18.5. LDAP Integration

Asterisk supports the ability to connect to an existing Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) server to load information into your Asterisk server using the Asterisk Realtime Architecture (ARA). The advantage of integrating Asterisk and LDAP will become immediately obvious when you start centralizing your authentication mechanisms to the LDAP server and utilizing it for several applications: you significantly cut down the administrative overhead of managing your users by placing all their information into a central location.

There are both commercial and open source LDAP servers available, the most popular commercial solution likely being that implemented by Microsoft Windows servers. A popular open source LDAP server is OpenLDAP (http://www.openldap.org). We will not delve into the configuration of the LDAP server here, but we will show you the schema required to connect Asterisk to your server and to use it to provide SIP connections and voicemail service to your existing user base.