The Structure Of An Ldap Referral - Netscape DIRECTORY SERVER 6.01 - DEPLOYMENT Deployment Manual

• Smart referrals
Smart referrals are stored on entries within the directory itself. Smart referrals
point to Directory Servers that have knowledge of the subtree whose DN
matches the DN of the entry containing the smart referral.
All referrals are returned in the format of an LDAP uniform resource locator (URL).
The following sections describe the structure of an LDAP referral, and then
describe the two referral types supported by Directory Server.

The Structure of an LDAP Referral

An LDAP referral contains information in the format of an LDAP URL. An LDAP
URL contains the following information:
• The host name of the server to contact
• The port number of the server
• The base DN (for search operations) or target DN (for add, delete, and modify
operations).
For example, a client application searches
surname . A referral returns the following LDAP URL to the client
Jensen
application:
ldap://europe.example.com:389/ou=people,l=europe,dc=example,dc=com
The referral tells the client application to contact the host
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 Netscape (such as the
command-line utilities or the Directory Server Gateway (DSGW)) 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 Knowledge References
dc=example,dc=com
europe.example.com
.
Chapter 5 Designing the Directory Topology
for entries with a
on
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