[Zope] [ANNOUNCE] First LDAPUserFolder 2.0 beta released

[Jens Vagelpohl]

   The LDAPUserFolder product provides a Zope user folder implementation 
that can authenticate users with the help of a LDAP directory. It has a 
full range of record management tools and uses caching of LDAP data to 
improve responsiveness.

   Version 2.0 represents a major code base refactoring. The main goals 
were code simplification, cruft removal and improving maintainability 
for me. While this meant putting the axe to some features it also 
enabled me to implement some other functionality that would have been 
much harder to do using the old code.

   Every current LDAPUserFolder user is encouraged to try the new 
version and provide feedback.

   Some of the main changes include...

     o Deprecation of built-in cookie support. If you need cookies you 
can install the excellent CookieCrumbler product. See 
http://www.zope.org/Members/hathawsh/CookieCrumbler for more 
information.

     o Deprecation of ZBabel support. Few people provided any feedback 
on it and it was a PITA to maintain the translations.

     o You can now specify multiple LDAP servers that are used for 
failover in case the primary server is down.

     o The usage of a Manager login can be specified in a more 
fine-grained fashion so that it is possible to restrict its usage to 
initial user login only when the user record needs to be looked up.

     o A new object called LDAPUserSatellite allows manipulation of 
roles depending on the context the user is in. Roles can be added by 
either providing simple mappings (Role X is mapped to roles A, B and C 
in this context) or by providing another LDAP group record search base 
to complement the search base used by the LDAPUserFolder itself. This 
role manipulation can also be done recursively, meaning more than a 
single LDAPUserSatellite can be applied in a single lookup.

   You can find version 2.0 beta1 of the LDAPUserFolder at the usual 
location at http://www.dataflake.org/software/ldapuserfolder and 
feedback is welcome in the JTracker set up for it under 
http://www.dataflake.org/software/tracker/ .

jens