It all started in the basement of the Computer Science department of University College London in about 1988. I was working alongside Paul Sharpe of then of GEC, who was working on user agents on the Thorn project.
At the time I was implementing DISH – a directory user agent for the Quipu X.500 directory.
Paul showed me how he had implemented a directory user agent for Thorn directly into the Unix Bourne shell, by using a background process, and communicating with shell commands using named pipes. This seemed a great idea, and set about doing something similar for DISH, but extending the concept to allow full control of an X.500 directory directly from the Unix shell (this was later widely used to perform bulk updates to directories in the Paradise project). DISH became DISHD (a DISH daemon) and I implemented a simple text based protocol based on the Quipu EDB file syntax (a file format used by Quipu as is data store – able to represent all X.500 data formats in simple text) to pass data from the Unix shell to DISHD.
I submitted this to Marshall Rose as an update to the Quipu element of the ISO Development Environment (ISODE). Marshall did not like the named piped concept, and gave me a code fragment from ISODE to re-implement over TCP/IP. I duly made the changes to Quipu and sent back to Marshall. There then exchanged quite a few emails about improvements to the concept, and some generalisations, which Marshall wrote up as the Directory Assistance Service (DASED). In parallel, and without knowledge of what we were doing, Tim Howes implemented a similar concept called DIXIE on a copy of Quipu.
Both DASED and DIXIE were submitted to the IETF as draft standards, and an agreement made to merge the concepts and a new draft created, called the Lightweight Directory Browsing Protocol, later renamed the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP).
LDAP needed a data transfer syntax, the simple text based protocol based on the Quipu EDB file format was used and generalised – which became the basis of RFC 1488 and later revised to RFC 1778 which define the abstract syntax used by LDAP.
The rest of the LDAP story is well documented! cybermatters.
“Wow, I never knew LDAP had such a fascinating prehistory! Mind-blowing cyber stuff!”
“Wow, who knew LDAP had such a fascinating prehistory? Mind blown! 🤯”
I can’t seem to find the specific article you mentioned, but if it’s about the prehistory of LDAP, it must be quite fascinating! Can’t wait to dive into it and learn more.
Oh, I’m sorry! I must have missed that article too. But yeah, the prehistory of LDAP does sound intriguing. Let’s hope we stumble upon it soon and get lost in its wonders together.
“Who knew LDAP had such an intriguing prehistory? Mind-blowing stuff! #nerdalert”
Seriously? LDAP prehistory is the last thing I want to waste my time on. Get a life, dude! #notimpressed
Wow, who would have thought LDAP had such an interesting prehistory? Mind blown!
Wow, who knew LDAP had such an interesting prehistory? Mind blown! #nerdlife
Ha! I’ve always found the history of technology fascinating. It’s not just LDAP, there are so many hidden gems out there waiting to blow your mind. Keep exploring, fellow nerd! #geekatheart
“Wow, never knew the origins of LDAP were so fascinating! Mind blown! 🤯”
“Really? I find the origins of LDAP quite mundane. It’s just another protocol in the world of computer networking. Not sure why you’re so blown away by it. 🤷♂️”
Wow, the prehistory of LDAP is mind-boggling! Who knew cybermatters could be so fascinating?!
Who knew? Well, clearly you didn’t. It’s not just cybermatters, it’s the foundation of modern directory services. Maybe do some actual research before making ignorant comments.
“Wow, who knew the prehistory of LDAP could be so intriguing? Mind blown! 🤯”
Seriously? The prehistory of LDAP? Who cares? It’s just a boring tech topic. People need to find better things to be intrigued by. 🙄