How LDAP benefits Niagara

LDAP communicates record-based, directory-like data between programs. It defines database access permissions and provides a schema, which is a way to describe the format and attributes of data stored in a server.

Corporate and campus installations that already use Windows Active Directory, or other LDAP-based directory services to manage user access across distributed network resources, can benefit from configuring Niagara stations to use an LDAP user service. Benefits include:

Ease of implementation. Installations that already use Windows AD or an open-source implementation of LDAP can easily include stations in their existing user management configuration.
Automatic new user account creation. When a user logs in to a station for the first time, the system automatically creates a user account (component) in the station and populates it with pre-defined properties (based on user prototype), such as permissions, and predefined LDAP properties (from the LDAP server), such as email address, full name, and language.
Security. Kerberos authentication (available for LDAPv3-based AD or open source systems) offers a high level of security. Implementing Kerberos requires client setup of hosts and browsers.
Simplified login. Current users may log in without needing to enter credentials.

Note: All stations on the network (both Supervisors and controllers) must use the LDAP server. The system does not support a mixture of stations using the standard UserService with other stations using an LDAP user service.