HP CIFS Server 2.2i Administrator's Guide version A.01.11.01

LDAP Integration Support

Overview

Chapter 6 109

Overview

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) provides a framework for

the development of a centralized management infrastructure. LDAP

supports directory enabled computing by consolidating applications,

services, user accounts, Windows account and conﬁguration information

into a central LDAP directory.

Samba customer sites with large numbers of users and servers may want

to integrate the HP CIFS Server with LDAP support. Conﬁguring

multiple HP CIFS servers to communicate with the LDAP directory

server provides a centralized and scalable management of user

databases. When you integrate the HP CIFS Server with the LDAP-UX

Integration product on HP-UX, the HP CIFS Server can access the

Netscape Directory Server for user authentication.The LDAP database

can replace /etc/passwd or NIS and smbpasswd or NT server user

databases.

You can now store the Windows user information in an LDAP directory,

which had been previously stored in the smbpasswd ﬁle. With the LDAP

integration, the SMBD program will use the LDAP directory to look up the

Windows user information during authentication and authorization

processes. Also, when you invoke the smbpasswd program to add, delete

or change Windows user information, updates are made in the LDAP

user database rather than the smbpasswd ﬁle.

You can enable the LDAP support with conﬁguration parameters

provided by the HP CIFS Server. By default, the ldap enable

parameter is disabled which will result in smbpasswd or Windows server

authentication. See “LDAP Conﬁguration Parameters” on page 134, for

more information on a list of new conﬁguration parameters.

You can conﬁgure the ldap ssl parameter speciﬁed in the smb.conf ﬁle

to enable the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) support. With the SSL support,

the HP CIFS Server allows you to access an enabled SSL LDAP directory

to protect passwords over the network and to ensure conﬁdentiality and

data integrity between CIFS servers and SSL enabled LDAP directory

servers.