The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol provides a low-overhead method
of accessing the X.500 directory. It runs directly over TCP, and makes several
simplifications to full X.500 DAP, leaving out many of the lesser-used features.
LDAP uses primitive string encodings for most data elements, making it more
efficient and easier to implement than DAP. We have developed a freely available
reference implementation of LDAP which has been ported to several platforms,
including UNIX, VMS, PC, and Macintosh. Our intermediate-server-based implementation
introduces little delay over full DAP, produces smaller protocol exchanges,
and results in smaller and less complex clients. Our implementation is freely
available:
ftp://terminator.rs.itd.umich.edu/ldap/ldap.tar.Z
There is also an LDAP discussion list joinable by sending email to: ldap-request@umich.edu