Setting up OpenLDAP on CentOS

I'm doing this using Ansible but here are some notes on what I've learned.

Concepts

slapd

• This service is the actual ldap service and it uses a seemingly complicated database called hdb or mdb.

• CentOS 7 uses the deprecated hdb format.

• The package on CentOS 7 automatically generates a slapd database in /etc/openldap/slapd.d based on the file /usr/share/openldap-servers/slapd.ldif. This would be step #9 in the OpenLDAP guide linked below.

• So my recommendation is to purge that database after package install and make your own using slapadd.

See also

• OpenLDAP Administrator's Guide: Quickstart

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Last update: October 31, 2020