Re: LDAP usages

[Adam Williams <awilliam@whitemice.org>]

>I am investigating the possiblilty of using LDAP to control our mail
>severs.  However, I know *nothing* about LDAP.  I am completely ignorant
>to its capabilities, functions, purposes, controls, and configurations.

ftp://ftp.kalamazoolinux.org/pub/pdf/ldapv3.pdf

>Before I get to invloved with this project (only to find out it is not
>doing what I want).  I would like share with what I am wanting to do and
>hopefully you can give me some feed back on what I need to do, as well
>as some helpful documentation.  I have the manual from the website.
>We have three mail servers.  
>1 public - used for general mail accounts under our domain
>1 semi-public - used for clients with email under their own domain. 
>This server hosts a number of virtual mail accounts.  So the editing of
>"/etc/virtualusers" and "/etc/genericstable" and "/etc/generics-domain"
>(and others) would need to be edited when a virtual mailuser is added.
>1  noraml mail server for a business, which co-lcates the sever here,
>but we maintain and admin the server.

LDAP can easily replace the virutalusers, genertics table, etc...  In
fact, thats was one of the first reasons we started using it.

>Will LDAP allow me to control these accounts?  I am mainly concerned
>about the second (semi-public) server.  It has allotof moving parts to
>be edited for a virtual mail user to function properly, as well as
>adding a domain.

You can control as many accounts as you like.

>Dose LDAP have to be loaded on the same server, or can it be else where
>on the network.  I mainly need LDAP for a more standardizes approach for
>admin:ing mail accounts and domains.

You can have either a centralized or distributed database.  LDAP
supports replication across multiple hosts.