Chapter 5   Post Installation


This chapter describes the post-installation procedures for launching the online help and populating the directory tree.

Launching the Help System

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The help system for iPlanet Directory Server is dependent upon iPlanet Administration Server. If you are running iPlanet Directory Server Console on a machine remote to Administration Server, you will need to confirm the following:

Client IP address authorized on Administration Server. The machine running iPlanet Directory Server Console needs access to Administration Server. To configure Administration Server to accept the client machine's IP address, follow the steps below:

1. Launch iPlanet Administration Server Console. The console should be running on the same machine as Administration Server.

2. Click the Configuration tab, then click the Network tab.

3. In the Connection Restrictions Settings, select "IP Addresses to Allow" from the pull down menu. Click Edit.

4. Edit the IP Addresses field to the following: *.*.*.*

   This allows all clients access to Administration Server.

5. Restart Administration Server. You can now launch the online help by clicking any of the Help buttons in the Directory Server Console.

Proxy authorized on Administration Server. If you use proxies for your HTTP connections on the client machine running Directory Server Console, you need to either:

• Remove proxies on the machine running Directory Server Console. This allows the client machine to access Administration Server directly.

  To remove the proxies on the machine running Directory Server Console, follow the steps below:

  1. Alter the proxy configuration of the browser you are using to run the help.

  2. In Netscape Communicator, select Preferences from the Edit menu.

  3. Select Advanced then Proxies to access the proxy configuration.

  4. In Internet Explorer, select Internet Options from the Tools menu.

or

• Add the client machine proxy IP address to Administration Server list of acceptable IP addresses.

  
  

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  Caution

  Adding the client machine proxy IP address to Administration Server creates a potential security hole in your system.

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Populating the Directory Tree

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During installation, a simple directory database was created for you. In addition, a simple directory structure was placed in the database for you to use. This directory structure contains basic access control and the major branch points for the recommended directory structure.

Now you need to populate your database with user entries. There are several ways you can create and populate your directory suffixes. These are explained in detail in the iPlanet Directory Server Administrator's Guide.

The main methods include:

• Creating a database from LDIF—Use this method if you want to use the sample directory data shipped with Directory Server, if you are importing entries from another directory via LDIF, or if you have more than a few entries to add at once. The sample LDIF files provided with the installation are located in installDir/slapd-serverID/ldif. For more information about LDIF, refer to the iPlanet Directory Server Administrator's Guide.

• Starting your Directory Server with an empty database and importing data over LDAP—This method requires you to populate your directory using an LDAP client such as Directory Server Console or the ldapmodify command-line utility.

As you populate your directory, consider your access control needs and set access control accordingly. For more information on access control, see the iPlanet Directory Server Deployment Guide and the iPlanet Directory Server Administrator's Guide.

Tuning Cache Size on Windows NT 4 and Windows 2000

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On Windows NT 4.0, the maximum address space that an application can use is 2 GB. Therefore, because Directory Server cannot use more than 2 Gb of virtual memory, the sum of all caches configured for the server must be strictly less than 2 GBs. If the size of the entry caches and of the database cache exceeds this limit, Directory Server exits with an error message.

When configuring cache sizes, you should apply the following recommendations:

• On Windows NT, set the database cache to a value lower than 1.5 GB, otherwise the server might not be able to start up. The database cache attribute is nsslapd-dbcachesize and is stored in the entry cn=config,cn=ldbm database,cn=plugins,cn=config. For more information on this attribute, refer to the iPlanet Directory Server Configuration, Command, and File Reference.

• If you need to increase the size of the database cache beyond 1.5 GB, you can experiment with different settings of the nsslapd-dbncache attribute, which specifies how many memory chunks the database cache is composed of. This attribute is stored in the entry cn=config,cn=ldbm database,cn=plugins,cn=config, and its default value is 1. You can increase the size of the database cache by increasing the value of this attribute, because the operating system can allocate small pieces of memory instead of one large memory region. The 2 GB limit still applies.

• On Windows NT4/Enterprise Edition and Windows 2000 Advanced Server, the available address space for applications can be increased to 3 GB as described in the Microsoft Knowledge Base article Q171793.