Re: PRACTICAL examples?

[Elizabeth Barham <soggytrousers@yahoo.com>]

Hi Brian,

There is a book entitled "Directory Enabled Networks" that I tried to
work through about one-and-a-half-year ago. At the time it all seemed
kind of spacey - sounded great but "how does impliment this?" - since
I did not have a solid foundation in directories themselves.

Since then I've learned about directories and this is the type of
thing this book discusses - putting all networking equipment in a
directory. It even was very detailed, going so far to put specific
racks in the directory, NICs, etc.

"Brian K. Jones" <jonesy@CS.Princeton.EDU> writes:

> I know this is the third email today, but I really can't help it.
> 
> After receiving, from some kind soul, a list of about 30 links related
> to LDAP, I've spent the day scouring the web for some example
> walkthrough or something that does NOT reference Babs Jensen, for
> example.
> 
> The widespread assumption seems to be that EVERYONE will be using LDAP
> in EXACTLY the same way - or that EVERYTHING in the inetOrgPerson
> examples is directly analogous to, say, a NIS implementation, or an
> inventory database, which it's NOT.

Agreed.

> Are there ANY sources of RELEVANT, NOT OUTDATED, LDAPv3 examples
> that illustrate only slightly more complex relationships than what
> is all over the internet?

This looks like what I was speaking about earlier:

<http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/cisintwk/ito_doc/diren.htm>

> Here's my example:
> 
> I have an inventory database, and the information contained in the
> database is used to generate all kinds of stuff.  DNS records, NIS maps,
> dhcp configs, etc.  The database mainly tracks networked hosts.
> 
> -- A host can have one or more interfaces.
> -- An interface can have one or more IP's 
> -- An interface can also have zero or more aliases, which will be
> associated with an IP address..
> -- An interface must have a MAC.
> 
> Anyone who has had to deal with generating DNS files knows the
> issues at hand here.  How would I represent a relationship like this
> in an LDIF file such that a user can search for all interfaces
> belonging to a specific host, for example?

You could, for example, make an objectClass representing a NIC, which
MUST contain: (vendorName, MAC) [for example]

A HOST could include the object class of NIC, and perhaps an interface
class.

Ideally, one should conceptualize it as a series of object (IIRC the
book goes into great detail about this):

Rack:
  ROUTER
     InterFace1: IP Address, MAC
     InterFace2: IP Address, MAC
     Manufacturer
     Location
  SWITCH

etc.

Host:
  Location: 3rd Floor
  Interface 1: IP Address, MAC, NIC

whatever whatever.

Anyway I've not done it but it appears that Cisco has thought a lot
about this.

hth, Elizabeth