Ruby LDAP --- Hooray!

ruby-talk
1

After unsuccessfully trying to compile a Ruby LDAP implementation a
year or so ago I found another project on Rubyforge
(http://rubyforge.org/projects/net-ldap/) that easily accomplished the
task in my Windows One-Click Installer Ruby environment. It was as easy
as typing in ruby setup.rb! I am so thankful for the good work
performed by the project maintainer(s) and wanted to express this. Now
I can work on automating some spam filtering with my upstream mail
scanning host. And do so using Ruby rather than an alternative
language. Once again, thanks for the job well done!

2

Thanks. Let us know here if you hit any problems with the library or
if you have any feature requests. Sounds like you may be doing more
with Net::LDAP than just bind-authenticating users, so I'll be curious
to follow your progress.

···

On 7/28/06, gregarican <greg.kujawa@gmail.com> wrote:

After unsuccessfully trying to compile a Ruby LDAP implementation a
year or so ago I found another project on Rubyforge
(http://rubyforge.org/projects/net-ldap/\) that easily accomplished the
task in my Windows One-Click Installer Ruby environment. It was as easy
as typing in ruby setup.rb! I am so thankful for the good work
performed by the project maintainer(s) and wanted to express this. Now
I can work on automating some spam filtering with my upstream mail
scanning host. And do so using Ruby rather than an alternative
language. Once again, thanks for the job well done!

3

For this one task all I am doing is pulling the Exchange Server global
address book through LDAP and uploading the derived list to an upstream
provider that helps us filter out spam e-mail messages. It's just a
quick pull and the library you have made things a snap. It's all done
now.

There was another project I was considering moving to LDAP. Right now I
have a mobile CRM app that uses Exchange CDO for storing the contact
details. Rather than use this (clunky) storage method I am thinking
about moving the contact store over to an lighter weight LDAP tree. I
have OpenLDAP Server on my development box and did some modeling of how
things would work. Seems like a good possibility down the road
sometime. Right now things work fine in regards to what's already been
done. It's just a fine tuning matter to improve things whenever I find
the time.

Francis Cianfrocca wrote:

···

Thanks. Let us know here if you hit any problems with the library or
if you have any feature requests. Sounds like you may be doing more
with Net::LDAP than just bind-authenticating users, so I'll be curious
to follow your progress.

On 7/28/06, gregarican <greg.kujawa@gmail.com> wrote:
> After unsuccessfully trying to compile a Ruby LDAP implementation a
> year or so ago I found another project on Rubyforge
> (http://rubyforge.org/projects/net-ldap/\) that easily accomplished the
> task in my Windows One-Click Installer Ruby environment. It was as easy
> as typing in ruby setup.rb! I am so thankful for the good work
> performed by the project maintainer(s) and wanted to express this. Now
> I can work on automating some spam filtering with my upstream mail
> scanning host. And do so using Ruby rather than an alternative
> language. Once again, thanks for the job well done!
>
>
>

4

Francis Cianfrocca wrote:

Thanks. Let us know here if you hit any problems with the library or
if you have any feature requests. Sounds like you may be doing more
with Net::LDAP than just bind-authenticating users, so I'll be curious
to follow your progress.

I'm also using it, and it's really good. I'm actually specifically _not_ doing authentication with LDAP in Ruby (centralized CAS server), but I am using LDAP as one of several data sources feeding a Rails application. I must say that your overloading of & and | for combining filters was most inspired. The only missing part is real prefix notation for it, but I guess I can manage without. =)

Regards

···

--
  Ola Bini (http://ola-bini.blogspot.com)
  JvYAML, RbYAML, JRuby and Jatha contributor
  System Developer, Karolinska Institutet (http://www.ki.se)
  OLogix Consulting (http://www.ologix.com)

  "Yields falsehood when quined" yields falsehood when quined.

5

Out of curiosity, what kind of identities are you storing in Exchange
(and maybe LDAP someday) to support your mobile CRM? are they people
who work for your company? or people who are your company's
customers/vendors/partners?

