Re: ldap->ping?

[Graham B. <gb...@po...>]

On Fri, Jul 28, 2000 at 11:35:18AM +1000, David Bussenschutt wrote:
> Anyone else see this as a potential for a new module (gee.. how about
> ::Status or

Well I think there will be possibilities beyond status for this kind of
thing so I would really like to see something more general.

> ::Util::Status ?)

Net::LDAP::Util::Status is too deep IMO for such an API. It
really should be Net::LDAP::Something.

> containing functions/objects/whatever that query the ldap server to find
> out what it's capable of?
> ie:
> is it "up"? - with an anonymous bind
> is is "up"? - with a malformed packet request

Do you really want to give the user control over what type of check to do ?

> is it version 2 or version 3 compliant?
> does it support ssl/sasl/whatever?
> does it limit search requests? (and what are they)
> does it have timeouts? (and what are they)

IIRC, This is all avaliable from the root DSE. But I guess you are looking
for a simpler approach than

  $dse = $ldap->root_dse;
  $dse->get('supportedVersions'); # I forget the attribute name

> Mind you, if this was written, it'd be very tempting to include something
> to test for "type" of ldap server eg Netscape/openldap/novell and introduce
> server specific tests too.... is this a good or a bad thing?

I am not sure there is a way to determine the server type. Not reliably anyway.

> P.S. regarding the Ldap::Cooked (or whatever)...  I for one like the option
> of a simple "foolproof" API that is smart enough to figure out things like
> the ldap version to talk with(currently 3 falling back to 2),

You should bind to the version of which feature you need. If you don't use
version 3 features bind as version 2. If you want v3 feature, falling back to binding as
v2 is the wrong thing to do.

> whether ssl
> is supported on the server end (with a fall-back if its not),

This is dangerous. If you want SSL it is normally for a reason, so falling
back is REALLY the wrong thing.

> if searches
> are limited then automatically do multiple searches invisibly, etc etc.

The Net::LDAPiranah module did this but I don't think it works with the
latest version. But we will get it going again.

Graham.