delegating binds to custom partitions

• Key: DIRSERVER-435
• Type: New Feature
• Status: Closed
• Resolution: Fixed
• Priority: Major
• Assignee: Alex Karasulu
• Reporter: Norval Hope
• Fix Version/s: 1.0-RC1

Description

I have created a patch which permits SimpleAuthenticator to optionally delegate bind calls to the custom partition matching the DN provided to a bind call. This seems like the right general approach to take, but there were some points I wasn't completely certain about (being a noob):
    1) I pass the credentials in as a Object (rather then byte[]) to allow for future flexibility when SASL support is added to DS.
    2) The bind() call returns an InitialContext which SimpleAuthenticator immediately closes, rather then say returning a boolean. This seems sensible though.
    3) Given the new bind() call is only optionally implemented by a ContextPartition, the default bases classes return null when it is called. A NotImplementedException type approach would work just as well, but I am unsure how the relative pros and cons are preceived by the core DS developers (runtime cost versus cleanliness).

I also realise that the bind call is only one of a number of delegations that will eventually need to be supported to custom partitions, but hope that this patch isn't heading in the wrong direction and thus compromising any future work that may be required.

If the patch is deemed useful, but further work is required due to any/all of the reasons above (or some I haven't considered) then let me know.