Arthur de Jong

Open Source / Free Software developer

current | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006

News in 2010

  • 2010-12-30: release 0.8.0 of nss-pam-ldapd
    This is the first release in the 0.8 series of nss-pam-ldapd, a new development branch of nss-pam-ldapd in which a number of new features and implementations are introduced. As such, this isn't the most stable version of nss-pam-ldapd but users are urged to try out this release and send feedback.
    Note that the 0.7 branch will be supported with bug and security fixes at least until the 0.8 branch has stabilised.
    A summary of the changes since 0.7.13:
    • include Solaris support developed by Ted C. Cheng of Symas Corporation
    • include an experimental partial implementation of nslcd in Python (disabled by default, see --enable-pynslcd configure option)
    • implement a nss_min_uid option to filter user entries returned by LDAP
    • implement a rootpwmodpw option that allows the root user to change a user's password without a password prompt
    • try to update the shadowLastChange attribute on password change
    • all log messages now include a description of the request to more easily track problems when not running in debug mode
    • allow attribute mapping expressions for the userPassword attribute for passwd, group and shadow entries and by default map it to the unmatchable password ("*") to avoid accidentally leaking password information
    • numerous compatibility improvements
    • add --with-pam-seclib-dir and --with-pam-ldap-soname configure options to allow more control of hot to install the PAM module
    • add --with-nss-flavour and --with-nss-maps configure options to support other C libraries and limit which NSS modules to install
    • allow tilde (~) in user and group names
    • improvements to the timeout mechanism (connections are now actively timed out using the idle_timelimit option)
    • set socket timeouts on the LDAP connection to disconnect regardless of LDAP and possibly TLS handling of connection
    • better disconnect/reconnect handling of error conditions
    • some code improvements and cleanups and several smaller bug fixes
    • all internal string comparisons are now also case sensitive (e.g. for providing DN to username lookups, etc)
    • signal handling in the daemon was changed to behave more reliable across different threading implementations
    • nslcd will now always return a positive authorisation result during authentication to avoid confusing the PAM module when it is only used for authorisation
    • Debian packaging improvement: implement configuring SASL authentication using Debconf, based on a patch by Daniel Dehennin
    Get this release from the downloads section.
    Some more background information is available in the announcement on the nss-pam-ldapd-announce mailing list.
  • 2010-12-11: release 0.7.13 of nss-pam-ldapd
    This is a bugfix release for the 0.7 series. This should be a reasonably stable and well tested release.
    A summary of the changes since 0.7.12:
    • fix handling of idle_timelimit option
    • fix error code for problem while doing password modification
    Get this release from the downloads section.
  • 2010-10-29 release 0.7.12 of nss-pam-ldapd
    This is a bugfix release for the 0.7 series. This should be a reasonably stable and well tested release.
    A summary of the changes since 0.7.11:
    • set a short socket timeout when shutting down the connection to the LDAP server to avoid disconnect problems when using TLS
    Get this release from the downloads section.
  • 2010-10-15: release 0.7.11 of nss-pam-ldapd
    This is a bugfix release for the 0.7 series. This should be a reasonably stable and well tested release.
    A summary of the changes since 0.7.10:
    • grow the buffer for the PAM ruser to not reject logins for users with a ruser including a domain part
    • Debian packaging improvements
    Get this release from the downloads section.
  • 2010-09-24: release 0.7.10 of nss-pam-ldapd
    This is a bugfix release for the 0.7 series. This should be a reasonably stable and well tested release.
    A summary of the changes since 0.7.9:
    • handle errors from ldap_result() better and disconnect (and reconnect) in more cases
    Get this release from the downloads section.
  • 2010-08-28: release 0.7.9 of nss-pam-ldapd
    This is an update for the 0.7 series that brings some small improvements. This should be a reasonably stable and well tested release.
    A summary of the changes since 0.7.8:
    • fix for --with-nss-ldap-soname configure option by Julien Cristau
    • Debian packaging improvements
    Get this release from the downloads section.
    With this release the 0.7 series will be in bugfixes-only mode. It will still receive bugfixes and security support for some time but not any major new features. See the mailing list post for more details.
  • 2010-08-18: release 0.7.8 of nss-pam-ldapd
    This is an update for the 0.7 series that brings some small improvements. This should be a reasonably stable and well tested release.
    A summary of the changes since 0.7.7:
