Future Directions for LDAP

The following are the main areas in which extensions to LDAP are being discussed within the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF):

  • Authentication and privacy. The only standardized authentication means in LDAP as of mid-1999 is simple authentication, which requires the client to pass a distinguished name (DN) and a password to the server in cleartext. Discussion is under way on another mandatory authentication method that makes use of a digest, eliminating the need to pass cleartext passwords over a network. Most current LDAP servers support use of the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) for encrypting a session, typically through use of a dedicated port to ensure secure connections. SSL support will be standardized in the ...

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