Integration of SafeQ and Koha

We are trying to integrate users in SafeQ and our users in Koha. Koha is library system which stores it's users into relational database. To allow SafeQ system access to users we decided to implement LDAP protocol on top of our data scheme in Koha.

This is described in little more details at: http://blog.rot13.org/2009/03/integrating_systems_using_netldapserver_and_rdbms.html

Mapping configuration

Users

Examining UMgr-LDAP.conf configuration we came up with following mapping from our RDBMS to LDAP schema: http://svn.rot13.org/index.cgi/virtual-ldap/view/sql/hreduperson.sql

we are creating objectGUID with primary key in our database and rest of the fields should be self-explanatory.

This produce following result for LDAP search query:

dpavlin@koha-dev:/srv/virtual-ldap$ ldapsearch -h 10.60.0.13 -p 2389 -b dc=ffzg,dc=hr -x 'pager=E00401001F77965C'
# extended LDIF
#
# LDAPv3
# base <dc=ffzg,dc=hr> with scope subtree
# filter: pager=E00401001F77965C
# requesting: ALL
#

# dpavlin@ffzg.hr, ffzg.hr
dn: uid=dpavlin@ffzg.hr,dc=ffzg,dc=hr
department: SURAD
uid: dpavlin@ffzg.hr
objectGUID: 606
cn:: RG9icmljYSBQYXZsaW51xaFpxIc=
homeDirectory: /home/606
objectClass: person
objectClass: organizationalPerson
objectClass: inetOrgPerson
objectClass: hrEduPerson
memberOf: SURAD
sn:: UGF2bGludcWhacSH
mail: dpavlin@rot13.org
pager: E00401001F77965C
givenName: Dobrica
displayName:: UGF2bGludcWhacSH

# search result
search: 2
result: 0 Success

# numResponses: 2
# numEntries: 1

This works quite well, and I can see users with their's cards in SafeQ system.

Roles

Roles are mapped into groups using following mapping: http://svn.rot13.org/index.cgi/virtual-ldap/view/sql/group.sql

Which generate LDAP groups like this:

dn:cn=SURAD,ou=groups

    members: uid=vivainfo,ou=SURAD,dc=ffzg,dc=hr
             uid=dpavlin,ou=SURAD,dc=ffzg,dc=hr
         ou: groups
         cn: SURAD
description: Suradnici
objectClass: group

which produce groups in Role drop down:

Some more information about defining groups in ldap can be found at: http://blog.rot13.org/2009/04/ldap_haters_guide_to_groups.html

Const centre

Groups which we have defined in Koha are really only useful for reporting, so it seems that cost centres in SafeQ are the right place to import our groups.

We are trying to use following mapping: http://svn.rot13.org/index.cgi/virtual-ldap/view/sql/organizationalunit.sql

Idea is to expose same group data as organizationalUnits in SafeQ so we can get accounting by those groups. We would also like to have different prices for each group of users and ability to report using groups from Koha.

Changing configration to:

# Mapping of LDAP containers to SafeQ cost centres (departments)
# If enabled, all organisational units containers will be displayed in SafeQ as cost centres
# If disabled (no, false), attribute mapping is used - see ldap_ou
ldap_map_ou = yes

We get just single const center:

Possible bug in SafeQ search

I also found out something which seems like a bug in the way SafeQ search LDAP server: when you search for 'dpavlin' as login/alias I get following queries:

## filter and [

 { equalityMatch => { assertionValue => "HrEduPerson", attributeDesc => "objectclass" }, },
 { equalityMatch => { assertionValue => "dpavlin%", attributeDesc => "uid" }, },
]

objectclass is o.k., but uid looks like uid=dpavlin% which I think it should be uid=dpavlin* to be correct LDAP syntax.

This query doesn't return anything, but next one is o.k.:

## filter and [

 { equalityMatch => { assertionValue => "HrEduPerson", attributeDesc => "objectclass" }, },
 { substrings => { substrings => [{ any => "dpavlin" }], type => "uid" }, },
]

which is uid=*dpavlin* and it finds user.