Gateways

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Instead of developing your own application, you can check to see if there is a ready-to-use software application that does what you want. If your goal is simply to provide access to an LDAP repository using the Web browser, you can use a Web LDAP gateway.

The first servers were able to communicate using the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol instead of the original heavyweight X.500 protocol. Indeed, the very first servers were gateways speaking LDAP on the client side and X.500 on the server side. Gateways work in the same way, connecting clients speaking HTTP with servers speaking LDAP. Exhibit 3 shows the schema for such an LDAP-HTTP gateway solution.

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Exhibit 3: HTTP 2 LDAP Gateway

The gateway can consist of a Web server and an application, but it could also be a servlet container such as Tomcat or an application server speaking the HTTP protocol. An interesting solution — a gateway that runs on top of Tomcat — is available from Jon Roberts of Mentata Systems at http://www.mentata.com. As mentioned previously, Tomcat is a servlet container, i.e., a server that can process server-side Java scripts called "servlets." The application is open source and is based on standard technologies. It consists of a library of classes that are highly configurable to fit your particular needs. We will learn more about this library in the second part of this chapter when we review a sample application.



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The ABCs of LDAP. How to Install, Run, and Administer LDAP Services
The ABCs of LDAP: How to Install, Run, and Administer LDAP Services
ISBN: 0849313465
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 149

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