[Fedora-directory-users] Re:Certificate authentication with SASL External

[Howard Chu]

> From: Rob Crittenden <rcritten at redhat.com>
>
> Yann wrote:
>   
>> Thanks Richard,
>>
>> but this howto explain how to to match DN certificate to LDAP entry... my
>> problem is; i don't want to have a corresponding entry in LDAP directory...
>>
>> I want to be identify only by the DN in the certificate, and match some ACL..
>> that all. No need to have an entry in the LDAP.
>>
>> If it's possible in DS...
>>     
>
> So you want to bind to the directory server with a valid client 
> certificate for a user that doesn't exist? For what purpose?
>   

There is no reason to assume any connection between SASL identities and 
LDAP directory entries. Moreover, in a true distributed directory 
system, there's no reason to assume that an entry for a valid user is 
present on every DSA in the system. Of course, the folks who developed 
LDAP didn't understand this essential bit of X.500, so it's no surprise 
that you're unfamiliar with distributed authentication. Remember that 
authentication is not the same as authorization - having the valid 
certificate just proves who you are to the server; the server doesn't 
have to accord you any privileges/authorization just because of that.

-- 
  -- Howard Chu
  Chief Architect, Symas Corp.  http://www.symas.com
  Director, Highland Sun        http://highlandsun.com/hyc
  OpenLDAP Core Team            http://www.openldap.org/project/