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Re: create new user with same UID and GID



Bernd May wrote:
> I faced the same problem a year ago and came to the same conclusion as Dan.
> 
> OpenLDAP does not offer you a mechanism to duplicate attribute values
> upon entry or change (e.g. like triggers in a MySQL DB might do for
> you). So you have to make sure, during entry creation, that the proper
> values are assigned to the required attributes, e.g. by querying the
> OpenLDAP DB first, filtering for assigned numbers and selecting an
> unassigned uid and gid pair inside your user creation tool.

Yes, the LDAP client has to generate appropriate data. Personally I'm making
heavy use of slapo-constraint to ensure that the data sent by the client is
correct.

> You could also create a dummy user account that stores the next usable
> gid/uid pair (which you acquired once with the previous algorithm) and
> then query that account each time you create a new user, increase its
> gid and uid values and create your new user. This assumes some kind of
> conflict free numbering scheme of your users by which you can infer the
> next free number pair automatically.

The problem with id pool entries (kind of a sequence generator) is that ids
might be consumed without being really used. Therefore for numeric ids it's a
better approach to search for all entries, use reverse server-side sorting and
only query one result to get the highest id.

For user names one could also use a time-based generation scheme.

> What OpenLDAP does offer is the possibility of checking this constraint
> for you by employing the slapo-unique overlay (to make sure you do not
> assign a number that is already in use) and the slapo-constraint overlay
> (to make sure the gid and uid attribute have the same value).

Yes! When assigning unique ids with concurrent clients one must use
slapo-unique. Any other approach will fail. You have to implement proper error
handling with retry at the client side.

Ciao, Michael.

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