- openldap-bugs - openldap.org

Re: (ITS#5195) ssf not available during sasl bind
by hyc＠symas.com 29 Oct '07

29 Oct '07

Quanah Gibson-Mount wrote: > --On Monday, October 29, 2007 10:57 PM +0000 hyc(a)symas.com wrote: >> You don't. That would open you up to a downgrade attack. > So I think the point of the ITS remains. It's difficult to do what they > wanted to do. And really, sometimes all you care is that the connection is > encrypted at a particular base level based on the type of encryption being > done. Which is how it was at Stanford. Which apparently we don't support > using the security directive. Which is why my acl's had sasl_ssf=56 all > over them. Your point and the original ITS are quite different. In your case, you want to require a different SSF based on the underlying mechanism. That is foolish as far as security policy goes; any attacker will simply ignore the stronger defense and focus on breaking the weaker one. As the original poster stated, security is only as strong as the weakest link. Stay focused on the original ITS topic. -- -- Howard Chu Chief Architect, Symas Corp. http://www.symas.com Director, Highland Sun http://highlandsun.com/hyc/ Chief Architect, OpenLDAP http://www.openldap.org/project/

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Re: (ITS#5195) ssf not available during sasl bind
by quanah＠zimbra.com 29 Oct '07

29 Oct '07

--On Monday, October 29, 2007 10:57 PM +0000 hyc(a)symas.com wrote: > You don't. That would open you up to a downgrade attack. So I think the point of the ITS remains. It's difficult to do what they wanted to do. And really, sometimes all you care is that the connection is encrypted at a particular base level based on the type of encryption being done. Which is how it was at Stanford. Which apparently we don't support using the security directive. Which is why my acl's had sasl_ssf=56 all over them. --Quanah -- Quanah Gibson-Mount Principal Software Engineer Zimbra, Inc -------------------- Zimbra :: the leader in open source messaging and collaboration

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Re: (ITS#5195) ssf not available during sasl bind
by hyc＠symas.com 29 Oct '07

29 Oct '07

quanah(a)zimbra.com wrote: > --On Monday, October 29, 2007 8:13 PM +0000 hyc(a)symas.com wrote: >> You really need to read more carefully. If you only care about the >> overall SSF, regardless of whether it's from TLS or SASL, then just use >> the "ssf" factor. -- > > Nice, in theory, but I think my example was bad. So let's rehash. > > When I was at Stanford, the SASL SSF max was 56, because of the DES keys. > The TLS SSF was 128. So how would I indicate that I want EITHER a SASL SSF > of 56 or a TLS SSF of 128 using the security directive? You don't. That would open you up to a downgrade attack. -- -- Howard Chu Chief Architect, Symas Corp. http://www.symas.com Director, Highland Sun http://highlandsun.com/hyc/ Chief Architect, OpenLDAP http://www.openldap.org/project/

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Re: (ITS#5195) ssf not available during sasl bind
by quanah＠zimbra.com 29 Oct '07

29 Oct '07

--On Monday, October 29, 2007 8:13 PM +0000 hyc(a)symas.com wrote: > You really need to read more carefully. If you only care about the > overall SSF, regardless of whether it's from TLS or SASL, then just use > the "ssf" factor. -- Nice, in theory, but I think my example was bad. So let's rehash. When I was at Stanford, the SASL SSF max was 56, because of the DES keys. The TLS SSF was 128. So how would I indicate that I want EITHER a SASL SSF of 56 or a TLS SSF of 128 using the security directive? --Quanah -- Quanah Gibson-Mount Principal Software Engineer Zimbra, Inc -------------------- Zimbra :: the leader in open source messaging and collaboration

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Re: (ITS#5195) ssf not available during sasl bind
by hyc＠symas.com 29 Oct '07

