OpenLDAP Daemons and Utilities

The OpenLDAP package includes two daemons: slapd and slurpd.

The slapd daemon is the stand-alone LDAP daemon, which you'll need to run to support LDAP.

The slurpd daemon controls the replication of LDAP directories over a network by sending changes from the master LDAP directory to slave LDAP directories. You won't need to run slurpd unless you have more than one LDAP server on your network. If you have two or more LDAP servers, slurpd will keep the various LDAP directories in sync.

OpenLDAP also includes some utilities in /usr/bin for adding, modifying and deleting entries in an LDAP directory:

• ldapmodify — Modify entries in an LDAP database, accepting input via a file or standard input.

• ldapadd — Adds entries to your directory, accepting input via a file or standard input; ldapadd is actually a hard link to ldapmodify -a.

• ldapsearch — Searches for entries in the LDAP directory using a shell prompt.

• ldapdelete — Deletes entries from an LDAP directory, accepting input via a file or a shell prompt.

With the exception of ldapsearch, each of these utilities is much more easily used by referencing a file with the changes to be made rather than typing the commands one after the other. Each of their respective man pages covers the syntax of these files.

To import or export blocks of information with a slapd directory or perform similar administrative tasks, different utilities, located in /usr/sbin, are required:

• slapadd — Adds entries from an LDIF file to an LDAP directory. For example, execute /usr/sbin/slapadd -l ldif where ldif is the name of the LDIF file containing the new entries.

• slapcat — Pulls entries out of an LDAP directory and saves them in an LDIF file. For example, execute /usr/sbin/slapcat -l ldif where ldif is the name of the target LDIF file to contain the entries from the LDAP directory.

• slapindex — Reindexes the slapd database based on the actual current database content. Execute /usr/sbin/slapindex to begin reindexing.

• slappasswd — Generates a user password value for use with ldapmodify or the rootpw value in /etc/openldap/slapd.conf. Execute /usr/sbin/slappasswd to create the password.

	Warning
	Be sure to stop slapd before using slapadd, slapcat or slapindex. Otherwise, you are risking the consistency of your LDAP database.

See the man pages for each of these utilities for more information about how to use them.