it's just one thing after another!

installed wordpress on xampp on server 2003.

Found a good plugin for active directory authentication. (2nd one i tried)

WordPress › Active Directory Integration « WordPress Plugins

figured out I needed to use .htaccess to limit site to teachers only.

found out about ad authentication & htaccess.

been fiddling with for hours; fixed some problems.

# Authentication realm and method:
AuthType Basic
AuthName "LDAP Auth"
AuthBasicProvider ldap
AuthUserFile /dev/null 
AuthBasicAuthoritative Off 

# DN of Active Directory server
AuthLDAPUrl ldap://x.xxxxxxx.lancs.sch.uk:389/DC=xxxxx,DC=lancs,DC=sch,DC=uk??base?(objectClass=*)

# An account in the AD that has enough permissions to perform an LDAP search
#AuthLDAPBindDN "CN=xxx,OU=pupils,OU=other accounts,DC=xxxx,DC=lancs,DC=sch,DC=uk"
AuthLDAPBindDN [email protected]
AuthLDAPBindPassword xxxxx

# The following would also be valid, although not truly LDAP compliant
#AuthLDAPBindDN ADS\\yrodrigu
#AuthLDAPBindDN [email protected]

# When checking for group membership, use the DN of the user, not the HTTP entry
AuthLDAPGroupAttributeIsDN on

# Require groups, specifying the DN of the security group
require ldap-group CN=teachers,OU=Staff,DC=xxxx,DC=lancs,DC=sch,DC=uk
require ldap-group CN=Domain Admins,OU=Admins,DC=xxxxx,DC=lancs,DC=sch,DC=uk

stuck with the errors

[Thu Jul 01 09:36:52 2010] [warn] [client 192.168.x.x] [6848] auth_ldap authenticate: user xxxx authentication failed; URI /wordpress [ldap_search_ext_s() for user failed][Operations Error]

[Thu Jul 01 09:36:52 2010] [error] [client 192.168.x.x] access to /wordpress failed, reason: verification of user id 'xxx' not configured

using wireshark to try and find some more information about what's not working

realised I need to filter out remote desktop traffic (TPKT)

currently: trying to work out what capture filter syntax to use.....