Running Mode

Runs on Unix-derived OS (e.g. Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris etc.).
Runs either stand-alone (built-in web server) or accessed via WSGI-enabled web server.
Highly configurable on a per-host/-backend basis.

User Interface

Correctly handles non-ASCII chars (display and input).
If the user does something wrong a tersely error message is given which is most times based on the info field returned by the LDAP server. If it makes sense the user can retry immediately his/her action with corrected input parameters.
Configuring the search root is most times unnecessary.
Support for file upload of binary attributes, e.g. jpegPhoto or userCertificate.
Efficient browsing in directory trees with paged displaying of search results. Honors attributes hasSubordinates, numSubordinates and subordinateCount if available for determining if entries have subordinate entries.
Displays JPEG pictures in-line with reasonable performance by short-term caching.
Universal title attribute added to a lot of HTML tags to have sort of a bubble-help in browsers which support that.
Attributes containing DNs, URLs or mail addresses are shown as links. DNs can be followed within web2ldap by simply pressing the link.
If an error occurs during adding or modifying entries the user can edit and re-submit his input data.
Tries to be friendly to all browsers by producing simple, but well-formed HTML 5.
Recursive deletion of directory trees.
Three different search forms:

Basic

Static search form based on customizable HTML template.

Advanced

Build search filter by choosing options from select lists.

Expert

Direct use of LDAP filter expressions.
User-friendly handling of LDAPv3 referrals with reconnecting directly to referred host after presenting a login form to the user (see RFC 3296).
OIDs in RootDSE attributes are displayed with name and description.
Some (configurable) quick-buttons for common actions.
Process LDIF input even with URL support (if configured).

Many Output Formats

HTML templates can be used for displaying LDAP entries.
HTML head section can be configured to include colors, background pictures or logos.
ID params in main HTML tags for using Cascaded Style Sheets (CSS).
Printer-friendly HTML output of search results based on a configurable HTML template string.
Support for vCards - users of common browsers can easily add entries to their local address books.
Bulk downloading of directory data as
- LDIF or LDIFv1 (see RFC 2849).
- Comma-separated values (CSV with semicolon as separator)
- Excel worksheet file

Plug-ins

Plug-in modules/classes for specific handling of attributes/syntaxes. The following plug-in modules currently exist in directory web2ldap/w2lapp/schema/plugins/:

Module name	Description
acp133	mainly LDAP syntaxes defined for ACP 133 with simple select lists, but could not tested
activedirectory	For MS AD and Samba 4
aedir	powerful plugin classes for maintaining Æ-DIR
apple	support for Apple Open Directory
asn1objects	Class which can dump BER objects as pretty-printed ASN.1
dds	for dynamic entries defined in RFC 2589
dhcp	for ISC dhcpd with LDAP backend
dns	for DNS RR entries like defined in dnsdomain2.schema
edirectory	Various syntaxes found in draft-sermersheim-nds-ldap-schema
eduperson	for attributes defined eduPerson
entrust	Some small syntax quirks for Entrust PKI schema
exchange	Some small quirks for Exchange 5.5
freeipa	Some small quirks for FreeIPA
groups	handles DN attributes related to groups
h350	for H.350 attributes defined in RFC 3944
ibmds	Some small quirks for IBM Directory Server
inetorgperson	Plugin classes solely registered for composing certain attributes used with `inetOrgPerson` (see RFC 2798).
krb5	for heimdal and MIT Kerberos schema
ldapns	LDAP-based naming service
lotusdomino	for attributes in Lotus Domino's LDAP service
msperson	See stroeder.com.schema
mssfu30	Microsoft System Services for Unix 3.0
nis	NIS attributes (see also RFC 2307)
oath	Attributes used with OATH-LDAP
opends	mainly some configuration attributes used in OpenDJ (formerly known as OpenDS)
openldap	some attributes used in OpenLDAP for back-config and slapo-accesslog (see also draft-chu-ldap-logschema)
pgpkeysrv	Multi-line fields for PGP keys
pilotperson	for attributes defined in RFC 1274
pkcschema	for attributes defined in draft-ietf-pkix-ldap-pkc-schema
ppolicy	for attributes defined in draft-behera-ldap-password-policy
quirks	Various quirks for very misbehaving servers
samba	for Samba 3
schac	for attributes defined in SCHAC
subentries	for attributes defined for subentries (see RFC 3672)
vchupwdpolicy	covering central password policy configuration attributes defined in draft-vchu-ldap-pwd-policy
vpim	for attributes defined in VPIM (see RFC 4237)
x500dsa	for attributes available on real X.500 DSAs

Advanced LDAP features

Schema support

Full LDAPv3 sub schema sub entry support when displaying an entry or input form with required and allowed attributes.
Built-in schema browser displays all forward and backward references to other schema elements as links for all supported schema elements and allows a simple wildcard search by OID or NAME patterns.
Supported and used schema attributes:
- attributeTypes
- dITContentRules
- ldapSyntaxes
- matchingRuleUse
- matchingRules
- objectClasses
- dITStructureRules
- nameForms
Schema support has reasonable performance since caching of parsed sub schema sub entries is done.
Full support for inherited schema elements (object classes and attribute types).
Fall-back to a local schema definition in configuration stored in LDIF file used in case the subschema subentry is inaccessible.
Special handling of collective attributes.

Write Access

Support for adding, modifying, deleting entries, deleting sub trees and renaming entries.
Schema-aware to provide schema-matching input forms for add/modify.
Octet strings can be directly edited as hex-bytes.
Plug-in classes implement specific input fields for many vendor-specific attributes.
Configurable LDIF templates for new entries.
Input values for some attributes/syntaxes (e.g. jpegPhoto, certificates and CRLs) are automagically converted to the right format.

