Directory services
The server supports the following directory service methods:
- Network Information Service (NIS)
- Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)
These services associate identifiers with users, groups, devices, volumes, folders, and other network resources. This functionality enables Administrators to specify policies for access on a broad basis, rather than explicitly on a per-resource basis, and to have this information accessible throughout the network.
NIS (for NFS and FTP)
NIS databases provide simple management and administration of Unix-based networks. These databases can provide details about users and groups, and also individual client machines (including IP address and host name), to facilitate authentication for users logging in to clients on the network.
The server supports integration with NIS directory services which can provide the following:
- NFS user and group account information retrieval
- Name services for resolving host names to IP addresses
- FTP user authentication
LDAP advantages
Many organizations are replacing their existing NIS infrastructure with the more reliable, scalable and secure LDAP system. In addition to providing the same services as NIS (user and group information retrieval, name service resolution, and FTP user authentication), LDAP also provides the following advantages:
- Improved accuracy, due to LDAP’s more frequent data synchronization of current and replicated data
- Communications encryption using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS)
- Authentication of connections to the LDAP database, instead of anonymous access to NIS databases
The server supports LDAP version 2 and 3 (the default is version 3), including two of the most common LDAP service implementations:
- Oracle Directory Server
- OpenLDAP