Softerra LDAP Administrator 2009.1 - Release Notes

Table of Contents What's New? System Requirements Download and Installation Feedbacks on Quality Known Issues Frequently Asked Questions

Softerra LDAP Administrator is the industry-leading software product for browsing and managing LDAP directories. It provides a wide variety of features essential for those involved in LDAP development, deployment and administration of directories. Most of these newly implemented functions are really unique and unprecedented - to date there is nothing to match their efficiency in the existing LDAP software packages. The main goal pursued by the LDAP Administrator development team is to deliver a powerful, integrated yet easy-to-use tool capable of working with any LDAP server.

What's New?

Softerra LDAP Administrator 2009.1 is a major update that introduces several new features and improvements. Below are the highlights of the major feature additions and changes in Softerra LDAP Administrator from the previous version, Softerra LDAP Administrator 2008.1.

  • Window Menu: The Window menu allows users to manage stage of floating windows and to control the visibility of application’s modeless dialogs and property pages.
  • Modeless Monitor Dialog: The Server Monitor dialog is now modeless just as Directory Search and Schema Viewer are. Modelessness allows to monitor the server state and perform other operations at the same time.
  • Value Processors in Exported Data: While displaying data in List View, LDAP Administrator transforms some well-known encoded or binary data into a human-readable form. Now LDAP Administrator decodes such values while exporting or saving directory data to Excel, CSV, HTML or Text format.
  • Search History: Every time you run a search, the application remembers all parameters applied and the time when it was executed. Later on, you can view all searches run previously and re-run them at any time again.
  • Server's SSL Certificate Viewer: Sometimes it is necessary to know what SSL certificate was chosen during negotiation between LDAP Administrator and an LDAP Server. You can click the lock icon on the right-hand bottom corner to see the properties of an SSL certificate currently being used.
  • Active Directory Enhancements:
    • The following attribute decoders have been added: userParameters, logonHours, machineRole, lockoutTime. Several old attribute decoders have been updated according to the latest MSDN documentation.
    • Now LDAP Administrator is fully aware of Active Directory schema specific properties that can be viewed with Schema Viewer.
  • Copy as LDAP Filter: An attribute value can be copied to the Clipboard as LDAP Filter string. This accelerates and facilitates the use of Directory Search.
  • Memory Consumption Reduced: The most often used strings such as attribute names now are stored in a string pool, which saves 10-15% of memory comparing to the previous version.
  • Schema Viewer Drag-n-Drop Support: Attributes can be drag-n-dropped from Scope Pane and List View pane onto Schema Viewer to see their properties.
  • Docking and modeless windows now remember their size and state after application restart.
↑ to the top

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:

↑ to the top

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 2009.1 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.

↑ to the top

Feedbacks on Quality

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

↑to the top

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.
↑ to the top

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 localedin 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.

↑ to the top