LDAP BASICS AND IT’S USES
Lightweight Data Access Protocol (LDAP) is a software protocol that allows the users to access data about anything whether any organization or an individual, they can do that either from a public network or corporate network. The working mechanism of LDAP works on vendor-neutral application protocol, whose function is to maintain the system of database info of an organization on the basis of easy to query manners. In simple terms, we can refer to LDAP as a lightweight or a smaller version of Directory Access Protocol.
LDAP is a mature software protocol system that has a well-supported standardized-based mechanism, which stores the information of every directory (directory is the data which stores and records the location of users accessing the info), which helps the user to find who has accessed which directory. LDAP is used to store information about users, groups, and applications. Its function is similar to that of the street address and postal cards where DNS (domain name system) provides one with info about the name and the type of user.
Working mechanism of LDAP authentication, authorization, and access control system:-
LDAP works quite flexibly in terms of access control and authorization system. Here is an LDAP protocol, the users are divided and categorized into groups, and the authority to access the records of users is only managed by the detective group. The members of the detective group have the clues about who is accessing which data and who is making attempts to log in, additionally they also make sure to grant access to the ones who are part of a particular group or if they fit into that group.
If one wishes to gain access to all of those records, they can get it by simply following this step-by-step procedure.
1. A session is started first where the client is connected to the LDAP server.
2. Once that is done, the client sends the request to the server asking permission to access data of a particular set of information.
3. After having a look at the request, the server goes through it and reverts back to it accordingly.
4. Hereafter the client receives the response, unbinds it, and accesses the data.
Uses of LDAP
The whole theme behind using the LDAP server is to provide a central place for authentication, where the protocol server stores the information about the users and passwords. It is thereafter also used in various applications and services which performs the function of validating the user's plug-ins.
LDAP can also be used to add operations to directory server databases, authenticate or bind, and to perform a lot of other functions.
LDAP is monthly used as Microsoft Active directory but it can be used by other tools as well, for example - Open LDAP, Red Hat Directory Servers, IBM Tivoli Directory Server.
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