Recommended Preparations

Introductory Material

Since we use the OpenLDAP server during the exercises a lot of useful material can be collected from

The following questions might arise when starting practical work:

  • What is the LDAP Protocol? What is the difference between the two protocols ldap and ldaps ?

  • What does the acronym dc in dc=somedomain, dc=org stand for?

  • What is the role of LDAP objectclass definitions? How do they relate to LDAP schema definitions?

  • Describe the relationship between LDAP entries and objectClass values.

  • Is it possible to dynamically change an entries structure?

  • What does the term bind to an LDAP server mean? Which two types of bind operations are being distinguished?

  • Do LDAP servers in general support database features like transactions, ACID semantic etc.?

  • Explain the term replication in an LDAP server context.

  • Why do organizations sometimes prefer LDAP data repositories rather than using relational database systems?

  • How is the LDIF format being organized? Explain the practical use of LDIF data when running a LDAP service.

  • LDAP filters

    • How do LDAP filters work?

    • What is the meaning of the term scope ?

    • How do predicate based filters connected by logical and/or/not look like?

  • OpenLDAP server software specific questions

    • What does the term database backend refer to with respect to OpenLDAP server implementation?

    • Why is LDAP replication important?

    • How do you restrict access to LDAP directories?

    • How do you speed up predicate based queries?