Alternate LDAP server

[Richard H.]

Is this option possible?

It would be useful to add an alternate LDAP server option to the DL's LDAP configuration screen. We have our LDAP servers on a cluster and contained in LDAP itself are details of which server would act as the 'fail safe' if the current server failed.

It would be really neat if this was simply a check-box and if enabled, the DL was then able to read which server was the 'fail safe' directly from LDAP. If this was possible (this info is located in RootDSE using the first element altServer (there seems to be four different entries for this element, but only the first would be required)) then the DL could act on this info it was unable to connect the specified LDAP server.

e.g. altServer ldaps://xx.x.xx.xx:636/

This gives you the IP address of the server and the post (in this case, SSL is on). This info exists on both LDAP servers and they point at each other (e.g. 10.1.1.4 would have 10.1.1.5:636/ as the altServer and 10.1.1.5 would have 10.1.1.4:636/ instead.

Obviously, the DL will always connect to the first LDAP server it is able to find. However, if that server doesn't respond and the 'enable alternate server connection' option is enabled, then it would then go to the other server (assuming that the info has been read from the LDAP server already and stored somewhere in the DL for future reference).

If this can't be done using the altServer element, then maybe just a second input box to the LDAP configuration screen which allows you to specify a second LDAP server IP address.

[Richard H. (richard-hewison)]

I'm assuming that the latter suggestion (typing in an alternate LDAP server if the first one fails) would be the simplest method - but is this suggestion feasible/possible?

[Richard H. (richard-hewison)]

When configuring the LDAP acl_users folder in Zope, you have an option to add an LDAP server (ip address, port). You end up with the LDAP configuration followed by a list of servers. It sounds like this is so Zope can try out the next server if the previous one isn't available. If this is true, then this is exactly what we want for the DL. Does anyone know if that is how it works in Zope?