Ldap

[impleri]

Both Mambo/Joomla and phpBB are moving in their next big releases to support LDAP authentication. Does TCH support that in any flavor of hosting? Also, does anyone know if it is something common (or not) to webhosts?

i am looking into how it works as to add it to my CMS to-do list, so i'd also want to know if it is something coveted (in general) or is it something to be filed under the "Cool, but useless" category.

Thanks!

[abinidi]

impleri,

 

No specific answer to your question, but I bet that a number of our users will be curious to know what LDAP is. Here is a website that gives a pretty good explanation of what LDAP is:

 

h**p://www.gracion.com/server/whatldap.html

[TCH-Bruce]

Please see this thread.

[nortk]

Bruce's reply points to a thread that indicates that we can't set up an LDAP Server with TCH shared hosting.

 

On an LDAP-related note, TikiWiki supports LDAP authorization using an external LDAP server. For example, I teach at a university that has an LDAP Server. TikiWiki allows me to configure it to authorize users via that LDAP server. HOWEVER...after a lot of fumbling around to find out why the authorization wasn't working, I'm pretty sure the reason it doesn't is that TCH does not have the necessary pieces installed to make it work.

 

So, even if phpbb might have LDAP abilities, and even if you have an LDAP server elsewhere, there is a chance you may not be able to get them working on TCH shared hosting, at least not now.

[TCH-Bruce]

As TCH-MikeJ said.

 

We don't support LDAP's for virtual hosting

[impleri]

As TCH-MikeJ said.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

What about reseller?

[TCH-Bruce]

Unless you have a dedicated server the answer is still no.

 

Reseller accounts are still on shared servers.

[nortk]

OK, sorry, and please pardon my dumbness about this, because I'm just trying to learn about LDAP, but...

 

What exactly is meant by "We don't support LDAP's for virtual hosting"?

 

When some people ask about LDAP, I'm thinking that they mean that they wish to somehow set up an LDAP server on their shared TCH account.

 

On the other hand, I'm thinking that some people mean that they wish to run a regular old website on their shared TCH account, but be able to access an LDAP server that resides elsewhere...not on TCH.

 

 

It seems that these are two fundamentally different things. So when someone says TCH doesn't support LDAP's for virtual hosting, is this a blanket statement that covers anything LDAP-related, or is it specifically related to one of my two interpretations? I'll be satisfied with the blanket statement, but I just need to know for sure.

 

My specific situation is this: I carefully read all the TCH discussion about LDAPs, and thought, OH...I think TCH-Mike is saying that we can't host an LDAP server on our own site. But then, I was thinking, I don't really want to do that...I just want to use someone else's LDAP server that's not at TCH. So, then I'm trying to configure TikiWiki to make it work, beating my head against the wall for hours, thinking "Why in the world doesn't this work?" Now, my head is very sore, and it might just be because I figured that TCH-Mike meant something specific about LDAP, when really he meant that ANYTHING LDAP-related is impossible at TCH.

 

So, I guess I'm just desperate for an interpretation, so that my head stops hurting.

 

Thanks for your patience.

[MikeJ]

What exactly is meant by "We don't support LDAP's for virtual hosting"?

 

When some people ask about LDAP, I'm thinking that they mean that they wish to somehow set up an LDAP server on their shared TCH account.

 

On the other hand, I'm thinking that some people mean that they wish to run a regular old website on their shared TCH account, but be able to access an LDAP server that resides elsewhere...not on TCH.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

My statement (don't recall the reference I made it in) was about running your own LDAP server in a virtual hosted (or reseller) account. That simply means since you aren't allowed to run your own server daemons (programs) on a virtual account, that rules out being able to run an LDAP server. Anything you can run as a web app (cgi, php, etc...) you are allowed to use, including web apps that access external LDAP servers hosted elsewhere.

 

If the app you are using is unable to access an external LDAP server, or fails due to some required dependency that's missing, you should open a help desk ticket with as much detail as you can of what you are trying to do so a tech can evaluate what you may need that may be missing.

 

I'm not really aware of any shared hosting environments that currently support clients running their own LDAP space on the server.

[nortk]

Thank you. That helps a LOT!