NETSCAPE DIRECTORY SERVER

CONTENTS

Installation Requirements
Corrections to 4.11
Known Problems
Things to Be Aware Of
More Information

INSTALLATION REQUIREMENTS

http://docs.iplanet.com/docs/manuals/directory/412/installation.html.

CORRECTIONS TO 4.11

In addition, this release of the Directory Server contains fixes to the following known problems in Netscape Directory Server 4.11:

• A problem existed where if the server shut down while the Directory Console was trying to create a replication agreement, the Directory Console would still attempt to create the agreement. This produced confusing error messages. In this release, the Directory Console no longer attempts to create the agreement if the server is not running. (385051)
• DNS is required on your machine in order to install many Netscape components; however, previous versions of the setup program did not check to see if DNS was running. Consequently, install would abort. The setup program now verifies that DNS is running. (316651)
• This release of the Directory Server contains an updated root CA certificate. For more information about root certificate expiration and iPlanet servers, see the Digital Certificate Security Alert. (371068, 382273)
• The Directory Console no longer searches the directory tree at startup. Now, the Console performs this search on demand, (such as when you select the Directory tab), significantly decreasing startup time. (368135)
• The Directory Server Administrator's Guide does not include any information about the configuration parameter that allows you to use underscores and hyphens in attribute and object class names. (383527, 337438)

To confgure this option, complete the following:
1. Stop the server.
2. Open the slapd.conf file and find the line that begins with the following:

attribute_name_exceptions 0
3. Change the zero to 1 (one).
4. Restart the server.
• If you edit a user entry from the Directory Browser, you use the User & Group editor. This window also has the Advanced... button which pops up the generic property editor. Previously, if you changed the Email Address in the property editor, your changes were lost when you dismissed the window. These changes are no longer discarded when you dismiss the window. (341109)
• Previously, if a very complex search filter was presented to the Directory Server as part of a search request, the server would sometimes crash. This problem has been corrected. (395995)
• Previously, if the secure-listenhost parameter was used, the Directory Server would hang indefinitely during startup. This has been corrected. (363687)
• In version 4.11, the Directory Server Console would fail to open if the DIT had many branches. This problem has been fixed. (367132)
• In certain circumstances, the attribute Passwordretrycount would get modified an additional time on each level of replication. This problem has been fixed. (390891)
• Windows NT systems, the Directory Server would occasionally allocate unnecessary file descriptors, sometimes causing the ns-slapd process to fail. This problem has been corrected. (391414)
• The Directory Server now correctly generates the VLV index (previously, the server would not correctly index some entries). (381057)
• This version of the Directory Server fixes the problem where the db_home_directory setting would sometimes get corrupted when there was a change in the configuration database (cn=config,cn=ldbm). (368875)
• The mcc.bat file now properly handles upgrades from version 4.1 to versions 4.11 and 4.12. (367149)
• All referrals are now correctly followed by all versions of the Console. (367041)
• The Directory Server will now start up in SSL mode if it encounters any unknown ciphers (previously the server would not respond if it encountered an unknown cipher). During the start-up procedure, the server will log a warning to the error log if it encounters any unknown ciphers. (399179)

KNOWN PROBLEMS

• Installation, Migration, and Upgrade
• Administration Server and Netscape Console
• Replication
• Plug-Ins
• Documentation
• Import and Export
• Internationalization
• NT Synchronization Service
• Security and Access Control
• SNMP Agent
• Directory Server Gateway
• Miscellaneous

Installation, Migration, and Upgrade

• If you cancel NT Synchronization Service installation before entering the hostname and port, the next time you reboot the machine the NT Synchronization Service attempts to start and fails. (395062)
• On Windows NT systems, you must use the Typical Installation procedures to upgrade from Directory Server 4.1 to 4.11 or 4.12; if you use the Custom Installation procedures, the installation will fail. (367312)
• Unix only: The platform version included in the name of the gzipped installation package does not necessarily match the version of the platform that the binaries run on. (368822)

 

 
 
 

For example, the following package contains the product binaries for Solaris 2.6, 7, and 8:

directory-4_12-domestic-us_sparc-sun-solaris2_6_tar.gz

• The Installation Guide that shipped with the server does not contain the procedure for upgrading from a previous 4.x release. This information is now available from the Installation Guide hosted on iPlanet's website at (367383):

 

 
 
 

http://docs.iplanet.com/docs/manuals/directory/41/install/upgrade.htm

• The installation program no longer asks you if you want the installation cache deleted (it is now deleted by default). To cause the installation cache to be saved when the installation is completed, run setup with the -k option. You must run the setup program with -k if you want to perform a silent installation. (339769, 387540, 330298)
• On Linux, set the TERM environment variable to vt100 before you install. If you do not set your terminal to vt100, the screen text displayed during installation may be offset and difficult to read. (348576)
• On Windows NT, you must install Communicator 4.x before you can install the NT Synch Service. (350963)
• If you are migrating your supplier or consumer Directory Server from a previous release and you want to maintain the replication agreements from the old server, you must migrate into a new instance instead of an existing one.

