To use the slapd LDAP server, modify its configuration file, /etc/openldap/slapd.conf, to specify the correct domain and server.

The suffix line names the domain for which the LDAP server provides information and should be changed from:

suffix          "dc=your-domain,dc=com"

Edit it accordingly so that it reflects a fully qualified domain name. For example:

suffix          "dc=example,dc=com"

The rootdn entry is the Distinguished Name (DN) for a user who is unrestricted by access controls or administrative limit parameters set for operations on the LDAP directory. The rootdn user can be thought of as the root user for the LDAP directory. In the configuration file, change the rootdn line from its default value as in the following example:

rootdn          "cn=root,dc=example,dc=com"

When populating an LDAP directory over a network, change the rootpw line — replacing the default value with an encrypted password string. To create an encrypted password string, type the following command:

slappasswd

When prompted, type and then re-type a password. The program prints the resulting encrypted password to the shell prompt.

Next, copy the newly created encrypted password into the /etc/openldap/slapd.conf on one of the rootpw lines and remove the hash mark (#).

When finished, the line should look similar to the following example:

rootpw {SSHA}vv2y+i6V6esazrIv70xSSnNAJE18bb2u

For added security, the rootpw directive should be commented out after populating the LDAP directory by preceding it with a hash mark (#).

When using the /usr/sbin/slapadd command line tool locally to populate the LDAP directory, use of the rootpw directive is not necessary.

chown -R ldap /var/lib/ldap