Renaissance Grrrl

Today's task: screw Solaris, let's try to get a linux client running.

So at work they have me switching over the network from NIS to LDAP for a network of a couple hundred machines on a mixed network of Solaris10 and linux (Ubuntu). Now, the basic idea of LDAP is pretty easy and there are a number of books that'll teach it to you like O'Reilly's take on the subject. Unfortunately once you get past the basic introduction to what it is, the documentation peters out.

Documentation is important. In fact that's the very First Law of Language Design: a language is only as good as its documentation. The documentation for LDAP is like the documentation for an extremely proprietary product intended only for use by governments and very large corporations. First of all there's very little of it. Secondly what documentation there is goes into excruciating and technical detail of very specific and often esoteric facets of the product, but makes no attempt whatsoever to answer basic questions nor mention how one is to actually use it. Thirdly, what brief discussions there are of how to do half of a basic task only discuss a different model (openldap) than the one we're using, which is of course incompatible with ours (SunONE DS5.2).

Back when I started this blog I started it with the hopes of collecting my thoughts and experiences as I navigate the world of IT and F/OSS in particular. While oft I've been defunct at doing so, I think for this project especially it's important to keep a log of my discoveries so that others in my position may learn from my tribulations. And now, onward to the first colossi to be slain.

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