 

 
 
 

Replication agreements are denoted by the port number of the supplier and consumer server, and the port number is not transferred if you migrate into an existing instance. Therefore, if you choose to migrate your supplier or consumer Directory Server into an existing instance, you will need to reconfigure the replication agreements with the correct port numbers. (351935)

• Migration from a 1.x server to 4.12 on Digital Unix or Irix is not supported. (351461)
• After migration from 3.x to 4.12 on NT, you may have two server instances (one 3.x and one 4.12) listening on the same port. If you no longer want to use your 3.x server, delete it using the 3.x administrative interface, or disable it in the Services Control Panel. (351663)
• If you want to migrate an SSL-enabled Directory Server to the 4.x release, follow these steps (117420, 347858):
• Turn off SSL in the old server.
• Migrate the old server to 4.x.
• >From the command line, change to:

 

 
 
 

/<4x_Server_Root>/bin/admin/admin/bin

Where <4x_Server_Root> is the directory where you installed the 4.x Directory Server.

• run the sec-migrate command-line utility as follows:

 

 
 
 

On Unix:

./sec-migrate <Old_Server_Root> <CertDB_Alias><4x_Server_Root> slapd-<CertDB_Alias> <Old_CertDB_Password>

On Windows NT:

sec-migrate <Old_Server_Root> <CertDB_Alias><4x_Server_Root> slapd-<CertDB_Alias> <Old_CertDB_Password>

Where <Old_Server_Root> is the directory where you installed the pre 4.0 Directory Server,<CertDB_Alias> is the alias you used when setting up the certificate database, <4x_Server_Root> is the directory where you installed the 4.x Directory Server, and <CertDB_Password> is the certificate database password.

For example,

./sec-migrate /NSHOME/ds30/ mycertdb /usr/netscape/server4/ slapd-mycertdb mycertdbpw

• >From the command line, change to:

 

 
 
 

/<4x_Server_Root>/alias

• Rename slapd-<CertDB_Alias>-key3.db3.db to slapd-<CertDB_Alias>-key3.db.
• Rename slapd-<CertDB_Alias>-cert7.db7.db to slapd-<CertDB_Alias>-cert7.db.
• Rename <CertDB_Alias>-password.txt to slapd-<CertDB_Alias>-pin.txt.

 

 
 
 

In 4.0, you only needed to type the password in the file in cleartext, for example mypassword. For 4.1 through 4.12, you need to include the token name and password in slapd-<CertDB_Alias>-pin.txt as follows:

Token:Password

 For example:

Internal (Software) Token:mypassword

• On the Directory Server Console for the migrated instance, select the Configuration tab and then select the root entry in the navigation tree in the left pane.
• Select the Encryption tab in the right pane.
• Select the Enable SSL checkbox.
• Select at least one cipher family.
• Click Save.
• Restart the 4.x Directory Server.

 

 
 
 
 
 

• Netscape recommends setting the database cache (dbcache in slapd.ldbm.conf) on NT to a value no greater than 800 Mb. (116968)
• When a configuration directory used to register Netscape servers is uninstalled (that is, a directory that contains a o=NetscapeRoot tree), those directories are no longer manageable from Netscape Console. Do not uninstall a configuration directory unless you have already uninstalled all other Netscape servers that are configured in that directory instance. (301667)
• Windows NT only. If you uninstall the Directory Server and you select everything to uninstall except for the NT Synchronization Service, then the uninstaller is deleted from your system and you can no longer uninstall the synch service. In this situation, to uninstall the synch service, reinstall the server and immediately uninstall it again, this time selecting the synchronization service. (336657)
• Currently, the installation program allows you to enter an installation path that contains names that start with a number (for example: e:\0449) This should not be allowed. Do not use a path that contains names beginning with numbers. (349138)
• Unix only. If you attempt to migrate a server that was running as root to a server that is running as an unprivileged user, the migration will fail. Always migrate a server that is running as root to a server that is also running as root. (347692)
• AIX only. While installing on AIX, the "Extracting....> messages are truncated and it looks like installation has halted when it has not. Wait a few moments and all of the packages will be extracted. Once the packages are extracted, you are prompted to press a key for installation to continue. This message may also be truncated. Press any key and the installation will then proceed normally. (349687)
• You cannot uninstall the directory server if there is no space left on the device. Clear up some disk space and then uninstall the server. (352130)

