Documentation:LDAP
From UGCS
LDAP on UGCS
UGCS uses LDAP, the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, to store basic "directory information". This includes the contents of /etc/passwd for most users, as well as additional settings for mail and other services. See the Wikipedia page on LDAP for more information.
Our LDAP servers are ldap-head.ugcs.caltech.edu and ldap-backup.ugcs.caltech.edu. They support SSL (you will need our CA certificate) as well as kerberos authentication, and can be used from outside UGCS if you wish.
Below we have a description of the most common (and some uncommon) ldap entries for a UGCS user. These entries can be easily edited with ldapedit. If you run ldapedit without any arguments, it will print a list of ldap entries for your user.
You can look at any ldap entry using "ldapsearch". This command takes a ldap search filter. You will probably want to use
ldapsearch uid=<username>
to look for a given user's entry. Some of the fields may be base64 encoded. If you see a field that looks like a bunch of gibberish, try running it through base64 decode. For example, if a user's gecos field was "Sm9zaHVhIEh1dGNoaW5zLCwsIA==", you could run
echo "Sm9zaHVhIEh1dGNoaW5zLCwsIA==" | base64 -d
which would print out "Joshua Hutchins,,,"- the correct text. ldapedit does this automatically for you.
How to edit settings
You can edit settings using ldapedit
ldapedit -modify <attribute> <value> ldapedit -modify roomNumber 'MyRoom 123' ldapedit -add <attribute> <value>
User Information
- cn: Common name, usually your full name
- sn: Surname (your last name)
- givenName: Your first name
- gecos: The gecos information field. Traditionally contains your name, phone number, address, etc
- mobile: Your cell phone number
- homePhone: Your home phone number
- homePostalAddress: Your mailing address
- roomNumber: Your current room number (can include your building too)
Account information
With the exception of loginShell, you can't change these.
- uidNumber: Your UNIX uid
- uid: Your UNIX username
- loginShell: Your login shell (use chsh to change it)
- homeDirectory: Your home directory
Mail settings
See also email basics
- mail: Your primary mail address (just the username, not @ugcs.caltech.edu). You shouldn't change this
- mailForwardingAddress: Email address(es) you want your mail forwarded to
- deliveryMethod: If it is set to "forwardOnly", mail will not be kept locally when it is forwarded. Otherwise, it should be set to "normal", where mail will be kept on UGCS.
- mailAlternateAddress: An alternate address to receive mail at. Mail sent to this address will be delivered to you. It can have @ugcs.caltech.edu, or just be the mail name part. You cannot directly edit this setting through ldap- see email aliases for more information.
Spam settings
- amavisSpamKillLevel: A decimal number. If an email scores above this threshold (from spamassassin), it will be silently discarded. Most mail with scores about 2 or 3 are definitely spam. Our default kill level is 4.5
- amavisSpamTag2Level: A decimal like spamKillLevel. Mail that scores above this will have ***SPAM*** added to its subject line.
- amavisWhitelistSender: An email address to whitelist. If you have an address that consistently gets marked as spam but is not, please let us know .
- amavisBlacklistSender: An email address to blacklist.
There are other less relevant amavis settings- almost any amavis setting can be configured through ldap.
Website Directory
These settings control your listing in our user directory
- listWebsite: TRUE or FALSE, whether or not your site will appear.
- websiteShortDesc: An optional string with a short description of your website. If you leave it blank (the default), it will use your name
- websiteURL: An optional URL to point to. If left blank, it defaults to your UGCS website ( ~username/)
