Advanced Command-Line Interface

The DSEE CLI is designed to reduce all administrative tasks to a few commands. The look, feel, and use of these commands is similar across the DSEE administrative framework. For example, administrative tasks for Directory Server and Directory Proxy Server are performed with the dsadm and dpadm commands, respectively. The usage and syntax of these two commands is similar.

The command-line tools wrap much of the complexity of LDIF-based configuration, enabling you to write more succinct, readable scripts.

Overview of the Commands

The DSEE includes the following tools to facilitate command-line management of the server:

• dsadm – Handles local Directory Server instance files, creating instances and managing the server process running on the local host.

  For more information, see the dsadm(1M) man page.

• dpadm – Handles local Directory Proxy Server instance files, creating instances and managing the server process running on the local host.

  For more information, see the dpadm(1M) man page.

• dsconf – Connects to a Directory Server instance over LDAP to manage the server configuration: imports, backups, replication agreements and more.

  For more information, see the dsconf(1M) man page.

• dpconf – Connects to a Directory Proxy Server instance over LDAP to manage the server configuration.

  For more information, see the dpconf(1M) man page.

On a Solaris package installation, these commands are located in /opt/SUNWdsee7/bin by default.

Some administrative operations, such as starting and stopping a server instance, require a local agent. For the command line, the local agent is the command itself. The dsadm and dpadm commands run locally because they require the server to be offline or they require specific system rights. For example, if you use the dsadm command to change a certificate, the server can be running but the operation needs to be executed by a privileged user.

You can use the DSEE CLI to administer and configure your directory remotely. You can run the dsconf and dpconf commands remotely to create suffixes, server instances, and indexes. These commands use LDAP authentication, so you do not need a local user on your machine, although the server instance itself must be running.