 

 
 
 
 
 

Administration Server and Netscape Console

• If you add a suffix using the Directory Server Console, the console may get into a state where any subsequent adds result in duplicate suffixes displayed in the Suffix list. (344160)
• Using continuous refresh for log file viewing in the Directory Server Console may result in NullPointerException output in the terminal window. If you receive this error, use the following method instead of continuous refresh to see log file activity in real time. (354953)
• >From the command prompt, change to the following directory:

 

 
 
 

<NSHOME>/slapd-<serverID>/logs

• Type the following command:

 

 
 
 

tail -f access/errors

tail -f immediately displays the output.

• Netscape Console doesn't allow you to edit entries that have a multivalued RDN. (353885, 352206)

 

 
 
 
 
 

• NT only. When you access help from one of the help buttons in the Directory Console, sometimes the help text is not displayed in the browser. You must restart Netscape Communicator to correct the problem. (399626)
• Do not resize the Property Editor while an attribute is highlighted. Instead, deselect the attribute before resizing the window. If you do not, the pop-up menu will not appear when you right-click in the Property Editor. (336767)
• On all Unix platforms, underscores in text boxes may not be displayed. If you use Netscape Console with eXceed X Server for Windows NT, you need to restart the console if you experience this error. (336626)
• Search results window in the Directory Server Console is not fully visible. However, enlarging the Search Results window allows the entire results to be seen. (339333)
• If you attempt to create an attribute name with an extremely long name, the resulting confirmation box will include an "OK" button that can be off the screen. This is because the attribute name will not truncate or wrap in the confirmation dialog box. (340542)
• When you bring up the Directory tab on the Directory Server Console and click on a node in the left pane that contains subentries, the server sorts the subentries and displays them in the right pane of the console. However, the server follows referrals using the same bind credentials with which you log in to the console. If you're logged in as the Directory Manager and the Directory Manager has a different password on the remote server, the referral bind fails. In response, the local server console displays a red dot followed by the text "Entry could not be read" in the right pane. Also, because the referral was not followed, the entry is not sorted in the list. Instead, the entry is listed at the end of the list in the Directory Console. (336983)
• The ACI user interface will allow you to enter any character where time (numerical) data is expected. (346308)

 

 
 
 
 
 

Replication

• CIR only. If you initialize a consumer server from the Directory Console, the message box ".. wait while consumer is being initialised" does not always disappear when initialization is complete. Also, if you cancel the message box and attempt to view the contents of the directory from the Directory Console, the entries may not be visible. To correct this, after initializing the consumer, exit and restart the Directory Console and initialize the consumer again. (390871)
• In the Directory Console, when creating a CIR agreement with SSL enabled, the pulldown menu displays an incorrect SSL port number. You must click the Other button, and enter the correct SSL port number. This problem sometimes occurs on the AIX platform while creating an SIR agreement; the consumer's pulldown menu is empty, so the SSL port number needs to be entered manually by clicking the Other button. (398694)
• In the Directory Console, when creating an SIR agreement with SSL enabled, in some cases, the console generates java exceptions. This does not affect the SIR agreement, which is correctly created and saved. (398694)
• Use of dc-style naming is not supported with cascaded replication. (381549)
• The hostname portion of the fully-qualified domain name entered during server installation must exactly match the hostname of the machine running the directory server. If it does not, you will be unable to configure replication agreements. (382436)

Plug-Ins

• Do not list the configuration for the PTA plug-in in slapd.conf multiple times. If you do so, only the last configuration is used. Instead, specify multiple LDAP URLs or subtrees as documented in Using the Pass-Through Authentication Plug-In. (379678)
• The COS plug-in is not supported in this release of the Directory Server; it is provided as an example only.

