Re: Documentation Feedback

[Dieter Klünter <dieter@dkluenter.de>]

Am Mon, 4 Apr 2016 06:11:55 +0000
schrieb Tom Jay <tom_jay@hotmail.com>:

> Hello,
> 
> I would like to voice my frustration with the quality of the openLDAP
> documentation. I am compiling openLDAP from source on Debian 7, and
> have spent about 2-3 continuous days getting to the point where I can
> add an LDAP user with a UID. I have been close to giving up with the
> software, but need it for the LDAP functionality, and as very few
> viable alternatives exist, have been forced to continue with the
> installation. I have however almost lost confidence in the product,
> and am concerned that if there are any problems with it in the
> future, or I want to enable another feature, I will be almost
> helpless in getting it to work.
> 
> The main problem is the Quick-Start Guide. This is anything but
> quick, and forces the user to consult the less-than-succinct Admin
> guide. The two together are inconsistent, difficult to follow and do
> a poor job of explaining what each feature does. The accessibility of
> information is less than optimal, which means that the user has to
> look elsewhere, consuming even more time. Unfortunately, there is not
> much relevant information on the Internet, forcing the user to get
> stuck in an almost endless loop of checking documentation, testing,
> reading manuals, and searching on the Internet, in order to get some
> kind of idea how the software works and what needs to be done to get
> it working.
> 
> I would offer to contribute to the documentation, but due to its lack
> of usefulness, do not have an understanding of the basic concepts
> myself. The best I would be able to do is describe my experience and
> provide the steps that I followed to get a basic installation working.
> 
> Hopefully someone can volunteer the time to test the documentation,
> in the same way a new user would!

It seems there are two problems, first you complain about adding a uid
object, second your complains about documentation.
As you don't describe your problems adding a uid object there wouldn't
be much support.
With regard to documentation, the OpenLDAP Project provides sufficient
unix style documention. That is any client operation, like ldapsearch
etc. is documented in manual page section 1, any  library function, like
ldap_bind() is fully documented in manual page section 3, any
configuration parameter is documented in manual page section 5, i.e.
ldap.conf(5), slapd.conf(5), slapd-config(5), ldif(5). Any server
operation is documented in manual page section 8, like slapd(8),
slapdadd(8) etc.
With regard to general LDAP documentation read RFC 4510 - RFC 4533 and
ITU-T X.500 etc..
Manual Pages and appropriate RFC's are supplied with any sourcecode
archive.
ITU-T X.500 documentation can be found here 
http://www.x500standard.com/

-Dieter

-- 
Dieter Klünter | Systemberatung
http://sys4.de
GPG Key ID: E9ED159B
53°37'09,95"N
10°08'02,42"E