29 Oct '07

quanah(a)zimbra.com wrote: > --On Monday, October 29, 2007 5:08 PM +0000 h.b.furuseth(a)usit.uio.no wrote: > > >> Also, repeating an old point, remember that the "security" keyword >> produces better error messages ("Confidentiality required") than >> "access ... ssf=..." ("Insufficient access" for updates, "Invalid >> credentials" for Bind). With the latter, the user likely thinks >> he mistyped the password and sends it again unencrypted. > The problem with the security directive that the user ran into, however, I > don't see a way to get around. Which is there is no "OR" support. I.e., > you can't say, I want the user to have a TLS of 128 OR SASL SSF of 128. If > you specify both, both are required. You really need to read more carefully. If you only care about the overall SSF, regardless of whether it's from TLS or SASL, then just use the "ssf" factor. -- -- Howard Chu Chief Architect, Symas Corp. http://www.symas.com Director, Highland Sun http://highlandsun.com/hyc/ Chief Architect, OpenLDAP http://www.openldap.org/project/

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Re: (ITS#5195) ssf not available during sasl bind
by quanah＠zimbra.com 29 Oct '07

29 Oct '07

--On Monday, October 29, 2007 5:08 PM +0000 h.b.furuseth(a)usit.uio.no wrote: > Also, repeating an old point, remember that the "security" keyword > produces better error messages ("Confidentiality required") than > "access ... ssf=..." ("Insufficient access" for updates, "Invalid > credentials" for Bind). With the latter, the user likely thinks > he mistyped the password and sends it again unencrypted. The problem with the security directive that the user ran into, however, I don't see a way to get around. Which is there is no "OR" support. I.e., you can't say, I want the user to have a TLS of 128 OR SASL SSF of 128. If you specify both, both are required. --Quanah -- Quanah Gibson-Mount Principal Software Engineer Zimbra, Inc -------------------- Zimbra :: the leader in open source messaging and collaboration

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Re: (ITS#5195) ssf not available during sasl bind
by h.b.furuseth＠usit.uio.no 29 Oct '07

29 Oct '07

quanah(a)zimbra.com writes: > access to userPassword > by anonymous auth sasl_ssf=128 break > by anonymous auth tls=128 > by self read > > (At this point, you've forced any user to be encrypted, No, you've forced users who authenticate against userPassword to be encrypted. Not all SASL methods, nor auth with rootpw. Also, repeating an old point, remember that the "security" keyword produces better error messages ("Confidentiality required") than "access ... ssf=..." ("Insufficient access" for updates, "Invalid credentials" for Bind). With the latter, the user likely thinks he mistyped the password and sends it again unencrypted. Come to think of it, I guess I should insert that in the slapd.access(5) manpage. > so no need to duplicate the requirements on the read access). -- Regards, Hallvard

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Re: (ITS#5206) Admin guide: Berkeley DB version
by ghenry＠suretecsystems.com 29 Oct '07

29 Oct '07

> The admin guide says > "Generally, the most recent release [of Berkeley DB] > (with published patches) is recommended." > in CVS openldap-guide/admin/install.sdf and > <http://www.openldap.org/doc/admin23/install.html>. > > Not true with 4.6, and the advise on -software is still 4.2.52+patches: > http://www.openldap.org/lists/openldap-software/200710/msg00321.html > We have a versions table in the 2.4 guide and a link to it from the install section in the 2.4 version as well (below is not the latest version): http://suretec.org/our_docs/appendix-recommended-versions.html Haven't we already decided that we aren't updating the 2.3 guide? If we are now going to, then I can put in a big DEPRECATED for slurpd and fix above.

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(ITS#5206) Admin guide: Berkeley DB version
by h.b.furuseth＠usit.uio.no 29 Oct '07

29 Oct '07

Full_Name: Hallvard B Furuseth Version: guide HEAD, 23, web OS: URL: Submission from: (NULL) (129.240.6.233) Submitted by: hallvard The admin guide says "Generally, the most recent release [of Berkeley DB] (with published patches) is recommended." in CVS openldap-guide/admin/install.sdf and <http://www.openldap.org/doc/admin23/install.html>. Not true with 4.6, and the advise on -software is still 4.2.52+patches: http://www.openldap.org/lists/openldap-software/200710/msg00321.html

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Re: (ITS#5205) CVS to RSS Web Enhancement
by h.b.furuseth＠usit.uio.no 29 Oct '07

29 Oct '07

ghenry(a)suretecsystems.com writes: > http://www.mail-archive.com does RSS feeds. www.gname.org too. That one has feeds and archive of -announce, -devel and "general" (-software). http://dir.gmane.org/search.php?match=openldap -- Hallvard

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Re: (ITS#5205) CVS to RSS Web Enhancement
by ghenry＠suretecsystems.com 29 Oct '07

29 Oct '07

Very nice! http://www.mail-archive.com does RSS feeds. It only has: http://www.mail-archive.com/openldap-software@openldap.org/maillist.xml http://www.mail-archive.com/openldap-devel@openldap.org/maillist.xml I've subscribed openldap-commit(a)openldap.org to the service as per: http://www.mail-archive.com/faq.html#newlist Do we want bugs and announce on to? Then we have all our lists via RSS. Gavin.

