Problem: LDAP documentation does not tell users that an additional PHP extension is required

[fiver-watson]

Documentation version

• 2.7, 2.8 (with 2.8 being the priority)

Relevant documentation pages

• https://www.accesstomemory.org/docs/2.8/admin-manual/customization/authentication/#enabling-ldap-authentication

Issue description

Per this recent discussion in the user forum from 2024-01-29:

• https://groups.google.com/g/ica-atom-users/c/u2vH98xwQV0/m/YcNcO8NGAAAJ

It seems that an additional PHP extension is required to be able configure LDAP: the php-ldap package. See:

• https://packages.ubuntu.com/jammy/php-ldap

This can be installed with:

sudo apt-get install php-ldap

The suggestion of installing this extension came from Santi (via Slack, also on Jan 29). The forum user who prompted this question later PM'ed to confirm that installing the PHP extension did resolve the issue and allow her to configure the LDAP module.

However, this requirement is not documented anywhere.

Suggested fix

Add an IMPORTANT admonition at the beginning of the LDAP configuration instructions clarifying that the php-ldap extension must be installed first. Include the install command for Ubuntu, and the link provided above (or similar) for more information about the extension itself.