[PATCH] Local password database

[simo]

On Fri, 2006-07-14 at 16:15 +1000, Andrew Bartlett wrote:
> This patch, developed in my efforts to have Samba4 back onto an arbitary
> LDAP server, provides a local password database, for remote entries.
> 
> The local_password module takes advantage of the partitions module to
> redirect password-like attributes to a different partition.  There are a
> few use cases:
>  - Testing against AD.  We could aim the main partition at AD, and use
> the passwords module to keep local passwords, where we can put them with
> SamSync (as they are not available to read on LDAP)
> 
>  - Backing Samba4 onto a non-LDAP authentication system.  I am working
> with a system where the passwords are not in LDAP, but are instead
> synchronized between all systems by another deamon.  This system ensures
> multi-master operation (better than what OpenLDAP can do), because with
> passwords, the last writer always wins.  
> 
> I was asked to post these patches for seperate review, so here is the
> local_password module, and it's required changes. 

1 comment and 1 questions.

You seem to not check if there is anything in the msg after you remove
all passwords elements on modify.

Why do you keep the passwords in the same ldap tree through a partition?
I do not think they should be exposed at all directly, I would just open
a completely separate ldb on module initialization and store the
passwords there.

Why don't you create an alternative password_hash module in this case?
It would make more sense to me to handle all password related stuff in a
single module and choose which module to use based on what we need to
do.

> The main questions I have are: should I commit this module, and should
> it be enabled by default?

I am not sure this is the right way and we are adding a lot of stuff
about passwords with our custom fields that we will need to change
later, I'd like to use the same attribute names Windows use for
compatibility so that you do not even have to strip them out before
committing changes (we want an eventual AD backend and our LDAP to be in
sync don't we?).
As we are storing the passwords in a separate db it does not matter
whether the storage format is the same or not.

I would not definitely not enable this by default. I see all the LDAP
backend stuff as optional. I want to be sure we do not depend on it.

Simo.

-- 
Simo Sorce
Samba Team GPL Compliance Officer
email: idra at samba.org
http://samba.org