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Re: (ITS#5205) CVS to RSS Web Enhancement
by ghenry＠OpenLDAP.org 28 Oct '07

28 Oct '07

<quote who="Howard Chu"> > ghenry(a)OpenLDAP.org wrote: >> Hi, >> >> It would be great to have something like: >> >> http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=cvs2rss&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.moz… > > Feel free to subscribe to the openldap-commit mailing list with an email > alias > pointing to whatever RSS generator you wish. OK, thanks. I'll sort something out and reply to this ticket when I do. Do we want a public available url, or just use this for myself? > -- > -- Howard Chu > Chief Architect, Symas Corp. http://www.symas.com > Director, Highland Sun http://highlandsun.com/hyc/ > Chief Architect, OpenLDAP http://www.openldap.org/project/ >

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Re: (ITS#5205) CVS to RSS Web Enhancement
by hyc＠symas.com 28 Oct '07

28 Oct '07

ghenry(a)OpenLDAP.org wrote: > Hi, > > It would be great to have something like: > > http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=cvs2rss&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.moz… Feel free to subscribe to the openldap-commit mailing list with an email alias pointing to whatever RSS generator you wish. -- -- Howard Chu Chief Architect, Symas Corp. http://www.symas.com Director, Highland Sun http://highlandsun.com/hyc/ Chief Architect, OpenLDAP http://www.openldap.org/project/

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(ITS#5205) CVS to RSS Web Enhancement
by ghenry＠OpenLDAP.org 28 Oct '07

28 Oct '07

Full_Name: Gavin Henry Version: OS: URL: ftp://ftp.openldap.org/incoming/ Submission from: (NULL) (212.159.59.85) Submitted by: ghenry Hi, It would be great to have something like: http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=cvs2rss&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.moz… Gavin.

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Re: (ITS#5204) Openldap and undefined symbols
by hyc＠symas.com 27 Oct '07

27 Oct '07

galtgendo(a)o2.pl wrote: > Full_Name: Rafał Mużyło > Version: 2.3.38 > OS: Linux > URL: > Submission from: (NULL) (89.228.37.72) > > > A few months ago I came across a problem that I reported to Gentoo Bugzilla, > however that bug (http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=189817) was closed as > invalid. I don't think that it was, at least not 100%. You got the correct answer in comment #2 on that bug. There is no bug in OpenLDAP here. This ITS will be closed. I note that libldap_r was primarily written for use by slapd and slurpd, and nothing else. The only publically documented LDAP API only uses libldap. If you have any software linking against libldap_r, and it's not working, then you should go file a bug with whatever other software is involved. -- -- Howard Chu Chief Architect, Symas Corp. http://www.symas.com Director, Highland Sun http://highlandsun.com/hyc/ Chief Architect, OpenLDAP http://www.openldap.org/project/

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Re: (ITS#5195) ssf not available during sasl bind
by russell-openldap＠stuart.id.au 26 Oct '07

26 Oct '07

On Fri, 2007-10-26 at 19:59 -0700, Quanah Gibson-Mount wrote: > > ldapsearch -ZZ -U "openldap" -b "dc=pwd,dc=lubemobile,dc=com,dc=au" > > "(uid=it)" ldap_sasl_interactive_bind_s: Confidentiality required (13) > > additional info: SASL confidentiality required > > > > Is that a bug? > > > I suggest reading the part on sasl-secprops in the slapd.conf (5) man page. > It notes that the default is to setting is to block anonymous and plain > SASL binds. I suspect you are right in that is the cause of the problem because a -Y DIGEST-MD5 fixes it. But, as I said, it worked before the security option was added. It worked because DIGEST-MD5 was the default. So why isn't it the default now? Now that you have pointed it out, I guess that the addition of the 'security' option prevented SASL from searching dn="" for the types of authentications supported. > access to userPassword > by users read sasl_ssf=128 break > by users read tls=128 > > I think might do it. You would think that would do it - certainly I did. But you would be wrong. Currently it doesn't, and that is what this ITS is about. The patch I supplied with the initial bug report changes things so it does work.

