I'm a little confused about what LDAP is and what it does. I have a manual here which refers to it a lot, but the only things I've gathered about it are:
- it stands for Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, and
- it stores usernames and groups and something like that

Besides that, I'm confused about what it is, what it does, and why it's useful. Does anybody have experience with it who can shed some light on it?

thanks!

I don't have experience with it, but...

It's a standard for accessing address books.

It transfers about the same info you'd store in a .wab in Windows. When I access a ldap link, the Windows address book viewer handles it.

It's useful for sharing address book type information, including things like public key certificates for sending encrypted e-mail or as any type of directory - say look up e-mail or postal mail from name.

Nice description here http://www.gracion.com/server/whatldap.html