IDS 9.4 and LDAP

We currently are on IDS 7.31 on a HPUX box, and will be upgrading to IDS 9.4 in the near future and have been asked in IDS 9.4 if it is possible to authenticate access to the database using LDAP server instead of using the Unix user password. I thought I read somewhere this is possible to do this, is it? Or was I just dreaming it up? We get out license through our 3rd party provider so manuals and other documentation is not passed down to us. So if there this is documented somewhere on the net can you send me the link? John David Adamski Information Systems Specialist Graceland University sending to informix-list

John Adamski wrote: > We currently are on IDS 7.31 on a HPUX box, and will be upgrading to IDS > 9.4 in the near future and have been asked in IDS 9.4 if it is possible > to authenticate access to the database using LDAP server instead of > using the Unix user password. > > I thought I read somewhere this is possible to do this, is it? Or was I > just dreaming it up? We get out license through our 3rd party provider > so manuals and other documentation is not passed down to us. So if > there this is documented somewhere on the net can you send me the link? > > John David Adamski > Information Systems Specialist > Graceland University > > sending to informix-list It's possible... But you have to check that you fill all the pre-requisites. This is done by using PAM (Pluggin Authentication Modules). Basically this is a library that IDS uses to authenticate the users according to the configuration you define. This configuration specifies which modules are used. As such, teoretically you can authenticate in whatever system you find a module to. PAM is not supported on all platforms (basically because PAM is not supported on every platform). Linux, Solaris are in both 32 and 64 bits, AIX and HP-UX I think only in 32bits. Also, the way connections are made are relevant. I'm not sure about all the details, but it depends on the connection type (trusted, or explicit) and also depends on the client application. You should check the 9.40 documentation (admin guide and release notes) but before making a decision you should contact IBM Informix support. You also need to know if there is a module for PAM-LDAP on HP-UX. If there isn't you probably can compile one that is OSS. But verify everything before assuming you can or can't do it. It IS possible, but has a lot of pre-requisites. I personnaly am a big fan of PAM, but unfortunatley AFAIK outside Linux it's a bit unsupported. Regards.