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Re: (ITS#5195) ssf not available during sasl bind
by quanah＠zimbra.com 26 Oct '07

26 Oct '07

--On Saturday, October 27, 2007 3:00 AM +0000 quanah(a)zimbra.com wrote: > access to userPassword > by users read sasl_ssf=128 break > by users read tls=128 Replace users by self, sorry. Obviously you don't want any user to read it. ;) Although hm, anonymous need access at least for auth, so: access to userPassword by anonymous auth by self read sasl_ssf=128 break by self read tls=128 Note that in the anonymous access case, the user password is never transmitted from the server end, in any case. You could do a similar requirement as above, something like: access to userPassword by anonymous auth sasl_ssf=128 break by anonymous auth tls=128 by self read (At this point, you've forced any user to be encrypted, so no need to duplicate the requirements on the read access). --Quanah -- Quanah Gibson-Mount Principal Software Engineer Zimbra, Inc -------------------- Zimbra :: the leader in open source messaging and collaboration

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Re: (ITS#5195) ssf not available during sasl bind
by quanah＠zimbra.com 26 Oct '07

26 Oct '07

--On Friday, October 26, 2007 9:47 AM +0000 russell-openldap(a)stuart.id.au wrote: > I have now tried: > > security tls=128 sasl=128 > > It didn't work. All the commands below work without > the 'security' option. This says: Require a TLS section of 128 bit security AND SASL security of 128. > ldapsearch -x -ZZ -D "uid=openldap,dc=auth,dc=lubemobile,dc=com,dc=au" > -w "$(ssu cat /etc/libnss-ldap.secret)" -b > "dc=pwd,dc=lubemobile,dc=com,dc=au" "(uid=it)" ldap_bind: You aren't using SASL here. So of course it fails. > Which, when I think about it may be reasonable. I am > apparently saying I require a sasl ssf of 128, and > obviously I don't have that. This was a surprise > though: Right. > ldapsearch -ZZ -U "openldap" -b "dc=pwd,dc=lubemobile,dc=com,dc=au" > "(uid=it)" ldap_sasl_interactive_bind_s: Confidentiality required (13) > additional info: SASL confidentiality required > > Is that a bug? I suggest reading the part on sasl-secprops in the slapd.conf (5) man page. It notes that the default is to setting is to block anonymous and plain SASL binds. > Anyway, bugs aside, assuming I now have some idea how it > works its useless for my application. I want to insist > that userPassword to be encrypted when sent and received, > be that via CRAM-MD5 or friends or by using TLS, but clear > text is fine for the rest of the information in the ldap > database, and in fact anonymous connections unencrypted > connections are the rule for VPN access. The 'security' > option applies to all connections. access to userPassword by users read sasl_ssf=128 break by users read tls=128 I think might do it. > Anyway, to state the problem as clearly as I can, I can't > see how to do the following combination of things: > > . Allow anonymous access over unencrypted connections > for the bulk of the database. Above acl followed by access to * by * read (or however else limited). > . Allow simple binds, but they must be over encrypted > connections to protect userPassword. See above ACL. > . Allow sasl binds over unencrypted connections, but > the must not use clear text. Read the sasl-secprops setting. --Quanah -- Quanah Gibson-Mount Principal Software Engineer Zimbra, Inc -------------------- Zimbra :: the leader in open source messaging and collaboration

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(ITS#5204) Openldap and undefined symbols
by galtgendo＠o2.pl 26 Oct '07

