Re: Why does slapd need a searchbase?

["Kurt D. Zeilenga" <Kurt@OpenLDAP.org>]

At 11:37 PM 10/7/00 +0000, Jim Hud wrote:
>Some LDAP servers seem not to require a searchbase

The base DN is a required parameter of the search operation.

Some servers may kludge an empty search base to some other
DN.  So will OpenLDAP, if you provide a defaultSearchBase
value.

>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?

If the server cannot find the base (or kludged base) of the search,
it cannot return any entries.  If it does find the search base,
it should return some set of entries along with search continuations.
A client, hence, can do a subtree search which spans one or more
servers, each with one or more databases.

Some folks wish that OpenLDAP would internally chain requests
between databases...  though this is likely something we'd consider
for a major redesign of slapd... we're not ready to consider a major
redesign of slapd just yet.

Kurt