Fedora Directory Server

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Fedora Directory Server

Developer:	Red Hat
Latest release:	1.0.4 / 9 November 2006
OS:	Linux / Unix
Use:	Directory server
License:	GNU General Public License
Website:	directory.fedora.redhat.com

The Fedora Directory Server (FDS) is an LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) server developed by Red Hat, as part of Red Hat's community-supported Fedora Project. Fedora Directory Server is identical to the Red Hat Directory Server, just rebranded.

FDS is the newest incarnation of what was once the original University of Michigan slapd project. In 1996, the projects developers were hired by Netscape Communications Corporation and the project became known as the Netscape Directory Server (NDS). The project was recently acquired by Red Hat, and on June 1, 2005, much of the source code was open sourced under the terms of the GNU General Public License, commonly referred to as the GPL. Red Hat plans to release much, if not all, of the rest of the source code under the GPL sometime in the future, but is still in the process of making that happen.

While much of FDS is freely distributable under the terms of the GPL, Red Hat is also offering a commercial version, Red Hat Directory Server, on a subscription basis. A paid subscription will include added features like customer service and technical support.

FDS is being built on top of Fedora Core, but supports many operating systems including Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and 4, Solaris 2.8+, and HP/UX 11i.

[edit] Features

FDS has multi-master capability which is a big advantage compared to OpenLDAP, another free LDAP solution, which can only work with a single master. There are currently up to four writable directory masters supported with FDS.

FDS also has the ability to export parts of the directory to read-only servers. This compares favourably against Microsoft's Active Directory, where every server has to replicate all data and has to be writable.