26 Oct '07

Full_Name: Rafał Mużyło Version: 2.3.38 OS: Linux URL: Submission from: (NULL) (89.228.37.72) A few months ago I came across a problem that I reported to Gentoo Bugzilla, however that bug (http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=189817) was closed as invalid. I don't think that it was, at least not 100%. I'm not really an openldap user, I simply have it installed as a dependency and probably I'm not using it at all. This is simply something that I noticed while I was building wine. During configure, openldap was not detected, although it was installed. I filed it as --as-needed issue, now, however, I no longer think it the case. As the bug mentions, libldap_r.so had undefined symbols from pthread, so standard configure lib check was failing. I thought that it was an as-needed issue, but now I'm not so sure. You have a closed Build/2209 bug (about an unrelated issue). From the first reply I quote: "It ought to be linked with any libraries it depends on and pull them in implicitly.". Shouldn't it be the same for libldap_r.so - meaning shouldn't it be linked with pthread ? After some checking I found that libslapi.so and most of /usr/lib/openldap have undefined symbols, too, but as far as I understand libslapi is internal use only and it's a design issue cause many symbols that libslapi uses are defined later in slapd (yes, I read that Windows note in servers/slapd/Makefile.in).

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Re: (ITS#5203) [LDAP: error code 32 - No Such Object];
by quanah＠zimbra.com 26 Oct '07

26 Oct '07

--On Friday, October 26, 2007 10:53 AM +0000 hiremath47(a)gmail.com wrote: > Full_Name: Siddeshawr > Version: Version 2.8 > OS: > URL: ftp://ftp.openldap.org/incoming/ > Submission from: (NULL) (203.92.60.81) The ITS system is for bug reports, not usage questions. Please use openldap-software(a)openldap.org for questions you have about using OpenLDAP. I will also note that "2.8" is not a valid OpenLDAP release. --Quanah -- Quanah Gibson-Mount Principal Software Engineer Zimbra, Inc -------------------- Zimbra :: the leader in open source messaging and collaboration

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(ITS#5203) [LDAP: error code 32 - No Such Object];
by hiremath47＠gmail.com 26 Oct '07

26 Oct '07

Full_Name: Siddeshawr Version: Version 2.8 OS: URL: ftp://ftp.openldap.org/incoming/ Submission from: (NULL) (203.92.60.81) Hi, If I try to add the following entry into the LDAP 'uid=seal_koa/denage(a)denimvage.com' javax.naming.NameNotFoundException: [LDAP: error code 32 - No Such Object]; remaining name at com.sun.jndi.ldap.LdapCtx.mapErrorCode(LdapCtx.java:3013) at com.sun.jndi.ldap.LdapCtx.processReturnCode(LdapCtx.java:2934) at com.sun.jndi.ldap.LdapCtx.processReturnCode(LdapCtx.java:2740) at com.sun.jndi.ldap.LdapCtx.c_lookup(LdapCtx.java:998) at com.sun.jndi.toolkit.ctx.ComponentContext.c_resolveIntermediate_nns(ComponentContext.java:152) at com.sun.jndi.toolkit.ctx.AtomicContext.c_resolveIntermediate_nns(AtomicContext.java:342) at com.sun.jndi.toolkit.ctx.ComponentContext.p_resolveIntermediate(ComponentContext.java:381) at com.sun.jndi.toolkit.ctx.ComponentDirContext.p_createSubcontext(ComponentDirContext.java:311) at com.sun.jndi.toolkit.ctx.PartialCompositeDirContext.createSubcontext(PartialCompositeDirContext.java:248) at com.sun.jndi.toolkit.ctx.PartialCompositeDirContext.createSubcontext(PartialCompositeDirContext.java:236) at javax.naming.directory.InitialDirContext.createSubcontext(InitialDirContext.java:176) Please suggest on the same. Regards, Siddeshwar

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Re: (ITS#5195) ssf not available during sasl bind
by russell-openldap＠stuart.id.au 26 Oct '07