Documentation

• In Chapter 6 of the Directory Server Administrator's Guide, the description of "Password Change After Reset" should also state that only the unrestricted user (Root DN) can trigger the password reset. (383384)
• In Chapter 1 of the Directory Server Administrator's Guide, the procedure for starting and stopping the server from the command-line incorrectly states that the scripts to start and stop the server must be run using the same UID and GID that the server uses. Instead, if your server runs on a port less than 1024, you must be logged in as root to run these scripts. (335710)
• The Directory Server Plug-In Programmer's Guide contains misleading information about creating additional database plug-ins for use with Directory Server. User-created database plug-ins are not supported with Directory Server 4.x. (364180)
• The valid range documented for the Look Through Limit parameter in Chapter 17, "C onfiguration Parameters" in the Administrator's Guide is incorrect. The correct range is -1 to maximum integer. (381073)
• In addition to the configuration information provided in Using the Pass-Through Authentication Plug-In, you can also use multiple LDAP URLs for the pass-through subtree parameter <subtree>. (380266)
• The Administrator's Guide incorrectly defines the ioblocktimeout parameter. The unit used to determine when the connection to a stalled LDAP client should be closed is ticks, not milliseconds. Also, the number of ticks-per-second is different on different operating systems, therefore, the default value of 1800000 is not 30 minutes on all platforms. (367448)
• The 4.1 Installation Guide that shipped with the server does not contain the procedure for upgrading from a previous 4.x release. This information is now available from the Installation Guide hosted on iPlanet's website at (367383):

 

 
 
 

http://docs.iplanet.com/docs/manuals/directory/41/install/upgrade.htm

• The Directory Server Gateway documentation incorrectly gives the location of the authck directory as (365271):

 

 
 
 

<NSHOME>/dsgw/authck

The documentation should say that the directory is located at:

<NSHOME>/bin/slapd/authck
 

• The documentation does not indicate where Bitstream Cyberbit font can be located. This font is necessary for any Netscape browser that will attempt to display non-english characters. (352274)

 

 
 
 

The font can be obtained from the following URL:
http://ftp.netscape.com/pub/communicator/extras/fonts/windows/

There are several readme files there that you should examine:

READMEfirst.txt contains information on platform recommendations.

ReadMe.htm or Readme.wri contain the installation/usage documentation.


 

 
 
 
 
 

• The Netscape Directory Server Installation Guide does not adequately describe the migration procedure for large directories. For large directory sizes (as a rule of thumb, anything greater than 5000 entries), the documented migration procedure is not sufficient because these entries are transferred between the old directory and the new directory over LDAP, which will be relatively slow. (352275)

 

 
 
 

Instead, use the following procedure to migrate your directory:

• Export your old directory to LDIF.
• Create a simple directory structure in LDIF that matches the suffixes used by your Directory Server. This should be a very simple file that only contains the root entries for every suffix served by your Directory Server.
• Shutdown your old directory server.
• Delete your old directory's database.
• Import the simple directory that you created in step 2 to your old directory server.
• Perform the migration as described in the Netscape Directory Server Installation Guide.
• Shutdown your newly migrated Directory Server.
• Backup your new database. This is especially important if your new Directory Server is a configuration directory (that is, it contains the o=NetscapeRoot tree).
• Import your original database from the LDIF that you saved in step 1. When you do this, use the <NSHOME>/slapd-<serverID>/ldif2db script, as this script will automatically preserve o=NetscapeRoot configuration information so that it is included in your newly imported database.
• Start your new Directory Server. You are done with migration.

 

 
 
 
 
 

Import and Export

• Using Netscape Console, if you attempt to export a suffix that does not exist the console does not warn you of the error but instead returns an "Unexpected Error" message and then exits. (339555)

 

 
 
 
 
 

Internationalization

• If you are running a domestic version of Netscape Directory Server, and you want to view non-Latin-1 characters using the Directory Server Gateway or Directory Express from a Communicator client, you need to configure Communicator to display the correct fonts. See http://home.netscape.com/eng/intl/basics.html#fonts for more specific information. (330218)

 

 
 
 
 
 

NT Synchronization Service

• You may receive an error message that states "Error connecting to Synch Service on port 5003" when attempting to synchronize, add all users, apply changes, or stop the NT Synchronization Service. If this happens, exit and restart the Configuration Tool. (38870)
• You cannot use silent install to install just the NT Synchronization Service. (109661)

 

 
 
 
 
 

Security and Access Control

• When SSL is enabled on the NT Directory Server, attempts to start the directory server from Netscape Console result in potentially confusing dialog boxes if a dongle file is not used to store the key file password. A dialog box appears on the machine where the Directory Server is running asking for the key file password (this password is required before an SSL-enabled Directory Server can be started). If nothing is entered into this dialog box, a dialog box indicating that the Directory Server could not be started will appear on the machine where Netscape Console is running. To work around this problem, start the server from a Netscape Console running on the machine where the server is running, unless you have a dongle file. (301624).
• When the server is in SSL mode, the server console issues a warning dialog upon server restart to let you know that a password will be required to restart the server. However, this warning is not issued the first time you restart to go into SSL mode. Also, the warning continues to be issued for every restart after you take the server out of SSL mode. (333022, 341898)

