5.2. Creating a Database offline

The second method of database creation is to do it off-line, using the slapd database tools described below. This method is best if you have many thousands of entries to create, which would take an unacceptably long time using the LDAP method described above. These tools read the slapd configuration file and an input LDIF file containing a text representation of the entries to add. For database types which support the tools, they produce the database files directly (otherwise you must use the on-line method above). There are several important configuration options you will want to be sure and set in the config file database definition first:

suffix <dn> 

As described in the preceding section, this option says which entries are to be held by this database. You should set this to the DN of the root of the subtree you are trying to create. For example:

suffix "o=TUDelft, c=NL" 

You should be sure to specify a directory where the index files should be created:

directory /usr/local/tudelft 

Finally, you need to specify which indexes you want to build. This is done by one or more index options.

index {<attrlist> | default } [pres,eq,approx,sub,none]

For example:

index cn,sn,uid pres,eq,sub
index objectClass eq

This would create presence, equality and substring indexes for the cn, sn, and uid attributes and an equality index for the objectClass attribute. See the configuration file section for more information on this option.

Once you've configured things to your liking, you create the primary database and associated indexes by running the slapadd(8) program:

slapadd -l <inputfile> -f <slapdconfigfile> [-d <debuglevel>]
 [-n <integer>|-b <suffix>]

The arguments have the following meanings:

-l <inputfile>

Specifies the LDIF input file containing the entries to add in text form (Take a look on the next section).

-f <slapdconfigfile>

Specifies the slapd configuration file that tells where to create the indexes, what indexes to create, etc.

-d <debuglevel>

Turn on debugging, as specified by <debuglevel>. The debug levels are the same as for slapd. See the Section 4.1 for more details.

-n <databasenumber>

An optional argument that specifies which database to modify. The first database listed in the configuration file is 1, the second 2, etc. By default, the first database in the configuration file is used. Should not be used in conjunction with -b.

-b <suffix>

An optional argument that specifies which database to modify. The provided suffix is matched against a database suffix directive to determine the database number. Should not be used in conjunction with -n.

Sometimes it may be necessary to regenerate indices (such as after modifying slapd.conf(5)). This is possible using the slapindex(8) program. slapindex is invoked like this:

slapindex -f <slapdconfigfile> [-d <debuglevel>] [-n <databasenumber>|-b <suffix>]

Where the -f, -d, -n and -b options are the same as for the slapadd(1) program. slapindex rebuilds all indices based upon the current database contents.

The slapcat program is used to dump the database to an LDIF file. This can be useful when you want to make a human-readable backup of your database or when you want to edit your database off-line. The program is invoked like this:

slapcat -l <filename> -f <slapdconfigfile> [-d <debuglevel>] [-n <databasenumber>|-b <suffix>]

where -n or -b is used to select the database in the slapd.conf(5) specified using -f. The corresponding LDIF output is written to standard output or to the file specified using the -l option.