[ApacheDS] appropriate for enterprise application with self registration

[Greg Parker <gr...@brovada.com>]

I have been investigating ApacheDS for use with an enterprise 
application that I am developing.  A directory would seem to suit my 
data model perfectly.  However, one requirement is that I need to 
support self-registration.  Most of the use cases I have seen involve 
back-end administration of users, groups, et cetera.  Unfortunately, I 
won't know who my users are until they sign up.  Is there a reason I am 
not seeing more projects that use ApacheDS/LDAP in this way, or am I 
just looking in the wrong places? 

Re: [ApacheDS] appropriate for enterprise application with self registration

[Ersin Er <er...@gmail.com>]

Hi,

LDAP and ApacheDS in particular is quite appropriate for such a task.
But of course there is nothing like self-registration in LDAP nor in
RDBMS. It's an application level requirement. For implementing such a
registration model, you may have a special user who has only rights to
add new users. Each time a new user signs up your web app, you can run
an LDAP request with that special user. The request will be a regular
Add request with new user's info. For profile updates, you may still
use your special user or each user individually.

HTH,

On 6/5/07, Greg Parker <gr...@brovada.com> wrote:
> I have been investigating ApacheDS for use with an enterprise
> application that I am developing.  A directory would seem to suit my
> data model perfectly.  However, one requirement is that I need to
> support self-registration.  Most of the use cases I have seen involve
> back-end administration of users, groups, et cetera.  Unfortunately, I
> won't know who my users are until they sign up.  Is there a reason I am
> not seeing more projects that use ApacheDS/LDAP in this way, or am I
> just looking in the wrong places?
>


-- 
Ersin Er

R.A. and Ph.D Student at the Dept. of Computer Eng. in Hacettepe University
http://www.cs.hacettepe.edu.tr

Committer and PMC Member of The Apache Directory Project
http://directory.apache.org

Re: [ApacheDS] appropriate for enterprise application with self registration

[Alex Karasulu <ak...@apache.org>]

I think we talked about this a little bit with Peter Neubauer.

I think we are looking for an application that will allow users to change
their own
passwords, or reset them if they forget them.  For example a user may
register
with the self service application which creates an account for them on the
LDAP
server.  In the process the user enters their email address and perhaps the
answer to a question which they only know the answer to.  If the forget
their
password and need a reset they can go into the self service application and
request a reset which will ask them the answer to this question.

Some self service apps will send email to the user with a temp password and
reset this temp password so the user can then log in and change their old
temp
password.  Others may present a special URL with a key encoded in it
generated
to only allow them to change their password using that key for the next 30
minutes.  This URL is mailed to the user's email account etc.

I think we have a need for such tools here.  It would be nice to have a
little
project dedicated to performing these self service applications.  It would
be a
simple web app that we can add to as users needs increase.  Also we can
embed it into ApacheDS optionally if the web server is enabled on ApacheDS.

/me ducks as he suggests this is the start to AD web studio :)

Alex

On 6/5/07, Emmanuel Lecharny <el...@apache.org> wrote:
>
> Greg Parker a écrit :
>
> > I have been investigating ApacheDS for use with an enterprise
> > application that I am developing.  A directory would seem to suit my
> > data model perfectly.  However, one requirement is that I need to
> > support self-registration.  Most of the use cases I have seen involve
> > back-end administration of users, groups, et cetera.  Unfortunately, I
> > won't know who my users are until they sign up.  Is there a reason I
> > am not seeing more projects that use ApacheDS/LDAP in this way, or am
> > I just looking in the wrong places?
>
> Hi Greg,
>
> there is absolutly nothing that forbid you to use a Ldap server to
> register users on the fly. The only thing you will have to do is to
> delegate the creation of this user to and admin account.
>
> Now, I'm not sure that it fits with what you call 'self-registration'.
> Can you elaborate a little bit more about it ?
>
> Thanks !
>
> Emmanuel
>
>
>

Re: [ApacheDS] appropriate for enterprise application with self registration

[Emmanuel Lecharny <el...@apache.org>]

Greg Parker a écrit :

> I have been investigating ApacheDS for use with an enterprise 
> application that I am developing.  A directory would seem to suit my 
> data model perfectly.  However, one requirement is that I need to 
> support self-registration.  Most of the use cases I have seen involve 
> back-end administration of users, groups, et cetera.  Unfortunately, I 
> won't know who my users are until they sign up.  Is there a reason I 
> am not seeing more projects that use ApacheDS/LDAP in this way, or am 
> I just looking in the wrong places?

Hi Greg,

there is absolutly nothing that forbid you to use a Ldap server to 
register users on the fly. The only thing you will have to do is to 
delegate the creation of this user to and admin account.

Now, I'm not sure that it fits with what you call 'self-registration'. 
Can you elaborate a little bit more about it ?

Thanks !

Emmanuel