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Generating statistics from the Sun directory server access logs
I have been managing Sun's directory server for close to four years, and it is one of the few products I use that has all the bells and whistles out of the box. One extremely useful feature is the ability to generate statistics from the server access logs. This capability is built into the logconv.pl perl script, which is part of the Sun directory server resource kit (as a side note, logconv.pl is what motivated me to write ldap-stats.pl to analyze OpenLDAP log files). To use the logconv.pl statistics program to analyze your server access logs, you will first need to grab the resource kit from the Sun download page…
$ read more →LDAP indexes
LDAP indexes are extremely useful for speeding up directory searches, and come in four flavors (there are actually more than four index types, but the following four are the most common): 1 Approximate indexes Approximate indexes are useful for speeding up seaches that look for attribute values that sound like a specific value. A good example of this is searching the directory for all first names that sound like "Amy": 2. Equality indexes Equality indexes are useful for speed up searches that perform a direct comparison. The following search would benefit from an equality index: 3…
$ read more →Generating passwords for LDAP
When I generate LDIF entries for new LDAP users, I need to populate the userPassword field with a crypt password or an SHA1 or MD5 hash. Sun's directory server comes with the getpwenc utility to assist with this: In addition to generating crypt passwords, it can also create MD5 and SHA1 hashes.
$ read more →Debugging directory server issues with DTrace
Today while installing Sun's directory server, I kept getting the error "No components have been selected for installation in the selected directory" after selecting numerous components for installation: Directory Server components showing a checked box will be installed. Since I had previously installed the directory server on the machine, I started to wonder if the directory server had placed a package repository somewhere on the file system. To see if this was the case, I fired up opensnoop from the DTraceToolkit: Sure enough, there is a product registry file in /var/sadm/install. Once I removed it with rm: The installation went off without a hitch…
$ read more →Compiling openldap on Solaris hosts
Building OpenLDAP on Solaris hosts that use /opt as their software repository can sometimes be a chore. In case anyone finds this useful, here is the procedure I use:
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