As a member of the 389 Directory Server (389DS) core team, I am always excited about our new releases. We have some really great features in 1.3.5. However, our changelogs are always large so I want to just touch on a few of my favourites.

389 Directory Server is an LDAPv3 compliant server, used around the world for Identity Management, Authentication, Authorisation and much more. It is the foundation of the FreeIPA project’s server. As a result, it’s not something we often think about or even get excited for: but every day many of us rely on 389DS to be correct, secure and fast behind the scenes.

389 Directory Server version 1.3.5 is available now in the official Fedora 24, Fedora 25, and rawhide repositories.

Tuning database cache size

Database cache tuning is something that is frequently discussed around 389DS to gain the best performance from your server. We have overhauled the database automatic tuning code to detect memory available on the system more accurately, we split it better between backends, and make better decisions if the ram requested is too much.

For those who manually tune their backend memory usage, we now have better detection of if your tuning is going to cause stability issues. We issue better warnings, and tell you exactly which parameters you need to alter to correct problems before they happen. By putting the config values you need to alter in the error message, it saves

time and confusion by directing you, the administrator, to exactly what you need to do to improve your server health and stability.

We have also eliminated an entire class of issues with database import and re-indexing by automatically tuning the buffer sizes during the process: No more tweaking database cache sizes to import those large databases!

Auditing for attempted changes

We have added new features called the auditfail log. Previously, if a change was made, we would log who made the change, and what they changed to the audit log. But if someone attempted a change, and it failed, we would not log it.

In 1.3.5 this has changed. You can enable the auditfail log with in cn=config

nsslapd-auditfaillog-enabled: on

When a change is attempted, and fails, the reason why (I.E. incorrect object class, lack of permission) and the data that they attempted to change is logged. This is great for debugging applications, but also a great win for security as we can see if someone is attempting to change data they do not have access to.

Hardening and stability

We have been applying static and dynamic analysis tools to 389DS during this development cycle. Combined with our extensive test suites, we have closed many stability bugs (overflows, use after free, double free, segfaults and more) proactively during our development. This has made 1.3.5 in my view, what will be the most reliable, secure version of 389DS we have ever released.

Conclusion

389DS 1.3.5 is out now in Fedora 24: if you are running 389DS or FreeIPA, you are already hopefully seeing the benefits of this release!

There are many more changes than this in the 1.3.5 release: to learn more, see our release notes. Our team’s goal has been to eliminate administrative issues (not document, eliminate – never to be seen again!), improve performance and stability, and to provide better, correct defaults in the server. So many of these changes are “out of sight” to users and even administrators; but they are invaluable for improving services like FreeIPA that build upon 389 Directory Server.