Andrew Bartlett wrote: > One of the odd things I've noticed since moving to OpenLDAP managing > memberOf is that memberOf is a hidden attribute by default. Is that > because it is treated as operational (due to being managed by the > module)? Operational attributes are not returned when using * as attribute list. But they are returned when using +. So use *,+ for fetching all attrs. See also http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3673.txt. > I can un-hide it for Samba (I have code that adds a list of attributes > to any query for *), but I just wanted to check there wasn't a more > elegant way to do it. If you're only interested in certain attributes you should not use * anyway since this would return also binary attributes like jpegPhoto and userCertificate which likely are of not much use for Samba, are they?

Andrew Bartlett wrote: > Samba4's clients are written expecting AD's behaviour, and while I might > hope that they would explicitly request the attributes they need, if I > can make such mistakes in my test scripts, so can they... The addition of this feature is (almost) trivial. So the decision should be based on: - should this "feature" be exposed to all users, or - should it be exposed only to users using samba4 as proxy?

Michael Ströder wrote: > Pierangelo Masarati wrote: >> Andrew Bartlett wrote: >>> Samba4's clients are written expecting AD's behaviour, and while I might >>> hope that they would explicitly request the attributes they need, if I >>> can make such mistakes in my test scripts, so can they... >> >> The addition of this feature is (almost) trivial. So the decision >> should be based on: >> - should this "feature" be exposed to all users, or >> - should it be exposed only to users using samba4 as proxy? > > I think the latter. See, my main scope as a consultant is directory > integration/consolidation. So my recommendation is that everything > should be avoided which turns an OpenLDAP directory into a special > Samba4 LDAP backend which is not usable with other LDAPv3 compliant > software anymore. The fact that we always speak about overlays/modules instead of direct modifications to OpenLDAP should be intended to make sure that OpenLDAP itself does not drift from its route, i.e. becoming as compliant as possible with standard track. In this sense, I believe all modules developed for the sole purpose of downgrading OpenLDAP to behave like AD should clearly carry the indication that they introduce a breach into LDAP specs, and that this breach is intentional for a specific purpose. LDAPv3 client users and developers should be cautioned about relying on those breaches. > How about such an overlay specially treating * based on <who> like > defined in ACLs? I don't think this a viable solution since it appears to require too much effort; moreover, there might not be a practical way to distinguish accesses by samba4 and accesses by other clients.

> Or maybe one should recommend in a deployment note to > use this overlay with back-ldap? The deployment note should recommend to avoid using this overlay at all, except for the purpose it was designed. I would recommend to avoid distributing it with OpenLDAP; rather, with samba4 for use with OpenLDAP.

Andrew Bartlett wrote: >>> Or maybe one should recommend in a deployment note to >>> use this overlay with back-ldap? >> The deployment note should recommend to avoid using this overlay at all, >> except for the purpose it was designed. I would recommend to avoid >> distributing it with OpenLDAP; rather, with samba4 for use with OpenLDAP. > > While I don't want to be antagonistic about this, if it becomes a > situation where Samba4 has to distribute OpenLDAP overlays (rather than > have a reasonable expectation that distributions will pick them up as > part of OpenLDAP distributions), I'm worried about the logistics. > > How would Samba best go about packaging, maintaining and distributing > OpenLDAP overlays? How specific to particular versions of OpenLDAP are > overlays, when built as binaries? > > Also, how would I as an external package build an overlay against > OpenLDAP? Would the normal results of an OpenLDAP installation be > enough? (I'm just not familiar with this area). > > Fortunately, in this particular case I already handle on the client side > (where I prefer to handle most of this). My philosophy is to do as much > as possible on the client side, as this will promote interoperability > with other directory servers, if and when they want to have Samba4 > support as well. But I like to at least ask the question, as the less > fiddling I have to do the better. > > I also think it could be useful to others in future, as transitions are > made from manual to automatic management of some attributes. I was not speaking "officially"; I just wanted to note that we have a somewhat "loose" policy about external modules: - generally useful: get into servers/slapd/overlays/ and known to configure, so that they can either be statically built into slapd or built and installed as run-time modules - less generally useful: get distributed into contrib/slapd-modules/ and usually maintained lined up with the rest of the suite - even less generally useful: remain into the ITS in the contrib folder and, unless the contributor maintains them, they slowly fade away because of the evolution of slapd.

Specially developed modules that are mainly useful for interaction with Samba4, like those we're prototyping in these days, would be generally useful for Samba4 users/developers, but while in some cases they might be of really general usefulness even for non-Samba4 users, in other cases they are quite specific and occasionally violate LDAPv3 specs. In that case, it is (as usual) a matter of drawing the line. I don't have any objection into maintaining and distributing, say, the contents of a folder contrib/slapd-samba4-modules, including a dedicated configure (or extending OpenLDAP's, or whatever), but I'd like to make it clear what modules are, let's say, recommended for general use and what are not, unless in the specific context of interoperating with Samba4.

--On Wednesday, January 16, 2008 4:31 PM +1100 Andrew Bartlett <abartlet(a)samba.org&gt; wrote: > Then it just works, and I don't have to do an extra fish for this > particular operational attribute. I'm somewhat curious why "memberOf" the attribute would be operational. "member" isn't, and it is of a similar vein..

--On Wednesday, January 16, 2008 4:59 PM +1100 Andrew Bartlett <abartlet(a)samba.org&gt; wrote: > 'memberOf' is the end that is calculated, while 'member' is the end > being modified by the administrator. Ah, I see. Somewhat annoying though, I always thought it'd be nice to use it to make dynamic groups from. Oh well.

On Tue, 2008-01-15 at 21:46 -0800, Quanah Gibson-Mount wrote: > --On Wednesday, January 16, 2008 4:31 PM +1100 Andrew Bartlett > <abartlet(a)samba.org&gt; wrote: > > >> Then it just works, and I don't have to do an extra fish for this >> particular operational attribute. > I'm somewhat curious why "memberOf" the attribute would be operational. > "member" isn't, and it is of a similar vein.. In the AD aggregate schema they are marked: attributeTypes: ( 1.2.840.113556.1.2.102 NAME 'memberOf' SYNTAX '1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.12' NO-USER-MODIFICATION ) attributeTypes: ( 2.5.4.31 NAME 'member' SYNTAX '1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.12' ) 'memberOf' is the end that is calculated, while 'member' is the end being modified by the administrator.

One of the odd things I've noticed since moving to OpenLDAP managing memberOf is that memberOf is a hidden attribute by default. Is that because it is treated as operational (due to being managed by the module)? I can un-hide it for Samba (I have code that adds a list of attributes to any query for *), but I just wanted to check there wasn't a more elegant way to do it.