 

SNMP Agent

• On UNIX, the Netscape SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) subagent will generate an unexpected error during startup unless the SNMP master port is set to 199. (316650)

 

 
 
 
 
 

Directory Server Gateway

• On Linux, if you want to use the Directory Server Gateway with Apache, you must set the SERVER_URL environment variable in httpd.conf to the web server on which the gateway runs. For example:

 

 
 
 

 setenv SERVER_URL http://dsgwHomePage

• If you want to use Directory Server Gateway with a Web Server other than the Netscape Administration Server, you need to complete the following: (338438)
• Make a copy of slapd.key. By default, this file is located in:

 

 
 
 

<NSHOME>/bin/slapd/server/

• Save the copy in the following directory:

 

 
 
 

<NSHOME>/dsgw/bin

Miscellaneous

• On Windows NT, the Directory Server uses a hidden window named slapd-[server identifier] to restart the server if it crashes. Anyone with access to the machine who knows the name of the hidden window may be able to shut down the server by shutting down the hidden window. (335719)
• The server will not start up if DN's included in slapd.conf have spaces. Always use %20 in place of spaces when including DNs in slapd.conf. (349824)

 

 
 
 

For example, this is the correct way to format a DN in slapd.conf:

     ldap://phonebook.airius.com/o%3Dace%20industry

while this is not correct:

     ldap://phonebook.airius.com/o=ace industry

• While 3.x Calendar Server will work with a 4.x Directory Server, the Calendar Server requires the Directory Server to report itself as a 3.x Directory Server. You can cause a 4.x Directory Server to report itself as a 3.x Directory Server by using the versionstring parameter in slapd.conf. Place the following line in your slapd.conf file and restart your server:

 

 
 
 
 
 

      versionstring "Netscape-Directory/3.1"

THINGS TO BE AWARE OF

Configuration Files

• On Windows NT, you can no longer use backslashes "\" in path names in the configuration files; instead, use forward slashes "/".

 

Directory Server Gateway

• If you add a user through the NT Synchronization Service and the user's full name is not specified in Windows NT, the Synchronization Service uses the NT UID as the value for the entry's cn attribute. In this situation, the "Full Name" field on the gateway displays the NT UID of the user.

 

 
 
 

If you add a user through the NT Synchronization Service and the user's full name is specified in Windows NT in addition to the NT UID, then the Synchronization Service creates one cn with the NT user name and also creates one cn with the full name. In this case, the gateway displays both cns in the format NT uid+full name. (312457)

• In order to use the gateway, Javascript must be turned on in Communicator. (318303)
• Specify the full DN for advanced searches on group members. (113063)
• The syntax for gateway URLs changed between Directory Server 3.x and 4.x. See the Directory Server Gateway Customization Guide for more information.

 

 
 
 
 
 

Netscape Console

• Netscape Console does not support SSL certificate-based client authentication. Directory servers configured to require SSL client authentication must be managed from the command line. However, servers configured to allow SSL client authentication may be managed from Netscape Console. (312404)

 

 
 
 
 
 

LDAP URLs

• With release 4.x, LDAP URLs should be URL-encoded or the URL is likely to be truncated. To prevent this, spaces in LDAP URLs should always be represented as %20. This is in accordance with LDAPv3, which allows LDAP URLs in referrals to include an optional label separated from the LDAP URL by one or more spaces. This new functionality is a change in URL behavior from release 3.0, which does not require URL-encoding. (326947)

 

 
 
 

Notes:

• You should use %20 for all LDAP URLs, including URLs in ACIs, for example:

 

 
 
 

memberURL: ldap:///ou=People,o=Airius%20Corporation??sub?(custServiceRep=y)

• You must also use %20 when entering LDAP URLs in Netscape Console, for example, when you enter a default referral URL.

 

 
 
 
 
 

Directory Server Schema

• If the Directory Server schema includes an object class that contains an undefined attribute, on startup the server assumes that the undefined attribute is a cis attribute and logs an error message stating that the attribute needs to be added to the schema. This may cause unexpected behavior if the undefined attribute is meant to contain data in any syntax other than cis, for example, binary. (334257)

 

 
 
 
 
 

Migration

• If you have multi-valued RDNs in your pre-4.1 directory, then when you upgrade to Directory Server 4.1 or greater, you must export your database to LDIF, perform the migration, and then reimport your database.

 

 
 
 
 
 

MORE INFORMATION

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