As many have already explored, Fedora Core 4 has been out in test release since May. Even better, Red Hat, after several months of licensing and development has made available an enterprise class directory server based on its acquisition of Netscape Security Solutions from AOL.
The free GPL’d version is available for Fedora and enables the Fedora community to experiment with directory services for user bases large and small. This certainly advances the capabilities of those web professionals seeking to test and implement single sign on solutions among other opportunities.
As our web sites have evolved into web applications and further into multiple interacting portals of varying scales, we begin to face authentication challenges. This especially when dropping our solutions into existing client infrastructures including intranets, extranets and third party vendor systems. With a robust LDAP, we now have the ability to tap into Microsoft Active Directory Services, Lotus Domino directories and other LDAP-like environments and add further value.
I continue to both observe and participate in increasingly sophisticated environments, which by nature demands multiple administrators, larger groups of users and challenging cross-platform integration. Single sign on becomes more of a requirement than ever as clients and end users grapple with numerous sets of user credentials.
I am curious who has already been delving into existing open source LDAP solutions (on any Unix or Windows platform) and feedback on any development tests with this new Fedora capability.
Blane Warrene
