Some outfit called "Yumpu" has stolen an earlier version of my work on this code, and is trying to make money off of it

Please, please, please... read this entire page BEFORE trying to use this repo.

This repo is part of my This Old Toolbox set of repos, which collectively host various system administration/management tools I've written over the years, for a variety of platforms and environments. I'm making them public so that others might find the ideas and/or the accumulated knowledge helpful to whatever they need to create.

eDirectory is a multi-platform directory service, one that is a lot closer to the X.500 ideals than just about anything else. It started on Novell NetWare, but was subsequently ported to other platforms, including Linux.

IIRC, my tool was written to operate in an eDirectory v8.7 environment.

Before you dive into my code, know that Perl on NetWare had a number of peculiarities that could trip up even an experienced Perl programmer. The Perl on NetWare NDK has a complete listing; however, some items of specific interest here include:

• It is mandatory to use lexically scoped variables (with help of the my() operator) whenever possible
• A script that introduces infinite loop cannot be terminated (and I can verify this from experience!)
• The Perl debugger restart option is not supported

There are additional peculiarities of Perl on NetWare, as it specifically relates to the Universal Component APIs:

• If you have a require or a use statement that loads the UCS API module, but you never instantiate any object provided by that module in your code, the server may ABEND
• The use strict; statement is problematic, because the UCS APIs seem to perform some redefinitions that the directive doesn't like; however, the use warnings; statement works, as do the -c and -w parameters on the Perl invocation
• Novell did not publish separate Perl-oriented UCS documentation; refer to the Novell Script for NetWare (NSN) UCS documentation; the Objects, Properties and Methods are the same, only the language syntax differs (specifically, reference the Novell Developer Kit (NDK) NSN Components (Parts One and Two), as well as the NDK Novell eDirectory Schema Reference)
• eDirectory error codes are not available to the Perl environment; many UCS methods return, at best, only Boolean (yes/no, TRUE/FALSE, OK/FAIL) values, and you will have to use DSTRACE.NLM to capture eDirectory error information

NetWare and eDirectory introduce some additional wrinkles in terms of syntax:

• Paths to server-local files are referenced using the syntax VOLUME:/PATH/TO/FILE
• eDirectory context references are in the form nds:\TREE\TOP O\OU
• Since “\” is a special character in Perl, it must be escaped, and so should be represented in your code as “\\”

In order to leverage my code, it is first necessary to have a firm grasp of eDirectory, and in particular Objects and their Attributes.

My code confines itself to using UCS to access User Objects; however, that is an artificial limitation. Many other Object types exist and are accessible via the UCS APIs, and the APIs provide many other methods beyond those presented in my code.

While the edir_tool.pl file is based on code I actually ran in a production environment, here I would call it proof-of-concept. You can probably take it and, with a few minor tweaks, get it to run in an appropriate NetWare environment; but it's almost 20 years old, and I didn't keep up with NetWare after v6.5.

The variables you'd probably need to adjust include (at minimum):

• $Tree
• $Top_O
• $OU
• $login_context
• $ServerIP

Keep in mind that, as written, even when it is working flawlessly, it doesn't do anything except login to eDirectory, perform a simple search, and write a simple log file.

Now that you understand the basics, to get useful work done, you need to manipulate Objects. This repo has a number of code examples that show how to approach various operations. These files are not stand-alone code; they must be integrated into a larger program like edir_tool.pl.

Demonstrates the basics of creating a new Object in an eDirectory Tree.

An example of deleting an existing eDirectory Object from the eDirectory Tree.

This code snippet gives you some tools to explore the Schema, by listing the Layouts and Attributes of the Objects defined in the eDirectory Tree. Know before you go.

In this file, I provide code to find specific eDirectory Objects, without using the Search method, or by using the Item method to look in the results of a search.

Provides an example of reading Values from the Attributes of an Object.

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