What is waX.500, what does it do?

WaX.500 is an X.500 client or DUA (directory user agent) developed at the University of Michigan that runs on Microsoft Windows 3.1, Windows NT 3.5 & 4.0 (see note), and Windows 95 (see note). It features:

• the ability to search for people, groups, joinable groups, organizations, & documents.
• a visual browser with which you can browse through the global X.500 directory.
• allows you to change the information in entries (such as your personal entry),
• create and maintain groups, and other entries.

WaX.500 is part of the ldap project. It is a companion product to maX.500 and xax500 which provide Macintosh and unix-Motif access to the global X.500 directory. There are many other ldap clients available.

Release 2.1 Final

Click here to download version 2.1

The beta release had all the features of release 2.05, as well as:

• lists of names are sorted
• Buttons to "List Owned Groups", "Find Group Added To", "Verify X.500 Members", and "Find Subscribers".
• Authenticate at Startup implemented.
• Icons in resultview for all name lists & URLs.
• Click on the icon to display information about people/groups in the list.
• Click on the icon of a URL to invoke your Web Browser and display the URL.
• The icons for group members change to indicate their status as the members are verified.

The final release contains these additional changes:

• Saves changes to multi-line strings (e.g. address fields) correctly.
• Includes a newer libldap.dll that can handle referrals.
• This version of wax still can't handle referrals, but will tell you if it gets one and what it was.
• Installer can handle long path names
• Corrects (during installation) DLL conflict created by earlier releases
• Packaging of waX.500 and kerberos authentication now completely separate.
• Will work with both 1995 and 1997 versions of krbv4win.dll (unless they change the size of the CREDENTIALS dsect again).
• Contains the version of wshelper.dll that doesn't wait for the DNS server to respond if the server's address is 0.0.0.0 mentioned in the patches section below.

This release does NOT install the kerberos authentication software. If kerberos is working (with any previous version of waX.500) for you now, it should still work after installing 2.1.

WaX.500 is now installed with real install software (InstallShield). Simply run the distributed self extracting installer to install the software

Kerberos Authentication for Windows

Click here for more information on obtaining the kerberos authentication software.

We have automated the installation of kerberos. The installation package has been extensively tested. Feedback about the installer is welcome.

Note: Win 95 & Win NT users: Kerberos does work on Windows 95 and NT, but it stores tickets in a permanent file ("c:\tmp\ticket.krb"). This presents a SECURITY PROBLEM because the tickets are good for 10-12 hours after issue, so anyone who has physical access to your machine while the tickets are still good IS YOU as far as kerberos is concerned. Until this problem is fixed, you may want to DELETE c:\tmp\ticket.krb as soon as it's not needed.

Also, if you are authenticated with kerberos in waX.500, you may select "Discard Authentication" from the "Server" menu, and all your tickets will be discarded. Note this only works if you've authenticated via kerberos since you started waX.500.

The next release of MIT's kerberos software should solve this (and other) problems. This release is very late.

If you've had problems getting kerberos installed and working correctly for any version of waX.500, you may install the above package. This should solve the problems. If it doesn't, we want to know about it.

Alternatively if you want to try and get your present installation to work, you'll need the latest version of KrbCheck (New release on 10 April 1997, see "Patches & Updates" below for more info.)

Kerberos support for 32 bit Eudora Pro for Win95

3 Dec 96 : If you install 32 bit Eudora Pro for Win95 and try to use kerberos authentication it will complain about not being able to find kerb16.exe. I have a copy of kerb16.exe I got from Qualcomm (the vendor of Eudora). You should download kerb16.exe into the same directory you installed Eudora Pro in. Qualcomm should make this part of their distribution package.

Patches & Updates

• 970514
  The final relase of version 2.1 uses the revised installer mentioned below and so will not create and will correct the DLL conflict problem mentioned below. It also contains the revised wshelper.dll mentioned below.



• 970418
  We've revised the installation packaging for 2.1b2 to correct the conflicting DLL problems. The revised installer will not create this problem in new installations and will correct the problem when reinstalling over a previous installation. The easiest way to correct this problem is to install 2.1b2 again (on top of your current installation).

  WaX.500 itself is unchanged. The revised version of wshelper.dll is included so you only have to intall one package to have all the right pieces. The installer package is now self extracting (pkunzip is no longer required).

  This revised installer for 2.1 Beta 2 has been superceded by the final release of version 2.1 (above).




• 970410
  We have released version (3.0.0.010) of KrbCheck . This version corrects a bug that caused KrbCheck to think it was running on Windows 3.1 when it was really running on Windows 95 release 2. If kerberos authentication isn't working on your machine, this is the diagnostic tool you need.

  Oops!

  If you installed wax21b2 (on NT & before 970419) and the latest kerberos package you may not be able to authenticate. KrbCheck will say everything is OK, but when you try to authenticate in waX.500 you may get "error 255". To correct this manually DELETE wshelper.dll and krbv4win.dll from the wax500 directory (not your windows directory).

  To correct this automatically, install Release 2.1 Final (above)

• If you are seeing long delays when first connecting (i.e. on the first search) you may be a victim of the wshelper bug. Click here to download a zip file containing the latest copy of wshelper.dll



• If you've noticed that
  • trying to search for a name by using the first initial and last name doesn't work,
  • searching for documents doesn't work at all the way it should
  you can download a new copy of ldfilter.cfg. (Put ldfilter.exe in the same directory wax is intalled in and run it. Click on "Unzip", then "OK", then "Close".)



• Want to assign a proxy that can also modify your personal entry? Download a new disptmpl.cfg file for either waX.500 version 2.05 or 2.1b2 (this will be standard in the next release). These are self extracting zip files. Download them to the same directory waX.500 is installed in, run them, click on OK (at the warning), Unzip, then Close.

Mailing Lists

This page will be kept up to date as new versions of waX.500 and related software are released. Announcements of new releases, updates, config file changes, and such will be made to the mailing list wax500.announce@umich.edu. To join this list send a request to:

• wax500.announce-request@umich.edu

Report bugs, suggestions, comments ... all correspondence to

• wax500-bugs@umich.edu

A note for non-UM users:
waX.500 can only talk to servers that run the 3.1 version of the server code or later. This is available on terminator.rs.itd.umich.edu in the file ~ftp/ldap/ldap-3.1.tar.Z.

Last update: 15 May 1997 by sgr@umich.edu