Red Hat DIRECTORY SERVER 8.0, Administration Manual

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Specifying Organizational Unit Entries
471
LDIF Element Description
dc=com
unless the server has been configured
to use that suffix.
list_of_attributes
Specifies the list of optional attributes to maintain
for the entry.
Table A.2. LDIF Elements in Domain Entries
A.4.2. Specifying Organizational Unit Entries
Organizational unit entries are often used to represent major branch points, or subdirectories, in the
directory tree. They correspond to major, reasonably static entities within the enterprise, such as a
subtree that contains people or a subtree that contains groups.
The organizational unit attribute that is contained in the entry may also represent a major organization
within the company, such as marketing or engineering. However, this style is discouraged. Red Hat
strongly encourages using a flat directory tree.
There is usually more than one organizational unit, or branch point, within a directory tree.
The LDIF that defines an organizational unit entry must appear as follows:
dn: distinguished_name
objectClass: top
objectClass: organizationalUnit
ou:
organizational_unit_name
list_of_optional_attributes
...
The following is a sample organizational unit entry in LDIF format:
dn: ou=people, dc=example,dc=com
objectclass: top
objectclass: organizationalUnit
ou: people
description: Fictional example organizational unit
Table A.3, “LDIF Elements in Organizational Unit Entries”
defines each element of the LDIF-formatted
organizational unit entry.
LDIF Element Description
dn:
distinguished_name
Specifies the distinguished name for
the entry. A DN is required. If there is a
comma in the DN, the comma must be
escaped with a backslash (\), such as
dn:
ou=people,dc=example,dc=com
.
objectClass: top
Required.
Specifies the
top
object class.
objectClass: organizationalUnit Specifies the
organizationalUnit
object
class. This line defines the entry as an
organizational unit
.
ou:
organizational_unit_name
Attribute that specifies the organizational unit's
name.