Readonly slapd instances sharing database?

["D. Lovell" <wheretkb@gmail.com>]

We have some old 2.0.27 servers that we can't yet upgrade due to a
legacy billing app (in the process of being replaced) that interacts
with them.  Some of our applications occasionally open enough
connections to the servers that we hit the 1024 file descriptor limit
per slapd process.  The servers themselves have plenty of resources to
spare, however.

I had wondered about running multiple readonly slapd instances on some
of the servers and having them share the same backend ldbm database as
the main, non-readonly slapd instance.  That would allow me to point
different client apps to different ports and reduce the file
descriptor usage on any given slapd process.

Is it considered safe to share the backend database if the additional
processes are readonly?  I'm wondering if there would be problems with
the readonly processes seeing changes made to the data/indexes by the
non-readonly process.

Thanks for your time!

Dawn Lovell
wheretkb@gmail.com