Sun Directory Server Enterprise Edition 7.0 Reference

Organizational Person Entries in LDIF

The majority of the entries in a directory represent organizational people. In LDIF, the definition of an organizational person is as follows:

dn: distinguished_name
objectClass: top
objectClass: person
objectClass: organizationalPerson
objectClass: inetOrgPerson
cn: common_name 
sn: surname
list_of_optional_attributes

The following example shows an organizational person entry in LDIF format:

dn: uid=bjensen,ou=people,o=example.com
objectclass: top
objectclass: person
objectclass: organizationalPerson
objectclass: inetOrgPerson
cn: Babs Jensen
sn: Jensen
givenname: Babs
uid: bjensen
ou: Marketing
ou: people
description: Fictional person for example purposes
telephonenumber: 555-5557
userpassword: {sha}dkfljlk34r2kljdsfk9

The following table defines each element of the LDIF person entry.

Table 4–4 Organizational Person Entries in LDIF

LDIF Element  

Description  

dn: distinguished_name

Required. Specifies the distinguished name for the entry. 

If there is a comma in the DN, the comma must be escaped with a backslash (\). For example, dn:uid=bjensen,ou=people,o=example.com Bolivia\,S.A.

objectClass: top

Required. Specifies the top object class.

objectClass: person

Specifies the person object class. This object class specification should be included because many LDAP clients require it during search operations for a person or an organizational person.

objectClass: organizationalPerson

Specifies the organizationalPerson object class. This object class specification should be included because some LDAP clients require it during search operations for an organizational person.

objectClass: inetOrgPerson

Specifies the inetOrgPerson object class. The inetOrgPerson object class is recommended for the creation of an organizational person entry because this object class includes the widest range of attributes. The uid attribute is required by this object class, and entries that contain this object class are named based on the value of the uid attribute.

cn: common_name

Required. Specifies the person’s common name which is the full name commonly used by the person. For example, cn: Bill Anderson.

sn: surname

Required. Specifies the person’s surname, or last name. For example, sn: Anderson.

list_of_attributes

Specifies the list of optional attributes that you maintain for the entry.