LDAP-UX Client Services B.04.15 Administrator's Guide

1 Introduction
LDAP-UX Client Services simplifies HP-UX system administration by consolidating account and
configuration information into a central LDAP directory. This LDAP directory could reside on
an HP-UX system such as Netscape Directory Server 6.x, Red Hat Directory Server 7.x or the
account information could be integrated in Windows 2000/2003 Active Directory.
Information provided in this manual outlines the installation and administration tasks of
LDAP-UX Client Services with HP-UX based LDAP directories such as Netscape Directory Server
6.x.
For information on the integration of LDAP-UX Client Services with Windows 2000/2003/2003
R2 Active Directory, see LDAP-UX with Microsoft Windows Active Directory Administrator's Guide
(J4269-90064) at http://docs.hp.com/hpux/internet.
This chapter introduces LDAP-UX Client Services and briefly describes how it works.
1.1 Overview of LDAP-UX Client Services
Traditionally, HP-UX account and configuration information is stored in text files, for example,
/etc/passwd and /etc/group. NIS was developed to ease system administration by sharing this
information across systems on the network. With NIS, account and configuration information
resides on NIS servers. NIS client systems retrieve this shared configuration information across
the network from NIS servers, as shown below:
Figure 1-1 A Simplified NIS Environment
LDAP-UX Client Services improves on this configuration information sharing. HP-UX account
and configuration information is stored in an LDAP directory, not on the local client system.
Client systems retrieve this shared configuration information across the network from the LDAP
directory, as shown below. LDAP adds greater scalability, interoperability with other applications
and platforms, and less network traffic from replica updates.
1.1 Overview of LDAP-UX Client Services 15