[ANNOUNCE] python-ad

[Michael Ströder]

David Leonard wrote:
>   Geert Jansen wrote:
>> Michael Ströder wrote:
>>> Well, setting an env var is not really a good choice when running within
>>> a multi-threaded web application... :-/
> 
> yet another reason to avoid threads? :)

The multi-threaded approach gives me the possibility to use persistent 
LDAP connections. This is much faster.

> Recapping the (interesting) problem: Michael wanted to pick out the 
> delegated creds from an SPNEGO auth'd request, convey them down to the 
> SASL GSSAPI auth underneath an LDAP bind. And have it all work inside a 
> threaded web server.

Exactly. ;-)

> If the request handler is a python script, then you would get a separate 
> python process for each request, and setenving KRB5CCNAME to a temporary 
> cred cache file for the delegated ticket is straightforward.

This would be easy, but that's not how web2ldap works.

> I know, 
> because I've done this. But let's say you want to be interesting and use 
> mod_python and have python-ldap code and sasl-gssapi running inside the 
> web server's thread. In this case, you might arrange for the spnego auth 
> to export the krb5 in-memory cred cache via an apache request note. 

I'd rather prefer to even extract the SPNEGO from the HTTP header within 
my web app since I don't need a Kerberos module for Apache then. And 
web2ldap runs also as a stand-alone server which is pretty handy in many 
situations.

> However, when it comes time to prepare the SASL GSSAPI environment, you 
> get stuck because there seems to be no way to communicate to the krb5 
> mechanism under sasl which cred cache to use for auth.

Yupp. I already talked to Howard Chu about whether it's possible to 
change the OpenLDAP API (sasl_interactive_bind()) in this regard.

> I think it would just be easier to avoid threads when using GSSAPI. 

:-(

Ciao, Michael.