Re: authenticating with netscape messenger

[Andrew J Cosgriff <ajc@polydistortion.net>]

Michael David wrote :

> I set up the OpenLDAP server on my GNU/Linux box,

[...]

> Then I tried to get it working with Netscape Messenger 4.74.
> Netscape asks you for an E-MAIL ADDRESS and password to log in
> with. Then it binds to the LDAP server with dn="" and searches for
> "(mail=something)" where "something" is the e-mail address you
> offered it.

You can customize this, see
http://developer.netscape.com/docs/manuals/communicator/ldap45.htm

Their rationale for searching on something to find the DN, as quoted
from that URL, seems to be :

"However, LDAP authentication uses a distinguished name (DN) and a
password, not a user name and password.  Since relatively few users
know their DN, and probably fewer can type it correctly, Communicator
will try to find the DN based on the value of some other attribute."

Alternatively, you could set people's DN in their
~~/.netscape/preferences.js like so :

user_pref ("ldap_2.servers.megacorp.auth.dn", ""); 

(The document says pref("... but you'll notice in your preferences.js
file that it's all user_pref("...)

Hope this helps,
 Andrew
-- 
Andrew J Cosgriff <ajc@polydistortion.net> "I'm beginning to glow...forever !"