wanted: alternative to LDAP

[Gerhard Häring]

Anthony Baxter wrote:
> I'm looking for something (usable from python) that provides networked
> directory/registry type functionality to a bunch of Linux and Solaris servers.
> LDAP's one alternative, but the LDAP servers are heavy heavy beasts, so I was
> hoping for something that's actually lightweight, rather than "lighter than
> X.500".

The term "leightweight" doesn't say much to me. I don't care if a 
process takes 1 or 2 MB ;-) What I do care about is ease of 
configuration and that's why I use PostgreSQL in places other people use 
LDAP: system users, mail accounts, mail forwarding, domain management, 
etc. for a virtual hosting solution.

The reason for going to an RDBMS instead of LDAP were for me:

a) I know relational databases quite well
b) I know some LDAP, but always found it a pain to work with
c) The open source tools for editing LDAP data are quite weak

The only advantage LDAP would have over a RDBMS to me is that OpenLDAP 
seems to have integrated replication mechanisms.

I reckon you wouldn't call an RDBMS more leightweight than LDAP, but I 
don't think there are many alternatives apart from LDAP and RDBMS. Well, 
there's NIS if for some reason you didn't know about it, yet :)

-- Gerhard