LDAP client question

[Scott Balneaves]

On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 09:03:43AM -0800, Jordan Erickson wrote:
> David Hopkins wrote:
> *snip*
> > As for questions to the server team ... which
> > list would that be?
> 
> /me thinks the server team would probably get a lot of good ideas from
> the LTSP+Edubuntu communities...

Been there, done that, diiiiiiiiidn't get a whole lot of response.

If I might proffer an opinion....

LDAP's a "hard" subject.  It's:

1) Non-trivial to set up
2) Infinitely customizable
3) Lacking any discernable standard as to how you should lay out your database
   for authentication.

So the problem is, every time you poke your head up and say: "Hey guys, lets do
X!" you're greeted by a chorus of "Yeah, but what about....", an which point
everybody stares at their shoes, goes "Hmmmm, interesting problem <deep
thought>" and the problem disappears off into the sunset for another few
months.

I'm not blaming them.  LDAP *is* the single largest PITA to configure/setup/get
working, and it's deucedly difficult to try to make the "perfect" tool.

Both RedHat and SkoleLinux solved the problem by saying "You'll do it our way
and *like it*!!!!", with the end result that they have something that works,
but God help you if you want/need to do something different.  Debian, and by
extention Ubuntu, is still waiting for the perfect, infinitely customizable yet
easy-to-use LDAP tool to come along.

What happens is:

 * Beginning admins have a hard time setting up LDAP.  They have to struggle
   for a long time to learn all the ins-and-outs of the command line tools.
 * Once they learn how to use the command line tools effectively, there's
   absoloutely no impetus for them to contribute to making an easy tool, since,
   now they know how to use the "hard" tool, they're away to the races.

I'm not sure what the solution is.

Needless to say, I can use the ldapmodify(1) family of tools :)

Scott

-- 
Scott L. Balneaves | I have nothing definite to apologize for,
Systems Department | I'm just sorry about everything in general.
Legal Aid Manitoba |     -- Ashleigh Brilliant