ldap performance a load problems

[Jeremy Hansen <jeremy@methanesea.com>]

I'm trying to use ldap as the primary authentication method for the small 
web hosting company I do.  When I start up slapd, my load average goes 
from just about 0 to 2 - 3 and it's all ldap.  Most of the lookups are the 
nobody user because that's the user the web server runs as so every hit 
seems to require an ldap look up.

What can be done about this load?  Is there any tuning parameters I can 
take advantage of that will lessen the load of slapd running on this 
server?  I want ldap to be my center of auth for logins, apache, etc.

Thanks
-jeremy