• Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security

    Starting OpenLDAP on Mac OS X Client

    LDAP is included, by default, installed on every copy of Mac OS X. For Mac OS X Servers its easiest to get LDAP up and running, given that you have a nice handy graphical means of manipulating LDAP in the Open Directory features of Server Admin and Workgroup Manager. But what about Mac OS X Client. It may be easier than you think… To setup OpenLDAP in Mac OS X, we’ll do three quick tasks. The first is to set a password and the second is to put the password into the configuration file and the third is to start the daemon. To create that password, we’re going to use…

  • Active Directory,  Mac OS X Server,  Unix

    Samba 4: A Poor Mans Active Directory

    Today I pulled down the Samba 4 binaries and installed it using the instructions the developers are slowly building on the Samba 4 wiki. Overall it was a fairly painless experience, although I do believe I have a couple of bug reports to file (not surprising considering it is not out yet). Overall I found the process to be far easier than it has been in the past. The Samba team seems to realize that in order for Samba 4 to compete with Active Directory that it needs to integrate really well in the *nix server ecosystem. For example, like Active Directory you can choose to have Samba integrate into…

  • Mac OS X Server

    Moving the LDAP Database in Open Directory

    Before you start moving anything around, first stop LDAP: launchctl stop org.openldap.slapd To move the LDAP database for Open Directory, just use the following command (assuming you would like to save to /Volumes/target/openldap/data – although you can use another URI if you choose): cp -prnv /var/db/openldap/data /Volumes/target/openldap/data Once moved you can alter the location that Mac OS X Server looks for the data by typing in a new path using the LDAP tab of the Open Directory listing in the SERVERS list of Server Admin. Once you’re all done, fire up LDAP again using the following command and test: launchctl start org.openldap.slapd