Configuring User Accounts › LDAP Directory Data

LDAP Directory Data

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) is a network communications protocol for querying and modifying directory services running over a TCP/IP network. An LDAP directory is a tree structure that contains entries for managing users, groups, computers, printers, and other entities on a network.

CA Service Desk Manager can be configured to access an LDAP directory, which allows you to use LDAP data in several ways:

• Synchronize contacts with LDAP user records. Synchronization can occur in the following ways:
  • At login—When a user logs in to the product, if an LDAP record exists for that user but a corresponding contact record does not exist, a contact record is automatically created based on the LDAP information.
  • New Contact—When you manually create a contact record, you can select an LDAP record and merge its attribute values with their corresponding fields in the new contact record.
  • Batch Update—You can run batch jobs to automate the processes of importing and updating contact records with information from the corresponding LDAP records.

    Note: Synchronization with LDAP is a one-way process. LDAP data can be used to create and update contacts, but the product does not support updates to the LDAP directory.

• Assign CA Service Desk Manager access types based on LDAP group membership.
• Implement an alternative method of performing CA Service Desk Manager authentication.

Note: The ldap_virtb component provides LDAP integration functionality, is installed with CA Service Desk Manager by default, and can run on either a primary or secondary server, regardless of operating system type. For information, see the Implementation Guide. The $NX_ROOT/bopcfg/majic/ldap.maj file specifies the mapping between LDAP attributes and contact record attributes.

Important! CA Service Desk Manager requires that LDAP records have an entry in the last name field in order to search, view, and import the LDAP data.

Important! CA Service Desk Manager supports paged searching, which searches all records in your LDAP directory. Paged searching also enables you to import new contact records or sync existing contact records from any number of LDAP records. These capabilities are limited, however, if you are using SunOne Directory Server or Novell eDirectory because these LDAP servers do not support paged searching. In that case, you can only search, import, and sync with the number of LDAP records specified by NX_LDAP_MAX_FETCH. For more information, see NX.env File.