Re: opening a connection with more than a single server

[Jens V. <je...@zo...>]

> 1. change the docs and pass string-parameter _host_ to OpenLDAP's 
> ldap_open() function and drop parameter _port_ or

the space-separated host list was only used in place of the first argument,
  "host". i am not sure if you were still able to pass a "port" parameter or 
what would happen if you did.


> 2. comply to the docs which means not supporting the 
> multiple-hosts-in-space-separated-list parameter.

comply to which docs? the docs that came with python-ldap 1.10? i have a 
feeling that the author might not have realized that you can send 
space-separated host names in the "host" portion of the argument list.


> If you don't get the difference I'm pretty sure that you've never used to 
> connect to a LDAP server running on "non-standard" port...

well of course i have ;)  all my products allow selecting nonstandard ports,
  too.


> I did that in former versions of web2ldap but dropped support for 
> python-ldap 1.x because it's getting too complex if you want to do that 
> completely (referrals, etc.). Also python-ldap does not support LDAPv3 
> which has some serious implications if you take RFC2251 ff. seriously (e.
> g. character set T.61 for LDAPv2 instead of UTF-8).

well, my products lack the complexity to really be worried about that. no 
one has ever come to me and said they couldn't get things to work using 
referrals :)  and i don't think i'll try to provide that ability.


>> if i remember correctly i had at one time tried to come up with a way to 
>> test whether a given LDAP connection object was still good for use, but 
>> could not find anything that would not already involve making LDAP 
>> queries.
>
> Yes, you have to try a LDAPRequest and catch ldap.SERVER_DOWN.

is there a suitable and simple LDAP request that would work on most servers 
without knowing what the tree looks like?


> > i have
>> never experimented with long-lived connections. i am all for improving 
>> performance, if you can show me a good way to test existing connection 
>> objects and tell me that it is indeed faster to do it, i'm all ears.
>
> Well, if you're after performance you should work with persistent 
> connections. Especially for web2ldap it was a great performance boost 
> since web2ldap does a lot of special stuff after establishing the 
> connection. Doing this for each request is a performance nightmare. Think 
> of negotiating LDAP protocol version, evaluating RootDSE attributes, more 
> complex bind operations, etc.

well, again, my products lack that kind of complexity...  i connect, i bind,
  i might rebind as someone else, i read and i write. then i disconnect. 
nothing exotic really.

jens