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About Knowledge References
The referral tells the client application to contact the host
europe.example.com
on port
and submit a search rooted at
389
.
ou=people,l=europe,dc=example,dc=com
The LDAP client application you use determines how a referral is handled. Some
client applications automatically retry the operation on the server to which they
have been referred. Other client applications simply return the referral
information to the user. Most LDAP client applications provided by Red Hat
Directory Server (such as the command-line utilities or the Directory Server
Gateway) automatically follow the referral. The same bind credentials you supply
on the initial directory request are used to access the server.
Most client applications follow a limited number of referrals, or hops. The limit on
the number of referrals followed reduces the time a client application spends
trying to complete a directory lookup request and helps eliminate hung processes
caused by circular referral patterns.
About Default Referrals
Default referrals are returned to clients when the server or database contacted
does not contain the data requested.
Directory Server determines whether a default referral should be returned by
comparing the DN of the requested directory object against the directory suffixes
supported by the local server. If the DN does not match the supported suffixes,
the Directory Server returns a default referral.
For example, a directory client requests the following directory entry:
uid=bjensen,ou=people,dc=example,dc=com
However, the server manages only entries stored under the
suffix. The directory returns a referral to the
dc=europe,dc=example,dc=com
client that indicates which server to contact for entries stored in the
suffix. The client then contacts the appropriate server and
dc=example,dc=com
resubmits the original request.
You configure the default referral to point to a Directory Server that has more
knowledge about the distribution of your directory. Default referrals for the
server are set by the
attribute. Default referrals for each
nsslapd-referral
database in your directory installation are set by the
attribute
nsslapd-referral
in the database entry in the configuration. These attribute values are stored in the
file.
dse.ldif
For information on configuring default referrals, see the Red Hat Directory Server
Administrator's Guide.
98
Red Hat Directory Server Deployment Guide • May 2005
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