Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
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These pages are provided for historical reference only.
The LDAP software contained herein is out of date. We suggest
parties seeking open source, production quality LDAP software
explore OpenLDAP.
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Table of Contents
The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) is a protocol for
accessing online directory services. It runs directly over TCP, and can
be used to access a standalone LDAP directory service or to access a
directory service that is back-ended by X.500. For a good overview of
LDAP-based directory service, read this document:
The most widely used implementation of LDAP was written at the University of
Michigan, and development is currently being supported by the National Science
Foundation under Grant No. NCR-9416667. The latest release of the U-M LDAP
package is available as a compressed Unix tar file:
An collection of patches for LDAP 3.3 is being maintained by
Mark Wahl
of Critical Angle, Inc.:
There is a separate page for accessing LDAP documentation online:
Some other related resources (not at UofM) include:
LDAP Client Software
LDAP Client software has a page of its own, since the list is large:
- ldapd (front end for an X.500 DSA)
- slapd (standalone LDAP directory server)
- slurpd (standalone LDAP update replication daemon)
The University of Michigan LDAP implementation includes libraries
for writing LDAP clients, and it has been ported to many flavors of
Unix as well as to the Macintosh, MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows, and VMS:
A "Windows LDAP Developer Kit" is available that contains binary DLLs and
the necessary include files needed for LDAP development on Windows 3.1,
95, and NT:
Documentation on LDAP is accessible from its own page:
A SASL API plug-in is available for using the U-M reference implementation
Kerberos V4-capable clients with Netscape's Directory Server 3.0 and
higher. This provides support for using the Kerberos V4 authentication
built into Kerberized LDAPv2 clients such as "ud" or "ldapmodify" with
Netscape's Directory Server 3.0.
There are several LDAP-related mailing lists that may be of interest:
- To join a general discussion and announcement list, send e-mail to:
ldap-request@umich.edu
The list is maintained by a listserver, so please inlcude the word "subscribe"
in either the subject or text of your message.
An online HTML archive of the ldap list is occasionally
updated; the complete
archive is also available as one large text file.
As of 1 July 1997,
this list is being archived by Reference.COM.
As of 2 October 1997, ldap@umich.edu mailing list members whose
addresses cause errors to be sent to owner-ldap are agressively removed
from the list. A log of who has been
removed is being kept.
- To join a very technical list where the LDAP protocol is discussed,
send e-mail to:
ietf-asid-request@umich.edu
- To ask questions about or report bugs inthe U-M LDAP implementation, send e-mail to the
general discussion and announcement list,
ldap@umich.edu,
described above.
There used to be a group of UM and Netscape people who would answer
questions sent to ldap-support@umich.edu and accept bug reports sent
to bug-ldap@umich.edu. The UM employees no longer receive funding
for LDAP research and the Netscape people have become busy with their
own products. As a result, email to ldap-support@umich.edu
bug-ldap@umich.edu only results in an automated message recommending
using the 'ldap@umich.edu' list for help.
A complete
archive of the ldap-support mail is available as one large text file.
Send comments about this page to:
dirsvcs@umich.edu