Address book - LDAP or MySQL? - PHP

Ed,

Im not sure if OpenLDAP or other can use a different backed, such as MySQL.
I suspect there would be a server to support this, but it would almost
certainly define the table structure in the database of choice. From the
sound of it there are ways to change the information model of X.500 (when
using OpenLDAP) to manipulate the structure of the internal database, but
telling the LDAP server to use a different database seems to be out of the
question. this, based upon some light research this morning.
if you want to expose an LDAP layer to clients of the CRM application you
would likely have to batch some sort of import process to a new LDAP server
installation. Also, you would have to support synchronization of the data
in the LDAP servers database and the MySQL database of your CRM application
using the LDAP as an interface.
plus i dont think its too far off OP's topic, because this is something that
would have to be considered in the LDAP implementation he was curious about
in the first place.

-nathan

On 6/29/07, Edward Kay <edward@labhut.com> wrote:
>
> > On 6/29/07, Jay Blanchard <jblanchard@pocket.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > [snip]
> > > As I understand it, LDAP and MySQL offer two different ways
> > > of setting up a networked address book.
> > > So I take it they can be compared as far as that is concerned.
> > >
> > > Actually, I normally run Linux, so Active Directory
> > > would not be a priority for me.
> > >
> > > I didn't say LDAP was a database.
> > > However, the principal usage of LDAP, as far as I can see
> > > (by googling for LDAP) is in fact
> > > to set up a network address book of some kind.
> > > It may be used for other purposes,
> > > but they are not really relevant to my enquiry.
> > > [/snip]
>
> PHP/MySQL/LDAP integration is something I've been thinking about for a
> little while too.
>
> I've built a CRM system in PHP with a MySQL database and would like the
> contact info to be available to our users in their email programs. LDAP
> seems a good (the only?) option for this due to support in Outlook etc.
>
> From my understanding, LDAP is just a defined protocol for accessing
> directory data. The data must be stored somewhere else, in my case the
> MySQL
> database.
>
> In order to access the data using a LDAP, you need to set-up an LDAP
> server
> (e.g. OpenLDAP). What I haven't looked into much yet is how to interface
> the
> LDAP server to the MySQL database...
>
> I know this isn't too helpful to the OP's question - just wanted to
> register
> my interest in the topic and (hopefully) stimulate conversation.
>
> Edward
>
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>
>

Nathan Nobbe wrote:
>> On 6/29/07, Jay Blanchard <jblanchard@pocket.com> wrote:
>> Twas me. LDAP is not a database it is a protocol for accessing a
>> directory service which is the abstraction layer for the actual data
>> repository namespace.
>
> And an LDAP server will typically house said repository namespace. Like
> OpenLDAP using BerkDB.
> I think thats where people are getting confused. The difference between
> LDAP as a protocol and LDAP servers,
> which incorporate the protocol and the directory storage.
> (please correct me if im wrong [like i had to ask ])

You are totally correct. That's why I posted to Jay's original reply as
it wasn't particularly helpful in that it basically said "LDAP is not a
database" and left it at that.

For the vast majority of scenarios, you can just consider "LDAP" (when
referencing an LDAP server) as a database of sorts, just with a
different query interface to std SQL

Lots of things integrate with LDAP and since deploying it in my office
we've continually found new uses for it due to extensive support in lots
of applications, web based and desktop alike.

Col