26 Oct '07

I have now tried: security tls=128 sasl=128 It didn't work. All the commands below work without the 'security' option. ldapsearch -x -ZZ -D "uid=openldap,dc=auth,dc=lubemobile,dc=com,dc=au" -w "$(ssu cat /etc/libnss-ldap.secret)" -b "dc=pwd,dc=lubemobile,dc=com,dc=au" "(uid=it)" ldap_bind: Confidentiality required (13) additional info: SASL confidentiality required Which, when I think about it may be reasonable. I am apparently saying I require a sasl ssf of 128, and obviously I don't have that. This was a surprise though: ldapsearch -ZZ -U "openldap" -b "dc=pwd,dc=lubemobile,dc=com,dc=au" "(uid=it)" ldap_sasl_interactive_bind_s: Confidentiality required (13) additional info: SASL confidentiality required Is that a bug? Anyway, bugs aside, assuming I now have some idea how it works its useless for my application. I want to insist that userPassword to be encrypted when sent and received, be that via CRAM-MD5 or friends or by using TLS, but clear text is fine for the rest of the information in the ldap database, and in fact anonymous connections unencrypted connections are the rule for VPN access. The 'security' option applies to all connections. Anyway, to state the problem as clearly as I can, I can't see how to do the following combination of things: . Allow anonymous access over unencrypted connections for the bulk of the database. . Allow simple binds, but they must be over encrypted connections to protect userPassword. . Allow sasl binds over unencrypted connections, but the must not use clear text. . Not particularly relevant to me, but it would be nice to allow sasl binds using clear text if they are over an encrypted connection. The patch does this of course, but if there is some other way then the patch is irrelevant, except perhaps from a usability point of view.

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Re: (ITS#5195) ssf not available during sasl bind
by russell-openldap＠stuart.id.au 25 Oct '07

25 Oct '07

On Thu, 2007-10-25 at 16:33 -0700, Howard Chu wrote: > There are no shortcuts when it comes to security. If you don't take the time > to understand it you'll get it wrong, period. That's true of all systems, no > matter how simple or complex - if you don't take the time to understand the > system's security requirements, you will screw up. As in your example above, > which should use "auth" access, not "read" access. I am not sure I agree, but to borrow your words a discussion about short cuts to security seems irrelevant to this ITS, as is whether I made a typo in my example. The rather long winded rant is relevant in one minor way (sorry about the length). In your original counter example, you said correctly "slap_auxprop_lookup" is doing an internal search and thus doesn't expose the password. The fact that I would have to know that in order to realise that "acl ... by tls_ssf=" doesn't do what I want is what I was railing against. It is purely a technical detail. When plain text is used, the password is sent over the connection. The fact happens not to be the copy in the slapd database (and thus as you say the copy in the database is infinitely secure) is irrelevant to me, the user. You said that if "you don't take the time to understand [the] security [model], you will get it wrong, period". Well there is room for movement at both ends. You can insist the user spends a long time understanding slapd's security model, or you can make the model easier to understand. I think the patch does the latter. If you think I am wrong, ie it makes slapd configuration harder to understand, then by all means reject it.

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Re: (ITS#5195) ssf not available during sasl bind
by hyc＠symas.com 25 Oct '07

