AE SLAPD allows you to connect it to the global LDAP directory service, or run a adressbook server for Netscape Communicator 4.0 or greater, Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 or greater, or other compliant applications.
Any systems capable of supporting Microsoft minimum memory and storage configurations to run Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT 3.51 or Windows NT 4.0 Workstation or Server.
LDAP is the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol. It was developed by the University of Michigan and the Internet Engineering Task Force as a set of network services to provide distributed object management and access over TCP/IP networks. LDAP was, in turn, derived from the older International Standards Organization X.500 Directory Access Protocold for OSI networks. SLAPD stands for the Standalone LDAP Daemon.
AE SLAPD provides a standards compliant server for Windows NT, Windows 95 and Windows 98. It allows you to use it to provide a directory service of your very own. Your directory can contain just about anything you want to put in it -- text, images, audio, etc.
The LDAP directory service model is based on entries. An entry is a
collection of attributes that has a name, called a distinguished name (DN). The DN is used
to refer to the entry unambiguously. Each of the entry's attributes has a type and one or
more values. The types are typically mnemonic strings, like "cn" for common
name, or "mail" for email address. The values depend on what type of attribute
it is. For example, a mail attribute might contain the value "babs@umich.edu". A
jpegPhoto attribute would contain a photograph in binary JPEG/JFIF format.
In LDAP, directory entries are arranged in a hierarchical tree-like structure that reflects political, geographic and/or organizational boundaries. Entries representing countries appear at the top of the tree.
Below them are entries representing states or national organizations.
Below them might be entries representing people, organizational units, printers,
documents, or just about anything else you can think of. Figure 1 shows an example LDAP
directory tree, which should help make things clear.
Figure 1: An example LDAP directory tree.
In addition, LDAP allows you to control which attributes are required and allowed in an entry through the use of a special attribute called objectclass. The values of the objectclass attribute determine the schema rules the entry must obey.
An entry is referenced by its distinguished name, which is constructed by taking the name of the entry itself (called the relative distinguished name, or RDN) and concatenating the names of its ancestor entries. For example, the entry for Barbara Jensen in the example above has an RDN of "cn=Barbara J Jensen" and a DN of "cn=Barbara J Jensen, o=U of M, c=US". The full DN format is described in RFC 1779, "A String Representation of Distinguished Names."
LDAP defines operations for interrogating and updating the directory. Operations are provided for adding and deleting an entry from the directory, changing an existing entry, and changing the name of an entry.
Most of the time, though, LDAP is used to search for information in the directory. The LDAP search operation allows some portion of the directory to be searched for entries that match some criteria specified by a search filter. Information can be requested from each entry that matches the criteria.
Each object can be remotely accessed by name, or a whole record of objects can be retrieved. Some of SLAPD's more interesting features and capabilities include:
The AE implementation of SLAPD is based on the University of Michican
LDAP version 3.3 distribution for UNIX systems.