LDAP Directory Technology Review

The technology options available prior to choosing the ones to be used for this project are very limited, as the company is providing Linux web hosting services which are based on the LAMPP model (Linux Apache Mysql PHP Perl). This model has been well proven over the years, with the majority of websites on the Internet being hosted on such solution.

Literature review of those technologies, apart from referencing the manual for developing the management application is outside the scope of this project and has been covered during the MSc Computing & Information Systems programme.

For DNS management the BIND software was used which is widely used and well proven. An extra plug-in module is also provided on the BIND website, which provides a schema file to be loaded on the OpenLDAP directory, which makes the software operate using data stored in the OpenLDAP.

For Email management, the Qmail application was used, which, although it is not an Open-Source project, it has no licensing fees. On the Qmail website a Directory schema file with instructions on how to configure Qmail to store all the email account information within the OpenLDAP.

The Apache HTTPD Server project is also providing extended functionality and a schema file to store all the domain information in the OpenLDAP instead of storing it in its httpd.conf configuration file.

The PHP programming language includes ready functions for interacting with directories through the LDAP protocol, making it the ideal solution for proposed system.

The support for Directory servers among the technologies mentioned in the previous paragraphs proves that there is a growing trend towards the adoption of this technology, which can not be negligible.