Red Hat DIRECTORY SERVER 8.0, Administration Manual

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Chapter 9.
307
Extending the Directory Schema
Red Hat Directory Server comes with a standard schema that includes hundreds of object classes
and attributes. While the standard object classes and attributes should meet most deployments'
requirements, it can be necessary to extend the schema for specific directory data. Extending the
schema is done by creating new object classes and attributes.
9.1. Overview of Extending Schema
There are two steps, in the proper order, required to extend the directory schema:
1. Create new attributes, as in
Section 9.2.2, “Creating Attributes”
.
2. Create an object class to contain the new attributes, and add the attributes to the object class, as
in
Section 9.3.2, “Creating Object Classes”
.
When new attributes are added to the schema, a new object class must be created to contain them.
Although it may seem convenient to add any new attributes to an existing object class that already
contains most of the attributes you require, doing so compromises interoperability with LDAP clients.
The interoperability of Directory Server with existing LDAP clients relies on the standard LDAP
schema. Changing the standard schema can also create difficulties when upgrading the Directory
Server. For these reasons, standard schema elements, both attributes and object classes, cannot be
edited or deleted.
9.2. Managing Attributes
The Directory Server Console shows all attributes in the schema, and you can create, edit, and delete
attribute extensions to the schema. The following sections describe how to manage attributes:
•
Section 9.2.1, “Viewing Attributes”
•
Section 9.2.2, “Creating Attributes”
•
Section 9.2.3, “Editing Attributes”
•
Section 9.2.4, “Deleting Attributes”
For information on managing object classes, see
Section 9.3, “Managing Object Classes”
.
9.2.1. Viewing Attributes
To view information about all attributes that currently exist in the directory schema, do the following:
1. In the Directory Server Console, select the
Configuration
tab.
2. In the left navigation tree, select the
Schema
folder, and then select the
Attributes
tab in the right
pane.
This tab contains information about all the standard (read-only) and user-defined attributes in the
schema.
The fields and lists in the
Attributes
tab are described in
Table 9.1, “Attributes Tab Reference”
.