[TriLUG] New Server Question, Part I - LDAP

[Ryan Leathers]

Warren,

I'll just comment on the last question. Knowledge of LDAP is 
tremendously valuable to me as an employer. Even if LDAP is overkill for 
a home network, experience with it is great.  I suspect you'll get 
several replies encouraging you to dabble in it just for the fun and 
experience. This  is the attitude that makes TriLUG great.

Over the past several years, I have been in a position to interview lots 
of job candidates. I've had great success hiring TriLUG members. Just 
counting them up, there have been at least 8 that I found one way or 
another through TriLUG.  They have all shared two traits: being wicked 
smart,  and having dabbled in all kinds of  useful things.  LDAP 
definitely makes the list as a useful thing.

-Ryan


Warren Weber wrote:
> Pardon the start of a series of questions, but I have just rebuilt a 
> server to support our general household as well as providing a 
> technical sandbox for myself and technically inclined spouse.
>
> The new server is openSUSE 10.3 (chosen because that is what my 
> spouse's company has standardized on).  It will serve as our domain's 
> Web, mail, and applications server.  At this point I am starting to set 
> up the Postfix mail server portion.  Out of the box, it wants to connect 
> to an LDAP server (reading on alt.os.linux.suse, I understand that is 
> not required).  Now, my spouse's company uses LDAP (altough 
> they're a TAD bit bigger than my setup) and she thinks it would be A 
> Good Idea to have one here too.  Being totally unfamiliar with LDAP, I 
> come to y'all for some enlightenment.
>
> So, my questions ...
>
> - Would it be a good idea to have an LDAP server at home?
> - What can I do other than with LDAP other than make Postfix happy 
> (ultimately, there will be more computers, both UNIX and Windoze, on 
> our home network that could use it)?
> - Would LDAP adminstration be a good skill for someone (me) to 
> have?
>
> Many thanks!
> Warren
>
>