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Integrating Contribute Publishing Services with LDAP


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Sarge Sargent

Macromedia

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. An LDAP Primer
  3. User Directory Settings
  4. User and Group Filters
  5. Testing the Connection
Created:
16 May 2005
User Level:
Intermediate

Macromedia Contribute Publishing Services (CPS) is the server component in the Macromedia Web Publishing System (WPS). CPS provides a method of centrally managing publishing access to websites and tracking publishing activities. Administrators are drawn to CPS for its integration with Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) servers─including Microsoft Active Directory. CPS also offers file-based user directory administration, however, leveraging the LDAP integration allows CPS to scale with your enterprise.

Although the LDAP integration is one of the main draws of CPS, customers often encounter sometimes challenging experiences setting up the integration. I found there were three reasons for this with the initial release of CPS:

  1. Lack of LDAP experience/knowledge of the CPS admin
  2. Lack of multi-branch and subtree search support in CPS
  3. Dissatisfaction with LDAP documentation for CPS

The CPS 1.1 update takes care of the second issue by enabling LDAP multiple branch support and subtree searches. Now that may be foreign to some readers but this article will offer clarity and also eliminate problems one and two. To successfully configure CPS for LDAP you will need to know the following from the LDAP administrator:

  • The distinguish name (dn) for each node or branch containing users and groups (for example, ou=Employees,dc=macromedia,dc=com)
  • The correct objectClass attribute for user and group objects, respectively (for example, objectClass=person)
  • The correct bind DN format for user accounts (if using LDAP bind for authentication) (for example, uid=sarge,ou=Employees,dc=macromedia,dc=com)

Let’s get started with a brief LDAP primer.

Requirements

To complete this tutorial you will need to install the following software and files:

Macromedia Web Publishing System

(Specifically, Macromedia Contribute Publishing Services 1.1)

Pricing Options for Macromedia Web Publishing System

LDAP Server or Active Directory (including Microsoft Exchange Server)

  • The server should already be populated
  • You should implement Lightweight Directory Access Protocol version 3

Prerequisite knowledge:

  • Basic knowledge of where users and groups are stored in the directory
  • A directory Admin account username and password
  • General understanding of LDAP version 3 is a plus
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About the author

Sarge is a Macromedia Senior Product Support Engineer supporting Breeze, ColdFusion, Contribute Publishing Services, and JRun. His key areas of focus are security, Application and Session-management, LDAP integration, and scalability. Sarge has over 10 years experience developing a secured Internet application leveraging ColdFusion, Java, LDAP, PKI, and X.509 certificates. As the former ColdFusion Practice Manager for Allaire and then Macromedia Consulting Services, he has helped several sites implement optimized applications including customized security and session-management configurations. He continues to share his onion on his blog at www.sargeway.com/blog.