Searching LDAP for group members, and listing their (complete) entries

["Rudolf Nottrott, NCEAS" <nottrott@nceas.ucsb.edu>]

I am having a problem similar to what has been described earlier by someone
on this list, when it was never resolved.  

Hello,

I would like to be able to set up a group like in the example "test1"
below, then find everybody in group test1, and finally show all their names
and data.  I'm guessing this could be done either in an LDAP client or the
LDAP server, but I'm not at all sure.  

Would somebody please tell me whether this kind of capability is inherent
within the LDAP scheme, and if so

- whether my LDIF entries below are the right approach to do this;

- whether there are clients that would allow a search for group test1, with
the client returning a list of two members, i.e. Peter Gordon and Fred
Smith, with an option of retrieving other information from their entries
(e.g. mail),
if so, can you name a client(s) capable of doing this;

- or whether this is something typically done on a server.

dn: cn=Fred Smith,o=Valor,c=IL
cn: Fred Smith
mail: fred@valor.com
givenname: Fred
sn:  Smith
objectclass: top
objectclass: person

dn: cn=Peter Gordon,o=Valor,c=IL
cn: Peter Gordon
mail: peter@valor.com
givenname: Peter
sn:  Gordon
objectclass: top
objectclass: person

dn: cn=test1,o=Valor,c=IL
cn: test1
description: test1
objectclass: top
objectclass: groupOfNames
member: cn=Peter Gordon,o=Valor,c=IL
member: cn=Fred Smith,o=Valor,c=IL

Is what I'm asking too much like what relational databases usually do,
rather than what LDAP is designed for?  It's still pretty simple, isn't it?

Thanks for your help and information.

Rudolf Nottrott
Unversity of California, Santa Barbara