LDAP Data Interchange Format

LDIF is the format produced by the ldapsearch tool, the format accepted by the ldapadd tool, and is the basis for the change information format that the ldapmodify tool uses.

An LDIF file contains one or more entries. Each entry is separated by an empty line. The basic form on an LDIF file entry is:

 [id]
dn: entryDN
attrtype: attrvalue
...

where:

• id

  is an optional numeric entry identifier ( not used by the LDAP tools).

• entryDN

  is the LDAP Distinguished Name (DN) of the directory entry.

• attrtype

  is an LDAP attribute type, such as cn or telephoneNumber.

• attrvalue

  is a value for attrtype.

The attrtype: attrvalue line can be repeated as many times as necessary to list all of the attribute values present in an entry. The line can be continued by inserting a single space or horizontal tab character at the start of the next line.

For example, an LDIF file that contains Joe Qwerty's entry includes five attributes (cn and objectclass have two values):

dn: cn=Joseph Qwerty, o=Ultra Keyboards Inc., c=US
cn: Joseph Qwerty
cn: Joe Qwerty
sn: Qwerty
mail: jqwerty@ultra.com
seeAlso: cn=Joe Qwerty, ou=Engineering Division, o=Peo
 ple, o=IEEE, c=US
objectClass: top
objectClass: person

The value of seeAlso is split across two lines by inserting a single space character at the start of the line that begins with “ ple, ...”.