RE: Why does slapd need a searchbase?

["Howard Chu" <hyc@highlandsun.com>]

I agree with you, however the current backend architecture doesn't allow
this
behavior. It would be a somewhat major undertaking to reimplement the
backends
to support this operation. This is on my personal todo list but I don't
think
it's a priority for the OpenLDAP Project in general.

The current philosophy behind slapd's operation is that each backend is its
own
independent DSA. As such, there is no desire or ability to scan across
multiple
backend databases. I personally would prefer a more X.500 oriented view,
where
each database is merely a node (or collection of nodes) in a larger,
interconnected
tree. The current behavior is particularly problematic when a single
database
grows so large that it must be split, because you no can no longer issue a
single
search that will cover all of the scope of the original database. The
back-ldap
proxy backend (which I wrote) is a bit of a bandaid for this situation, but
with
all of the protocol wrapping and unwrapping it has to do, it's hardly
optimal.

  -- Howard Chu
  Chief Architect, Symas Corp.       Director, Highland Sun
  http://www.symas.com               http://highlandsun.com/hyc

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-openldap-software@OpenLDAP.org
> [mailto:owner-openldap-software@OpenLDAP.org]On Behalf Of Jim Hud
>
> Some LDAP servers seem not to require a searchbase and will return a mixed
> list of entries spanning a number of domains.
>
> Why does OpenLdap need a searchbase, could it not "simply" scan all the
> configured databases?