11 - Getting and Install OpenLDAP

Installing

I use Ubuntu, which make adding software easy (as with any modern Linxu) with package management.

sudo apt-get install slapd

Why slapd ? slapd is the actual name of the program in OpenLDAP that provides the services.

If you need you can goto www.OpenLDAP.org (http://www.OpenLDAP.org) to download the software also.

Configuring

You will be prompted for the admin password.

You may also be prompted for your Base Name, or you may need to edit the configuration file in

/etc/ldap and modify the "suffix" parameter.

suffix          "dc=ties2,dc=net"

Why does it refer to a dabase in the config file ? LDAP is not database software, it still relies on a database under the slapd program. Often Berkley DB, a specialized database is used.

You may also need to modify the "BASE" in /etc/ldap/ldap.conf

BASE    dc=ties2,dc=net

Note there is some documentation in /usr/share/doc, As with with Debian/Ubuntu installed software.

Schemas

Being LDAP is very flexiable there are different Schemas for different type data stored in an LDAP database.  The Schema is very similar to a  databases schema, they define the type and organizaion and relation of data in LDAP.

Often Schemas are built on top of each other, for example the xxx schema is build on xxx therefor requires that the xxxb schema be loaded first.

The Schemas are specified in the /etc/ldap/slapd.conf

 # Schema and objectClass definitions
include         /etc/ldap/schema/core.schema
include         /etc/ldap/schema/cosine.schema
include         /etc/ldap/schema/nis.schema
include         /etc/ldap/schema/inetorgperson.schema

If you are going to be using LDAP with Radius you will need to load the RADIUS-LDAPv3.schema

NOTE: this is based on the old config file configuration of OpenLDAP, with Ubuntu 9 and later the config is *completely* different.  See the links below.

Links

The Ubuntu Guide to installing and configufing OpenLDAP

  https://help.ubuntu.com/community/OpenLDAPServer

Ubuntu 10.04 LDAP configuration

https://help.ubuntu.com/10.04/serverguide/C/openldap-server.html

If you are using Ubuntu 9 or 10  and OpenLDAP the link above should get your going.  There have been *BIG* changes to the configuration from pre 9.xx configuration!

Here is an older forum thread that covers some of the same changes to the configuration of LDAP on Ubuntu 9 and later.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1313472