Netscape Directory Server Installation Guide: Preparing for Installation

The default Directory Manager DN is cn=Directory Manager. Because the Directory Manager DN is a special entry that is not stored in the directory tree (instead, it is stored in slapd.conf), the Directory Manager DN does not have to conform to any suffix configured for your Directory Server. Also, you should not create an actual Directory Server entry to use with the directory manager DN.

The Directory Manager password must be at least 8 characters long.

Configuration Directory Administrator ID and password. The configuration directory administrator is the person responsible for managing all the Netscape Servers accessible through the Netscape console. If you log in with this user ID, then you can administer any Netscape server that you can see in the server topology area of the Netscape console.

For security, the configuration directory administrator should not be the same as the directory manager. The default configuration directory administrator ID is admin.

Administration Server User and password. You are prompted for this only during custom installations. The Administration Server user is the special user that has "root" privileges for the local Administration Server. Authentication as this person allows you to administer all the Netscape servers stored in the local server root.

The Administration Server user ID and password is used only if the Directory Server is down and so you are unable to log in as the configuration directory administrator. The existence of this user ID means that you can access the Administration Server and perform disaster recovery activities such as starting the Directory Server, reading log files, and so forth.

For most situations, the Administration Server user and password should be identical to the configuration directory administrator ID and password.

Determine your Directory Suffix

A directory suffix is the directory entry that represents the first entry in a directory tree. You will need at least one directory suffix for the tree that will contain your enterprise's data. Netscape recommends that you select a directory suffix that corresponds to the DNS host name used by your enterprise. For example, if your organization uses the DNS name of airius.com, then select a suffix of o=airius.com.

For more information on suffixes and directory trees, see the Netscape Directory Server Deployment Guide.

Determine the Location of the Configuration Directory

All 4.x Netscape servers use an instance of the Directory Server to store configuration information. This information is stored in the o=NetscapeRoot directory tree. Your configuration directory is the Directory Server that contains the o=NetscapeRoot tree used by your Netscape servers.

If you are installing the Directory Server only to support other Netscape servers, then that Directory Server is your configuration directory. If you are installing the Directory Server to use as part of a general directory service, then you will have multiple Directory Servers installed in your enterprise and you must decide which one will host the o=NetscapeRoot tree. You must make this decision before you install any 4.x Netscape servers (including Netscape Directory Server).

For ease of upgrades, it is recommended you use a Directory Server instance that is dedicated to supporting the o=NetscapeRoot tree; this server instance should perform no other function with regard to managing your enterprise's directory data. Also, do not use port 389 for this server instance because doing so could prevent you from installing a Directory Server on that host that can be used for management of your enterprise's directory data.

Because the configuration directory normally experiences very little traffic, you can allow its server instance to coexist on a machine with another, more heavily loaded, Directory Server instance. However, for very large sites that are installing a large number of Netscape servers, you may want to dedicate a low-end machine to the configuration directory so as to not hurt the performance of your other production servers. Netscape server installations result in write activities to the configuration directory. For large enough sites, this write activity could result in a short-term performance hit to your other directory activities.

Also, as with any directory installation, consider replicating the configuration directory to increase availability and reliability. See the Netscape Directory Server Deployment Guide for information on using replication and DNS round robins to increase directory availability.

WARNING. Corrupting the configuration directory tree can result in the necessity of reinstalling all other Netscape servers that are registered in that configuration directory. Remember the following guidelines when dealing with the configuration directory: