Developers of Sympa

[Olivier Salaun <address@concealed>]

Mark Cheverton wrote:

>         Since we already maintain an LDAP database for all our users and we
> want to avoid multiple logins wherever possible I'd like to know if
> anyone has code to let wwsympa do its user authentication (ie the
> user_table part) against an LDAP database. This would also necesitate
> disabling of password updates, user deletetion etc and redirection for
> registration which would usually be handled externally by the providers
> registration system. I don't think this would be too difficult looking
> at the code as the only changes to be made would be to List.pm

We are planning development related to LDAP that will begin next june.
It concerns :
        o user authentication querying an LDAP directory. This implies that
        we won't access the password in clear form anymore => no password
        reminder / change

        o conditions in scenario rules, could refer to LDAP query
        (ie: is the sender a bilogie teacher, is the sender an accountant)

Before we start these developments, we need to surround Sympa's relation
with LDAP directories.

Tell us about your needs with LDAP and Sympa, so that the implementation
meets your needs :

Will you use a single LDAP directory ?
Are user passwords encrypted in the directory ?
What about people not in your directory (public MLs) ?
What query(ies) should Sympa perform to check the password, knowing
the user email ?

> My other question is for comined inclusion of subscriber details from
> both sql and ldap. I have serveral SQL tables which I would like to use
> as the basis for list addresses (mostly internally) but these don't
> store the email address directly but instead store the user LDAP DN (as
> above all account details are centralised in one place so that of the
> user updates their LDAP email address all systems use that record). Is
> there any way to include a combined SQL LDAP search where the results of
> the SQL search are LDAP DNs which are then used to find the account
> information?

There is no such feature in Sympa for selecting users from SQL and then
get
corresponding emails from LDAP. This is quite a magrinal need ; I
suggest
you adapt your information system to add user emails in your SQL tables.
Did you try doing JOINs.

--
Olivier Salaün
Comité Réseaux des Universités