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RE: Bdb defaults - WAS: problem importing entries.





--On Tuesday, June 15, 2004 2:19 PM -0500 "Armbrust, Daniel C." <Armbrust.Daniel@mayo.edu> wrote:


All that I am suggesting is that
A) - the admin guide should provide similar documentation and examples
for the bdb configuration, since that is now their primary database.
Much of what is needed is already in the faq - and the other thing that
would be nice is an example or two which were documented.  The
documentation would explain why these parameters were set, and what their
ramifications are for openldap.  At least then there would be a starting
point for end users to compare their environment to, and adjust
accordingly.

I think there is a definate need for a link at least somewhere in there for links to information on the DB_CONFIG file.



B) - they don't fall back on the defaults for Berkeley db, when no DB_CONFIG file is present, since everyone seems to agree that the Berkeley defaults are bad choices for openldap (in nearly any use case). MySQL has the option of using BDB as their backend, much like openldap. And they provide the default settings. Settings that work well for most use cases. I certainly don't hear anyone clamoring for the MySQL developers to stop picking good initial variables, and instead making everyone who wants to use mysql with a bdb backend go out and read the BerkeleyDB documentation before they try to use it.

MySQL also operates differently than OpenLDAP does. There are tons of applications that use BDB. There are certainly times when one can use BDB and make relative assumptions about how your particular application is going to use it. For a variety of reasons, OpenLDAP is *not* one of those applications. It really does require the administrator to understand the implications of how tuning various pieces affect the overall application. It is sad that the BDB defaults are not sufficient to the task for OpenLDAP, but that doesn't mean that they are insufficient for other applications. Sleepycat doesn't set its defaults based off of potential OpenLDAP needs, it sets them based on whatever its business drivers are.


IIRC, OpenLDAP 2.0 had some support with LDBM backend on BDB for setting what were essentially the DB_CONFIG parameters in the slapd.conf file. That had its own set of issues that caused a number of problems, and was abandoned.

--Quanah

--
Quanah Gibson-Mount
Principal Software Developer
ITSS/Shared Services
Stanford University
GnuPG Public Key: http://www.stanford.edu/~quanah/pgp.html