LDAP Authentication, Part One

Linux’s multi-user nature is very helpful in many situations. Universities often have public terminals at which students, faculty, and staff may work; Web servers, mail servers, file servers, and other servers usually have multiple users; and even personal computers at home may be shared by multiple users. Linux allows one or more users to share the same hardware simultaneously. In many of these environments, though, a problem arises: How do you manage the accounts for multiple users on multiple computers?

Managing many users on a single computer is easy — you can use Linux’s useradd, usermod, and passwd utilities, among other tools. But as the number of computers grows, administering user accounts becomes increasingly tedious and error-prone. Imagine trying to keep the accounts of hundreds or thousands of users synchronized across hundreds of computers!

Fortunately, Unix systems (and hence Linux) have long supported network authentication tools, such…

1. Remove Remote Connectivity Static with Dynamic DNS
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