    • minor portability improvements and clean-ups (thanks Alexander V. Chernikov and Ted C. Cheng)
    • don't expand variables in rest of ${var:-rest} and ${var:+rest} expressions if it is not needed
    • Debian packaging improvements
    Get this release from the downloads section.
  • 2010-07-03: release 0.7.7 of nss-pam-ldapd
    This is an update for the 0.7 series that brings some small improvements. This should be a reasonably stable and well tested release.
    A summary of the changes since 0.7.6:
    • refactoring and simplification of PAM module which also improves logging
    • implement a nullok PAM option and disable empty passwords by default
    • portability improvements and other minor code improvements
    • the mechanism to disable name lookups through LDAP from within the nslcd process has been improved
    • the undocumented use_sasl option has been removed (specifying sasl_mech now implies use_sasl)
    • the sasl_mech, sasl_realm, sasl_authcid, sasl_authzid and sasl_secprops configuration options are now documented
    • Debian packaging improvements
    Get this release from the downloads section.
  • 2010-05-27: release 0.7.6 of nss-pam-ldapd
    This is an update for the 0.7 series that fixes a bug and brings some small improvements. This should be a reasonably stable and well tested release.
    A summary of the changes since 0.7.5:
    • fix a problem with empty attributes if expression-based attribute mapping is used (patch by Nalin Dahyabhai)
    • make debug logging for pam_authz_search option a little more informative
    • documentation improvements
    • Debian packaging improvements
    Get this release from the downloads section.
  • 2010-05-14: release 0.7.5 of nss-pam-ldapd
    This is an update for the 0.7.4 release that mainly fixes an annoying bug when using the minimum_uid PAM option and includes some improvements to the PAM module (20% code reduction with new features added).
    A summary of the changes since 0.7.4:
    • fix a problem in the session handling of the PAM module if the minimum_uid option was used
    • refactor the PAM module code to be simpler and better maintainable
    • perform logging from PAM module to syslog and support the debug option to log more information
    Get this release from the downloads section.
  • 2010-05-09: release 0.7.4 of nss-pam-ldapd
    This is an update for the 0.7 series that fixes some bugs and brings some new functionality. This should be a reasonably stable and well tested release.
    A summary of the changes since 0.7.3:
    • fix a buffer overflow that should have no security consequences
    • perform proper fail-over when authenticating in the PAM module
    • add an nss_initgroups_ignoreusers option to ignore user name to group lookups for the specified users
    • add an pam_authz_search option to perform a flexible authorisation check on login (e.g. to restrict which users can login to which hosts, etc)
    • implement a minimum_uid option for the PAM module to ignore users that have a lower numeric user id
    • change the way retries are done to error out quicker if the LDAP server is down for some time (this should make the system more responsive when the LDAP server is unavailable) and rename the reconnect_maxsleeptime option to reconnect_retrytime to better describe the behaviour
    • only log "connected to LDAP server" if the previous connection failed
    • documentation improvements
    Get this release from the downloads section.
  • 2010-02-27: release 0.7.3 of nss-pam-ldapd
    This is an update for the 0.7 series that fixes some bugs and brings some new functionality. This should be a reasonably stable and well tested release.
    A summary of the changes since 0.7.2:
    • allow password modification by root using the rootpwmoddn configuration file option (the user will be prompted for the password for rootpwmoddn instead of the user's password)
    • the LDAP password modify EXOP is first tried without the old password and if that fails retried with the old password
    • when determining the domain name (used for some value of the base and uri options) also try to use the hostname aliases to build the domain name (patch by Jan Schampera)
    • perform locking on the pidfile on start-up to ensure that only one nslcd process is running and implement a --check option (patch by Jan Schampera)
    • documentation improvements
    Get this release from the downloads section.
  • 2010-01-22: announcing nss-pam-ldapd mailing lists
    To improve participation and sharing of ideas for the nss-pam-ldapd project, three mailing lists have been set up. These lists are open for subscription by anyone and have public on-line archives.
    • The nss-pam-ldapd-announce mailing list will be used for announcements of new releases, security advisories and any other important news regarding nss-pam-ldapd.
    • The nss-pam-ldapd-commits mailing list can be used to keep up with the day-to-day commits to the project.
    • The nss-pam-ldapd-users mailing list is a general discussion list for the project. Please send your questions and patches there.
    More details are available in the mailing lists section.