Using LDAP for authentication?

["Matt Harp" <mharp@seapine.com>]

Hey all,

Possibly a bit off-topic, but I'm not sure where else to go...

I'm a little confused as to how exactly to use LDAP authentication.
Basically, I have a client which logs into my application's server and I
want to use LDAP to do the logging in part. So, users setup a LDAP server
configuration which points to their LDAP server, then they can enter a
user/password that exists in that LDAP server. My client then takes that and
asks the LDAP server if it's valid. If so, then I connect to me server and
go on about my business. Basically I want to allow users to use a LDAP
server to store user information instead of storing it in my apps server.

So, is doing a bind with the configured LDAP server all I need to do to
support this? Or is LDAP more likely just setup as a source of data and I
have to login is an admin and pull down the given user/password and compare
it within my own client?

Does any of this make sense?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I've spent way too much time googling
on this and cannot seem to find a definitive explanation of how LDAP is
used.

-harpstein