Tips For Designing Smart Referrals - Red Hat DIRECTORY SERVER 8.1 - DEPLOYMENT Deployment Manual

Chapter 5. Designing the Directory Topology
Creating a referral from one namespace to another works only for clients whose searches
are based at that distinguished name. Other kinds of operations, such as searches below
ou=people,o=example,c=US, are not performed correctly.
For more information on LDAP URLS and on how to include smart URLs on Directory Server entries,
refer to the Red Hat Directory Server Administrator's Guide.

5.3.1.4. Tips for Designing Smart Referrals

Even though smart referrals are easy to implement, consider the following points before using them:
• Keep the design simple.
Deploying the directory service using a complex web of referrals makes administration difficult.
Overusing smart referrals can also lead to circular referral patterns. For example, a referral points to
an LDAP URL, which in turn points to another LDAP URL, and so on until a referral somewhere in
the chain points back to the original server. This is illustrated below:
Figure 5.10. A Circular Referral Pattern
• Redirect at major branchpoints.
Limit referral usage to handle redirection at the suffix level of the directory tree. Smart referrals
redirect lookup requests for leaf (non-branch) entries to different servers and DNs. As a result, it is
tempting to use smart referrals as an aliasing mechanism, leading to a complex and difficult method
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