Softerra LDAP Administrator 2008.1 SP3 - Release Notes

What's New?

2008.1 Service Pack 3

Softerra LDAP Administrator 2008.1 SP3 is a maintenance update that fixes critical problems found or reported so far.

• The application is compiled with a Microsoft ATL library security update
• A crash upon using Enable/Disable Account commands
• Wrong toolbars position after application version update
• Rare hangup while using the Directory Search dialog
• Windows 7 crash
• Modification referrals are handled properly while using Group and Members dialogs
• Find DN command was unavailbale when using IBM directiry server

2008.1 Service Pack 2

Softerra LDAP Administrator 2008.1 SP2 is a maintenance update that fixes critical problems found or reported so far.

• Workaround for MFC crash.
• Select Certificate dialog crash under Windows Vista.
• OpenLDAP version 2.3 and 2.4 detection.
• Checkbox drawing under Windows 2000.
• Set Password operation did not work from application toolbar after SP1.
• Reload Schema operation had no effect of Schema Viewer.

2008.1 Service Pack 1

Softerra LDAP Administrator 2008.1 SP1 is a maintenance update that introduces some new features and fixes problems found or reported so far.

New Features

• Directory Search dialog now has Save Result button, just as version 3.x does.
• Password Editor dialog allows choosing password scheme prefix case.
• Value transformers are updated to decode new bit flags introduced in Active Directory 2008.
• Double click on primaryGroupId attribute to find corresponded group entry.
• Siemens DirX v8 server detection.

Bugs Fixed

• Temporary file names conflicted with WinSCP.
• Schema fetching problems with IBM Directory Server.
• Schema viewer rendering (structure rules and name forms).
• Oracle Internet Directory and Oracle Virtual Directory specific problems.
• Microsoft Exchange 5.5 hangup.
• Profile node did not refresh its contents properly with the Fetch subnodes upon context change option turned off.

2008.1

Softerra LDAP Administrator 2008.1 includes nearly five dozen of new features, improvements and user interface refinements, many of which are based on the community feedbacks from previous versions. Below are the highlights of the major feature additions and changes in Softerra LDAP Administrator from the previous version, Softerra LDAP Administrator 3. Please refer to What's New to learn more about additions and changes to Softerra LDAP Administrator 2008.1.

User Interface

• User Interface Style Refresh: Now the application has friendly-looking icons, improved color palette, neat menus and more flexible customization options. Some toolbars and context menus have been reorganized to make the user interface more intuitive.
• Modeless Windows: All major dialogs, frequently used windows and all property pages are now modeless, which allows working with the application without having to close them.
• Docking Windows: Docking windows are useful for personalizing the application layout or arranging multiple open windows into logical groups.
• Basket: A virtual container designed to allow batch modification of multiple LDAP entries from different locations, including different LDAP servers.
• Browse DN Dialog: A dialog that allows choosing DNs by visually navigating through the directory tree instead of typing it manually.
• Enhanced List View: Now you can add extra columns containing values of LDAP attributes you need. Contents filtering by a keyword or/and wildcard is now possible with Filter Bar.
• Context Sensitivity: The user interface has become sensitive to the current LDAP server, which allows showing only those commands that can be applied to this server type.

Managing Directory

• Directory Search: The dialog has been significantly changed and now offers the following new features:
  • The dialog is now modeless and can be docked to any area of the application.
  • Several instances of the dialog can be opened, an instance for each LDAP server you work with.
  • Any operation like Export Data, Multiple Modification, Delete, etc. can be performed directly on your search result.
  • The selection of search attributes became more effortless, the edit box of search attributes includes intellisense, drag-and-drop and embedded button, which provides an easy way of adding attributes defined by the LDAP schema.
  • You are allowed to specify additional search attributes after a search is complete.
  • Filtering of search results by a keyword or/and wildcard is available.
• Attribute Value References: A new extrimely useful feature that allows referencing values of other attributes when creating or modifying entries.
• Multiple Modifications: The new Multiple Modification Wizard allows applying one or more modifications at once to a collection of LDAP entries from single or multiple sources including entries from different LDAP servers. Batch modifications can be applied to a directory tree branch, List View or Basket contents and Directory Search result.
• Attribute Creation: The Attribute Modification Wizard has been improved. Now it allows adding or modifying attributes of several selected LDAP entries. While performing such updates, attribute value references can be used.
• Entry Templates: Entry Templates have been enriched with the support of Attribute Value References.
• Advanced Copy: You can copy LDAP entries to the clipboard as DNs, LDAP URLs, LDIF or DSML documents by using Advanced Copy button.
• Active Directory Application Partitions Management: A tool for creating, removing or managing replication of Active Directory or ADAM application partitions.

Miscellaneous

• Modern LDAP server support: Various compatibility issues have been addressed to support modern LDAP servers like Sun OpenDS, Apache Directory Server, Novell eDirectory 8.8, OpenLDAP 2.4 and Active Directory 2008.
• Windows Vista support: Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 experience has been significantly improved.
• 64-bit Version: If you work with a 64-bit operation system you can fully reveal its power by using the 64-bit version of Softerra LDAP Administrator.
• Persistent Settings: From now on, all LDAP entries and referral settings like filter, displayed attributes, paging policy, etc. are persistent and remain unchanged after the application restart.
• Load/Save Configuration: Now it is possible to save and load all the application configuration settings to/from a file. This feature allows to backup/restore application settings or to transfer them to another machine.
• Kerberos Based Data Encryption: Active Directory users can use LDAP traffic encyption without having to use SSL.

