Re: schema questions

[Frank Swasey <Frank.Swasey@uvm.edu>]

Today at 2:40pm, Daniel Tiefnig wrote:

> 1.) I've defined an Attribute "systelno" resp. "systelnumber"
> Does it matter whether I write
> NAME ("systelno" "systelnumber")
> or
> NAME ("systelnumber" "systelno")
> besides that slapd returns the former of the two strings during 
> ldapsearches?
> I.e. may I exchange those two without messing up my existing data? And, 
> may i remove one of those two without disturbing my existing data? (I'd 
> guess Attributes are stored by their OID, not their names, eh?)

The order is important.  The first name listed is the "proper name" of 
the attribute and the second and any other names listed are the aliases.

> 2.) Does it matter whether I write "systelno" or "systelnumber" in my 
> ObjectClass definition? (Regarding schema checking during 
> ldapadd/-modify or something..)

It won't matter to the OpenLDAP server, but if you're using something 
like GQ, or Net::LDAP you will get yourself in trouble.  Neither of 
those client side tools understand/follow aliases.  I've gotten myself 
into quite some trouble during my development phase by referencing the 
alias for an attribute in my PERL code and winding up trying to add a 
duplicate attribute because my PERL code didn't know that "fax" was 
really "facsimiletelephonenumber" for example.  I've also found that GQ 
0.6.0 has the same problem -- so I have take to the practice of using 
the real names for attributes in my objectclass definitions.

-- 
Frank Swasey                    | http://www.uvm.edu/~fcs
Systems Programmer              | Always remember: You are UNIQUE,
University of Vermont           |    just like everyone else.
                    === God Bless Us All ===