Help setting up active directory authentication using LDAP and apache 2 running under windows 2003 server

Hi everyone, I'm currently evaluating foswiki as an upgrade from our current Twiki 4.3.1 install.

I have used the following guide to complete the installation:

http://foswiki.org/Support/InstallOverviewWindowsApacheActivePerl

As part of the setup I configured apache login, as detailed on the following page:

http://foswiki.org/Support/InstallStepConfigureApacheLoginWindowsApacheActivePerl

My next challege is to configure the server to use active directory and to map our domain user accounts to foswiki user accounts.

I have found the following guide, which details how to set up authentication using kerberos and mod_auth_kerb.

http://foswiki.org/Support/Windows2003Authentication

However, the guide assumes that you are running foswiki under linux rather than windows.

I have installed kerberos for windows but haven't had a great deal of luck finding a guide on how to set up mod_auth_kerb.

I'm also starting to wonder whether kerberos is entirely necessary, and whether I can just use LDAP.

My knowledge of these technologies is quite limited so apologies if I haven't quite got my terminology right

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Steve

I've just finished setting up our Foswiki to allow LDAP connection, and there was no kerberos involved.

I installed the LdapContrib and after settting up the right configure options, we are now able to login to our Foswiki installation using our usual Windows network usernames and passwords.

The perl CPAN dependancies could be a problem if your using ActiveStatePerl, I installed StrawberryPerl which negates these issues. You will also need to install BerkeleyDB which is fairly straightforward.

My IT group gave me access to an LDAP browser so I could work out the correct rules to configure Extensions.LDAPContrib with. I found installing the companion LdapNgPlugin helped with refining this, not to mention providing some useful output to build into some Topics.

One pitfall I came across is that LdapContrib uses DB_File to cache user entries. On a couple of occasions this stopped working. I tracked this down to a temporary copy of the cache. If the temporary copy exists then LdapContrib assumes that a cache refresh is already underway - and stops refreshing the cache. In normal operation, with multiple requests being served that makes sense. However, for some reason the temporary file was not deleted after an earlier refresh. I was able to delete the temporary copy and the refresh works fine.

-- JulianLevens - 28 Apr 2010