(I ask because I'm thinking ahead about some business-oriented
enhancements to the LDAP library.)

···

On 7/28/06, gregarican <greg.kujawa@gmail.com> wrote:

For this one task all I am doing is pulling the Exchange Server global
address book through LDAP and uploading the derived list to an upstream
provider that helps us filter out spam e-mail messages. It's just a
quick pull and the library you have made things a snap. It's all done
now.

There was another project I was considering moving to LDAP. Right now I
have a mobile CRM app that uses Exchange CDO for storing the contact
details. Rather than use this (clunky) storage method I am thinking
about moving the contact store over to an lighter weight LDAP tree. I
have OpenLDAP Server on my development box and did some modeling of how
things would work. Seems like a good possibility down the road
sometime. Right now things work fine in regards to what's already been
done. It's just a fine tuning matter to improve things whenever I find
the time.

Francis Cianfrocca wrote:
> Thanks. Let us know here if you hit any problems with the library or
> if you have any feature requests. Sounds like you may be doing more
> with Net::LDAP than just bind-authenticating users, so I'll be curious
> to follow your progress.
>
> On 7/28/06, gregarican <greg.kujawa@gmail.com> wrote:
> > After unsuccessfully trying to compile a Ruby LDAP implementation a
> > year or so ago I found another project on Rubyforge
> > (http://rubyforge.org/projects/net-ldap/\) that easily accomplished the
> > task in my Windows One-Click Installer Ruby environment. It was as easy
> > as typing in ruby setup.rb! I am so thankful for the good work
> > performed by the project maintainer(s) and wanted to express this. Now
> > I can work on automating some spam filtering with my upstream mail
> > scanning host. And do so using Ruby rather than an alternative
> > language. Once again, thanks for the job well done!
> >

6

Ola Bini wrote:
> filters was most inspired. The only missing part is real prefix
notation

for it, but I guess I can manage without. =)

Ola, if I understand you correctly, you're looking for standard RFC-2254
filter syntax. Things like (for example):
(&(objectclass=person)(mail=ola*))

If that's what you need, it's there now. Look in the Rdoc for
Net::LDAP::Filter#construct, which will accept a string like the above.
The reason we didn't support the standard filter syntax originally was
because IMHO it sucks :slight_smile: and we wanted to give people a better
alternative. The recommended way to do filters in Net::LDAP is with the
original API, but we supported the standard filter-syntax because
several people requested it.

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.

7

Francis Cianfrocca wrote:

Ola Bini wrote:
> filters was most inspired. The only missing part is real prefix notation

for it, but I guess I can manage without. =)

Ola, if I understand you correctly, you're looking for standard RFC-2254 filter syntax. Things like (for example): (&(objectclass=person)(mail=ola*))

If that's what you need, it's there now. Look in the Rdoc for Net::LDAP::Filter#construct, which will accept a string like the above. The reason we didn't support the standard filter syntax originally was because IMHO it sucks :slight_smile: and we wanted to give people a better alternative. The recommended way to do filters in Net::LDAP is with the original API, but we supported the standard filter-syntax because several people requested it.

Haha, yes, I know it's there, but not as language syntax. That was the neat part about the filter combinations, IMHO.

Regarding the standard LDAP filter syntax... well, I'm an avid Lisp lover, so, me likes it quite much. =) Each to his own. But your version is better from a Ruby perspective, of course.

···

--
  Ola Bini (http://ola-bini.blogspot.com)
  JvYAML, RbYAML, JRuby and Jatha contributor
  System Developer, Karolinska Institutet (http://www.ki.se)
  OLogix Consulting (http://www.ologix.com)

  "Yields falsehood when quined" yields falsehood when quined.

8

Ola Bini wrote:
> Haha, yes, I know it's there, but not as language syntax. That was
the

neat part about the filter combinations, IMHO.

Now I get it. So perhaps something like:

AND (filter-branch-1, filter-branch-2)

rather than:

filter-branch-1 & filter-branch-2

Correct?

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.