25 Oct '07

russell-openldap(a)stuart.id.au wrote: > On Thu, 2007-10-25 at 05:18 -0700, Howard Chu wrote: >> Using ACLs to enforce this requirement is the wrong approach though. You >> should just use the "security" directive instead. With your approach you're >> missing the fact that SASL may not have sent any password at all to slapd >> (e.g., when using DIGEST-MD5 or an OTP mechanism). As such, you're imposing a >> constraint that makes no sense. > > So you are saying: > > security sasl=128 simple_bind=128 > > would achieve that? I guess it would. > > However, with the patch applied this would have the same > effect, with the addition that if some other authorisation > mechanism were introduced (eg pam), it would fail unless > it was encrypted or I explicitly allowed it. > > acl <password-stuff> > by tls_ssf=128 ... read > by sasl_ssf=128 ... read > by * none > > This may look icky to you, but to someone who is just > trying to deploy slapd it means there is one less > slapd.conf option I have to get my head around. There are no shortcuts when it comes to security. If you don't take the time to understand it you'll get it wrong, period. That's true of all systems, no matter how simple or complex - if you don't take the time to understand the system's security requirements, you will screw up. As in your example above, which should use "auth" access, not "read" access. > <rant> > > Perhaps ease of configuration doesn't seem so important. > But I was at a talk given by Andrew Tridgell about why > he wrote tdb instead of using just using openldap. > Answer: because it took him 3 days to get slapd > configured and working. 3 days is an impressively > short time going on my experiences with it. He actually > said it wasn't because slapd had bugs, or slapd was too > slow, or slapd didn't have a feature. It was just > because in the final analysis, he could not see the > typical samba user being able to make the thing work. He should have come and talked to us. (In fact, since then, he has. We've shown how easily a canned Samba config can be setup, and we'll be collaborating closely on schema issues and other things down the road.) > When something is hard to configure typically the doco > is blamed. But that is often wrong and is wrong in the > case of openldap. The blame lies with the design of > the system. The programmers fail to see the > configuration of the system as another interface. They > will put hours of work into designing an API, and > devote 100's of lines of code to making sure that API > is easy to use, that it hides the complexities of its > implementation. Yet they ignore configuration, which > in effect another API - it is the interface between > the users and the program. You presume a lot here. Configuration in OpenLDAP 2.3 and 2.4 is a lot more rational than it ever was in prior releases, and that's because it has been the focus of considerable attention. The fact that your old methods still work, allowing you to limp along without reading about all the new methods, is a testament to the care that was taken in building the configuration enhancements. > If it had of been an API presented to other > programmers, I bet the original designer who of thought > "how can I hide all this behind a simple, clean, easy > to understand interface". But he didn't, and so now > openldap deservedly has the reputation as one of the > harder pieces of open source software to get up and > going. As a consequence it is deployed a lot less > than it should be. Nonsense. The primary reason OpenLDAP has a bad reputation in some circles is because distros like RedHat continued to bundle obsolete versions years after they had been dropped by the Project, and so a vast number of users were never exposed to the myriad improvements made over time. Regardless, OpenLDAP usage is still growing, and it looks like the growth will continue to accelerate. None of this discussion is relevant to this ITS. -- -- Howard Chu Chief Architect, Symas Corp. http://www.symas.com Director, Highland Sun http://highlandsun.com/hyc/ Chief Architect, OpenLDAP http://www.openldap.org/project/

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Re: (ITS#5195) ssf not available during sasl bind
by russell-openldap＠stuart.id.au 25 Oct '07

25 Oct '07

On Thu, 2007-10-25 at 05:18 -0700, Howard Chu wrote: > Using ACLs to enforce this requirement is the wrong approach though. You > should just use the "security" directive instead. With your approach you're > missing the fact that SASL may not have sent any password at all to slapd > (e.g., when using DIGEST-MD5 or an OTP mechanism). As such, you're imposing a > constraint that makes no sense. So you are saying: security sasl=128 simple_bind=128 would achieve that? I guess it would. However, with the patch applied this would have the same effect, with the addition that if some other authorisation mechanism were introduced (eg pam), it would fail unless it was encrypted or I explicitly allowed it. acl <password-stuff> by tls_ssf=128 ... read by sasl_ssf=128 ... read by * none This may look icky to you, but to someone who is just trying to deploy slapd it means there is one less slapd.conf option I have to get my head around. <rant> Perhaps ease of configuration doesn't seem so important. But I was at a talk given by Andrew Tridgell about why he wrote tdb instead of using just using openldap. Answer: because it took him 3 days to get slapd configured and working. 3 days is an impressively short time going on my experiences with it. He actually said it wasn't because slapd had bugs, or slapd was too slow, or slapd didn't have a feature. It was just because in the final analysis, he could not see the typical samba user being able to make the thing work. When something is hard to configure typically the doco is blamed. But that is often wrong and is wrong in the case of openldap. The blame lies with the design of the system. The programmers fail to see the configuration of the system as another interface. They will put hours of work into designing an API, and devote 100's of lines of code to making sure that API is easy to use, that it hides the complexities of its implementation. Yet they ignore configuration, which in effect another API - it is the interface between the users and the program. Like most projects openldap uses many libraries to do its thing. But makes no attempt to hide that from the user. In order to configure openldap you have to understand ldap, sasl, tls, berkley db, but whats worse you have to understand how they interact with each other within openldap. For example, ssf is a sasl concept. simple_bind is an ldap concept. But the "security" option has "simple_bind=<ssf_factor>", so suddenly you have to know both, even if you have no intention of using one of them. Ick, ick, ick. If it had of been an API presented to other programmers, I bet the original designer who of thought "how can I hide all this behind a simple, clean, easy to understand interface". But he didn't, and so now openldap deservedly has the reputation as one of the harder pieces of open source software to get up and going. As a consequence it is deployed a lot less than it should be. </rant>

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