LDAP to manage user accounts across sites
 

Has anyone tried to use LDAP to manage a users account across several vBulletin boards? Is this possible and how would you execute it?

Someone recently released an mod that authenticates users off of what is in an LDAP directory so its possible but you will need a way to update LDAP with new user registerations.

edit: Link to mod:
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...highlight=LDAP


I was recently wondering if it would be easier to install LDAP and authenticate multiple forums off of that or if it would be easier to mod one VB to act as the master and change the mod around so other vb installs authenticated against the master install.

Reeve,

Thanks for the link. I also found a version via Google search at: http://www.sartori.at/index.php?n=pages/vbext

I was thinking the same thing as you were for having one master vB, the problem will be how many sites you have (I think). Because to have it reference off a master vB it would be easier if all the tables for each site are in the same database. That could me 1,300 tables if you run 10 sites.

LDAP is probably the best way to go and I'll check out the link you posted to the mod here.

Issue I see:

1. If you create an account there will need to be a serive that updates the LDAP with new users as you pointed out. This also means you will want each record in the LDAP unique for each user so during the registration process you'll have to check the LDAP (all sites vb_user basically) to ensure the username is not taken.

Oh yeah and another problem I saw with vb to vb population is how would you control password and email updates between sites? that can get ugly.

when using ldap as master db and some vbulletin installations to use the ldap user database, you "just" have to write some small php applications to update email address and other attributes in ldap.

really not much to say.

-fhs

I personally wouldnt use Vbulletin to manage LDAP entries. LDAP is much bigger than VB and capable of doing much more. It would be better doing it the other way (VB feeds off LDAP).

To answer your original question..... yes you could use LDAP to manage multiple boards. In your case, you would need to import the plugin into every Vbulletin board. If you do this, users would seemlessly (spelling?) be able to login to multiple Vbulletin boards. If I had multiple boards, I would disable their ability to change their e-mail address, password etc. within VBulletin aswell. Always get them to change it in LDAP because it is the mother ship!

If you read my first post in my LDAP modification thread I've explained what the script does. It may be clearer then what you could do (dont wanna re-type it all here ;) ). If your not clear, let me know and I'll try and explain better.
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=145188