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System Requirements

Hardware

Although Softerra LDAP Administrator is well capable of working on lesser systems, for best results we recommend you install it on an at least 256 MB RAM, 1 GHz Pentium or a faster processor PC with a high or true color display mode of 800x600 pixels or greater.

Software

Softerra LDAP Administrator has successfully passed thorough testing on the following platforms:

• Windows 2000 SP4
• Windows XP SP2
• Windows XP SP3
• Windows XP x64 SP2
• Windows 2003 SP1
• Windows 2003 SP2
• Windows 2003 x64 SP2
• Windows Vista
• Windows Vista x64
• Windows Vista SP1
• Windows Vista x64 SP1
• Windows 2008
• Windows 2008 x64

The following software is also required and important for installation and proper functioning of Softerra LDAP Administrator:

• Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 or higher
• Microsoft Core XML Services (MSXML) 6.0
• Microsoft Windows Installer 3.1 or higher

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Download and Installation

Before installing the product, please make sure that your computer meets the system requirements. If one of the required components is missing on your system, you will get an installation error.

The Softerra LDAP Administrator 2008.1 is provided for 32-bit and 64-bit systems in two languages - English and German. You can get an appropriate installation package for free trial download at Softerra's download site.

To install the application, launch the downloaded installation package and follow the Installation Wizard hints.

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Feedbacks on Quality

To report a suggestion, bug or problem issue, please use the build-in program functionality (contained in the application Help menu) or visit the Softerra LDAP Administrator forum.

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Known Issues

• The Start/Stop TLS button is always disabled under Windows 2000.
• The SASL authentication does not work under Windows 2000.
• The Start/Stop TLS operation may not work with OpenLDAP server. To fix the issue, undate your system with latest Windows updates or consider applying a patch to the server.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Where are my profiles and settings stored? How can I copy them to another PC?

Profiles, credentails and other settings are stored in the metabase.stg file located in the %LOCALAPPDATA%\Softerra\LDAP Administrator 4 folder. This file is not human readable, so it can't be read or manually edited. To copy your profiles from one workstation to another, use Load/Save Configuration dialog or just copy the metabase.stg file to an appropriate folder of a destination PC.

I get 'ERROR 4: Sizelimit Exceeded' error. What's wrong and what can I do?

If you have a full-featured license, such a behavior may occur due to either of the two possible reasons, or both:

• Profile settings: The Softerra LDAP Administrator profile you have created for the server has settings, which are responsible for the request timeout and the search result size limit. Those restrictions are sent to the server with each request and if the size limit is less than the number of subentries in a certain entry, the application won't be able to get all of them.
• LDAP Server settings: An LDAP server can be configured to return a certain number of entries that is not greater than the one defined. This can be done by modifying the server configuration files or the source code prior to compilation. In most cases such a configuration is made in order to optimize server load and prevent hacker attacks.

To workarond the issue please use one of the following:

• VLV or Simple Paging. Softerra LDAP Administrator supports Simple Paging and Virtual List View controls. Their respective use is only limited to whether your server supports this kind of operations. To learn more on the above, please consult the application Help: Help->LDAP Administrator Help->Browsing Directory->Managing Large Amounts of Entries.
• Profile settings. To edit a server property, select a server item in the left-hand side tree view panel and click the Properties button on the toolbar or press Alt-Enter. Then select the LDAP Settings tab, where the Entry count limit input will be displayed. Enter a new value better meeting your requirements. A Zero for this parameter means that the server is asked to return all the entries found in process of search.
• LDAP Server settings. There isn't a universal way of solving this problem, for it depends on a number of reasons: what kind of server you are working with, whom the server belongs to, whether or not you enjoy administrator rights and physical access to the server. If your server is absent in the list of solutions recommended for well-known servers, we suggest you ask your system administrator or consult the server documentation.

I can't connect to my server via a secure (SSL) connection. What's wrong? What can I handle that?

SSL is a tough issue, which requires certain knowledge to be able to perform necessary actions on the server side in order to install SSL support. If you aren't familiar with X.509 and SSL in particular, you expose yourself to a high risk of making a mistake while issuing a server certificate or adjusting your server configuration, which will make it impossible to connect to the server. Our experience shows that in 99% of cases, SSL problems occur due to the server-side issues. To troubleshoot your SSL issues, try running your server or SCHANNEL API (an SSL implementation used by Softerra LDAP Administrator) in the debug mode.

Is there a command-line client? How can I schedule export of my LDAP server data?

There is a command-line tool that comes with Softerra LDAP Administrator package. It's called laimex.exe that is localed in the same folder where Softerra LDAP Administrator is installed. Command line options for laimex.exe are described in the Softerra LDAP Administrator Help. laimex.exe can be used together with Windows scheduler to perfrom export/import LDAP data operations automatically.

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