the slapd s...

OpenLDAP is an open source project which is intended to provide some commercial-grade, fully featured applications and development tools based on the well known Light-weight Directory Access Protocol(LDAP). Hence corporations which want to manage their user and group information can freely use these tools. OpenLDAP provides ldap servers, ldap clients and corresponding tools to work on LDAP. The LDAP server is called slapd(Stand-alone LDAP  daemon). And it would serve as the server which provides the capability of creating, updating and deleting organization, group and user informatio...