For a company like nginx, this "reference implementation" is a shame

[schittli]

Hello

We really really hope that nginx inc. does a very much better job developing the nginx product than what nginx touts as a reference implementation here.

In case you haven't noticed: this implementation is not asynchronous and blocks the server. Software engineers have known solutions to this kind of programming problem for many years!

Therefore it would be at least fair if nginx inc. helps its own its customers:

1. And explicitly point out that the "reference implementation" was developed lovelessly and bumblingly and it blocks server requests.
2. And point out that there are projects where the developers actually tried to program a professional implementation in their spare time, e.g.: https://github.com/sepich/nginx-ldap
   So it's a shame, too, that a customer has to code an nginx-ldap implementation in his spare time to patch the problems of this implementation.

Thanks a lot, kind regards,
Thomas

[dwmcallister]

Good day Thomas.

I'm Dave McAllister, in the Nginx open source side of the house. Your issue was forwarded to me.

I appreciate the concern and you taking the time to point out this issue.

I'm working with the product and engineering side to see if we can get a better resolution. However, I've taken a couple of steps to help clarify this.

• We have added, at the request of the original team, an indication that this is not suitable for use in a production environment. Rather it was designed to be a model for others to extend to a more capable model

• We are actively looking for a resource to take on the effort to extend this model to be closer to a production level solution. I will separate and add non-blocking to the list.

• I am adding and will be working with the identified engineering resources to open this to external contributions, While this effort will be contingent on said resources, contributions will also help us identify items of interest and concern.

Additionally, I am asking the Product/project management team for permission to add a directory for "external project of interest". I cannot make any prediction on whether that will be acceptable

davemc

[sebastianhelbig]

Thanks a lot for the investigation @schittli.

[JustGitting]

I've been looking for a way to include LDAP functionality into NGINX and have tried the both the nginx-auth-ldap module https://github.com/kvspb/nginx-auth-ldap/ and https://github.com/caltechads/nginx-ldap-auth-service. But without much luck.

It appears NGINX's team is focused on their proprietary version, making open-source NGINX more like open-core, where all the useful features are creamed off to the cloud version (https://docs.nginx.com/nginx-controller/platform/access-management/manage-active-directory-auth-provider/).

I know it is clearly stated "this project is not designed or hardened for production...", but if NGINX are not supporting this project, then maybe archive this repo.