1) gnads stands for 'gnads is not active directory service'

2) it is pronounced like 'nads'

3) it aims to be a directory service, like novell's nds or microsoft's active directory: a distributed directory service that can be accessed through LDAP

as a frequent user of microsoft products, it saddens me to see some of the free software movement bludgeoned by those in the corporate/government world for lack of solid enterprise features. considering that even Microsoft is a relative newbie when it comes to a true directory service, this is disheartening. after working with active directory for about two years, i think i've come to appreciate its strengths and deride its weaknesses, particularly in respect to other microsoft products that use/ignore it while duplicating its effort, like SMS. this project will be dedicated towards developing a free software solution that not only can perform as well as active directory or nds, but far better, without relying upon a single OS the way active directory does. nds is superior, yet even it is not open.

gnads needs to meet several goals in order to surpass active directory and nds. it must be easy to install on a variety of platforms; it must scale to over ten thousand resources with no problems; it must be distributed, and there must be no single point of failure; it must be extensible, so that future alterations to the directory schema may be easily made; it must incorporate as much information as possible about each resource, yet not overburden queries with such information; it must be fast, for both searches and regular access; it must provide a secure means of authentication. these goals are not easily met: ms and novell spent years assembling their respective directory services. hopefully, the inclusion of many developers will help speed this project along so that it can displace Active directory before it becomes a de facto standard.

ideally, a gnads client/server system could be setup in a few minutes; the client would poll the particular workstation it was installed on, adapting itself to the particular environment it was in, and reporting the environment back to the directory itself: thus, features which are often only done through add-ons to NDS or active directory, like inventory management or user access tracking, could be incorporated into the directory itself! if i had a small office containing two macs, three win9x machines, two win2k machines and a linux and netbsd box, (plus a linux server for gnads!), i could install the client on each machine, point it to the local gnads server, and instantly watch the directory become populated with information about each workstation. after adding a list of users and groups into the gnads server, users could log onto each box and access features of the directory; as each user logged in, that information would also be added to the directory. through gnads then (in this hypothetical scenario) one could access a list of programs installed on each system, monitor a user's usage, etc. it would quickly become the end point around which all the services were oriented. this is the goal of gnads: ambitious, but possible.