Chapter 1.
1
Preparing for a Directory Server
Installation
Before you install Red Hat Directory Server 8.1, there are required settings and information that you
need to plan in advance. This chapter describes the kind of information that you should provide,
relevant directory service concepts Directory Server components, and the impact and scope of
integrating Directory Server into your computing infrastructure.
The information that is covered here and supplied during the Directory Server setup relates to the
design of your directory tree (the hierarchical arrangement of your directory, including all major roots
and branch points) and relates to your directory suffixes and databases. See the
Directory Server
Administrator's Guide
for more information on suffixes and databases.
1.1. Directory Server Components
Directory Server 8.1 is comprised of several components, which work in tandem:
• The
Directory Server
is the core LDAP server daemon. It is compliant with LDAP v3 standards. This
component includes command-line server management and administration programs and scripts for
common operations like export and backing up databases.
• The
Directory Server Console
is the user interface that simplifies managing users, groups, and other
LDAP data for your enterprise. The Console is used for all aspects of server management, including
making backups; configuring security, replication, and databases; adding entries; and monitoring
servers and viewing statistics.
• The
Administration Server
is the management agent which administers Directory Servers. It
communicates with the Directory Server Console and performs operations on the Directory Server
instances. It also provides a simple HTML interface and on-line help pages. There must be one
Administration Server running on each machine which has a Directory Server instance running on it.
1.2. Considerations Before Setting Up Directory Server
Depending on the type of setup that you perform, you will be asked to provide instance-specific
information for both the Administration Server and Directory Server during the installation procedure,
including port numbers, server names, and usernames and passwords for the Directory Manager
and administrator. If you will have multiple Directory Server instances, then it is better to plan these
configuration settings in advance so that the setup processes can run without conflict.
1.2.1. Resolving the Fully-qualified Domain Name
The Directory Server uses the hostname of the machine to supply much of the default information
for the instance, such as the instance name and base DN. A fully-qualified domain name is the local
hostname plus the domain name, such as
ldap.example.com
.
The setup scripts obtains the hostname (
ldap
) from the local system's
gethostname()
function,
while it obtains the domain name separately, from the system's
/etc/resolv.conf
file. Specifically,
the script looks for the domain name in the first entry in either the
search
or
domain
line, whichever
is first. For example:
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