Trying to get RH 7.3 to play nicely with OpenLDAP

[kbroderick@smcvt.edu]

I'm attempting to get a small network of RedHat boxen (1 server, 13
workstations) setup
for LDAP authentication.  At the moment, LDAP starts up without complaining,
and I've used
the migrate_all_offline.sh script with apparent success.  However, I can't
find anything
with ldapsearch -x, nor can I find anything trying to browse with gq.  I've
read
most of the docs I could find, and my most recent setup is a result of
trying to follow 
the directions in
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=20010811.181101.1472
713773.6227%40yahoo.com
 (without success).

Is there a step-by-step configuration checklist out there that would allow
me to wipe
what I have and start over?  I'm thoroughly bewildered at this point
(because most of the
docs I've read get to a point where I'm following instructions and suddenly
what I'm
trying to do isn't working), without much in the way of helpful error
messages.  I'm not
a Linux newbie, and I'm comfortable with Unixisms in general, but I've
gotten thoroughly
confused at this point.  I have certificates turned off, I think (that was
causing some
errors, I think, but so is plaintext--I keep getting "ldap_search_s No such
object" in
my logs for a user that I know exists in the passwd file and should
[presumably] exist
in the directory.  Also, doing "ldapsearch -x" without any further
parameters seems to be
trying a wildcard search, yet it returns 0 records.

Any and all suggestions, including good web pointers, appreciated; solutions
greatly
appreciated.

--Kevin Broderick
kbroderick@smcvt.edu