LDAP Authentication

[kevin10406]

I'm trying to set up an authentication mechanisms so that internal employees can logon to a pseudo-intranet that will actually be hosted on an extranet. This site will be hosted on a public domain ("really" secure docs will actually be inside a triple secured layer, so please no comments on how intranets operate and why I need to keep all my docs inside the firewall -- this is all insecure data that is relevant to employees, but meaningless to the outside)...

We're using LDAP with a Novell gateway and eDirectory. My problem is that we have tons of entried in LDAP that we can use to verify user access rights, but no mechanism to actually authenticate a user.

We do not want passwords in clear text and I personally do not want to see them. Everything is in place and I have most of what I need... What I do not have is the mechanism to verify whether or not a user exists and the
password is correct (ie, bool, user existsw accurate). Does anyone know what method to use and which object to post to based on uer entered id and pw
via web using a gateway?

The server is outside the firewall and is NOT part of the domain. The only resource we have is the gateway... We'd have to make a call through the gateway to the domain???

I'm completely lost... I'm a MS programmer and know little about Novell and interfaces...

Any assistance would be outstanding.

Thank you in advance...