Re: Need help determining cause of login problem

Jürgen Starek skrev, on 16-02-2008 18:04:

> Is there a list available anywhere that gives possible reasons for error
> messages?

Apparently not, as far as OpenLDAP is concerned. This was "up" as late
as today in one of the 2/4 official OpenLDAP lists, with Pier-Angelo
Masarati asking Gavin Henry if he couldn't do anything about it.

As far as I'm concerned, recognizing these error numbers at OL log level
Stats level has been an ever-increasingly important factor as LDAP
continues to mean more and more to my sites. No where to go to get
values, just recognize. The importance has been highlighted by Red Hat
itself, who permits itself to charge US$ 15.000 per annum support for
each OL or RHDS master server installation and about the half for each
slave. If I charged the half for both, I'd long have had more money than
I do have.

> Without your mail, I would not have guessed that sending pam_ldap
> to look in a non-existing search base might lead to "No such object", "No
> such search base" might have been more appropriate as the object /is/ in the
> directory, albeit with a different dn...

That's what error 32 is about. Invariably it comes from people trying to
do things to a database/directory suffix that hasn't itself yet been
initiated.

>> Again Googling, here's how Michael Hammer does it:
>>
>> http://tugll.tugraz.at/88684/weblog/3682.html
>
> Well, I'm truly grateful for each tutorial or howto anyone puts on the web.

Watch out. People stuff the word HOWTO into everything, most often don't
date what they write and, most importantly, most of what they write is
trash anyway. I wouldn't have passed Michael Hammer's writeup to you if
I hadn't vetted it myself first and found it kosher.

> I
> just wish they'd explain the meaning of options used and some alternatives...
> (Yes, I'll go and improve the howto on the Debian wiki once this is done.
> Promise.)

*NEVER, NEVER* attempt to write any "HOWTO" about anything. A good
example is sexual seduction. *DO NOT*. Simply explain what worked for
you, and *ALWAYS* write the date and all software versions. *ALWAYS* the
best source of information is the software vendor's documentation and if
this doesn't suffice, your quarrel is with the vendor himself, not the
end user.

Best,

--Tonni

--
Tony Earnshaw
Email: tonni at hetnet dot nl