Password attributes

Password Modify Extended Operation (see RFC 3062)
Generating client-hashed userPassword values (see also draft-stroeder-hashed-userpassword-values).
Synced setting of userPassword and Samba NT password attribute (support for old LAN manager hash was dropped in 1.1).
Attribute shadowLastChange set if an entry has object class shadowAccount.
Resetting the password attribute unicodePwd in MS AD.
Removing various password-related attributes is supported even when the values are not visible (write-only access). Relax Rules Control can be used to remove operational attributes.

Group administration feature

Convenient, secure and efficient way to add/remove an entry to/from a group entry. Many common group object classes are automagically supported:

groupOfNames
groupOfUniqueNames
rfc822MailGroup
mailGroup
posixGroup (see RFC 2307)
groupOfEntries (see draft-findlay-ldap-groupofentries)
accessGroup (found in IBM SecureWay)

Even large groups (>100000 members) are handled with reasonable performance. Security problems even with distributed management are avoided by "just doing it right".

LDAP connection handling

Automatically determine the protocol version and features supported by the LDAP server. Falls back to reasonable defaults if features are not available.

LDAP URLs

It it possible to directly use LDAP URLs (see RFC 4516) to reference LDAP entries and LDAP search results. Example: http://demo.web2ldap.de:1760/web2ldap/ldapurl?ldap://ldap.openldap.org/dc=openldap,dc=org Note: Although most LDAP URLs will work you should use URL-quoted LDAP URLs.

Root DSE

Uses attribute namingContexts from RootDSE to determine appropriate search root automatically.

LDAPv3 Referrals

Displays new login mask to repeat current action after chasing a referral.
Search continuations are displayed.

Locating LDAP service

Try to locate a LDAP host for a specific domain, dc-style DN (RFC 2247, RFC 2377) or e-mail address (see draft-ietf-ldapext-ldap-taxonomy).

Well known DNS aliases (kinda primitive anyway)
LDAPv3 Referrals (knowledge references)
Locate LDAP host via SRV RR (see also RFC 2782). This is automatically done if e.g a LDAP URL does not contain a host name but a dc-style DN or if an error response was received with error code NO_SUCH_OBJECT (somewhat inspired by RFC 3088).

allowed* attributes

Some attributes provided by MS Active Directory and partially by OpenLDAP's slapo-allowed are used:

allowedAttributesEffective to determine writeable attributes when displaying entry input form for modification
allowedChildClasses to determine suitable object classes for child entries when displaying object class select form during adding new entry

LDAPv3 extended controls

Manage DSA IT mode: For editing referral entries (see RFC 3296).
Subentries: Two different controls for searching subentries (see RFC 3672 and draft-ietf-ldup-subentry-07)
Relax Rules Control (formerly Manage DIT control): For editing operational attributes (see draft-zeilenga-ldap-relax).
Tree Delete: deletion of whole subtrees with a single DeleteRequest (see draft-armijo-ldap-treedelete).
Assertion Control: is used when sending a modify request if the seems to support it to prevent the server to process the request if the entry has been changed in between (see RFC 4528). Host-specific parameter modify_constant_attrs is used to generate the assertion filter.
Password policy: Displaying password warnings and guide the user to change the password (see draft-behera-ldap-password-policy).
Read Entry Control: Retrieving DN and attribute entryUUID when adding/renaming an entry (see RFC 4527).
Session Tracking Control: The client's IP address, the server name and the LDAPObject instance hash is sent to the LDAP server for debugging (see draft-wahl-ldap-session).
OpenLDAP's no-op search control: Count of all search results is retrieved by using OpenLDAP's no-op search control in case only partial search results were returned (see OpenLDAP ITS#6598).
Don't Use Copy control: Is used if found in rootDSE attribute supportedControl when reading an entry before presenting modification input form. OIDs from RFC 6171 and OpenLDAP experimental are supported.

LDAPv3 extended operations

StartTLS: provides transport layer security with TLS (see RFC 4513).
"Who am I?": this operation shows which bind-DN is in effect e.g. when using SASL bind (see RFC 4532).
Password Modify Extended Operation: for server-side password setting (see RFC 3062).
Refresh Dynamic Entry Extended Operation: for server-side refreshing of a dynamic entry (see RFC 2589).

LDAPv3 extensions

All Operational Attributes: Request the server to return all operational attributes in a search response. (See rootDSE attribute supportedFeatures, OID 1.3.6.1.4.1.4203.1.5.1, see also RFC 3673)

Advanced HTTP options

Downloading of binary attributes with appropriate mapping to MIME types.
Optionally use the right character set for output according to the HTTP header Accept-Charset sent by the HTTP client.

Security

Support for SASL bind.
Default configuration is quite strict.
Since the user logs in and opens a persistent LDAP connection storing or passing around passwords is not necessary.
Security mechanisms to avoid hijacking web sessions.
Maximum number of currently used web sessions can be limited.
Smart login with automatic completion of bind DN.

SASL login mechanisms

Supported Mechanism(s)	Remark
DIGEST-MD5, CRAM-MD5	Password-based challenge-response mechs: use short user name in login form, not the bind-DN
PLAIN	is supported but not recommended unless SSL/TLS is used
EXTERNAL	Usable for LDAPS, StartTLS or LDAPI connections. End-user authentication is only meaningful if the web2ldap is started in stand-lone mode as a personal client.
GSSAPI	Usable for Kerberos V authentication. User authentication is only meaningful if the web2ldap is started in stand-lone mode as a personal client and the user obtained a TGT from the KDC before (with command-line tool kinit).