Backing Up to LDIF

Backing up to LDIF allows you to back up directory data to a formatted LDIF file.

Exporting to LDIF

You can back up directory data by exporting the contents of a suffix in the LDIF format. Exporting data can be useful for doing the following:

• Backing up the data in your server

• Copying your data to another directory server

• Exporting your data to another application

• Repopulating suffixes after a change to your directory topology

The configuration information cannot be exported.

Suffix data can occupy a large amount of disk space, especially files in LDIF format. You can optimize transfer times and disk space by exporting compressed files. When you export suffix data, if the filename of the export file ends with .gz, ODSEE automatically compresses the file. By default the compression level is 3. If you increase the compression level, the CPU usage grows significantly while the files size do not show a comparatively significant shrink.

The level range is a number between 1 and 9. Other values revert to default level 3. Compression level is ignored if the output LDIF does not end with .gz.

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Caution - Do not stop the server while an export operation is in progress.

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To Export a Suffix to LDIF

You can use DSCC to perform this task. For information, see Directory Service Control Center Interface and the DSCC online help.

• Use one of the following commands to export a suffix to an LDIF file:

  • If your server is local and stopped, type:

    $ dsadm export instance-path suffix-DN LDIF-file

    The dsadm export takes only offline backups.

  • If your server is running (local or remote), type:

    $ dsconf export -h host -p port suffix-DN LDIF-file

    The dsconf export takes only online backups.

  The following example uses dsconf export to export two suffixes to a single LDIF file:

  $ dsconf export -h host1 -p 1389 ou=people,dc=example,dc=com \
   ou=contractors,dc=example,dc=com /local/dsInst/ldif/export123.ldif

  The ldif file will be created on the machine running the server instance not on the machine running the dsconf command.

  The dsadm export and dsconf export commands can also be used with the --no-repl option to specify that no replication information is to be exported. The default is that the replicated suffix is exported to an LDIF file with replication information. The resulting LDIF file will contain attribute subtypes that are used by the replication mechanism. This LDIF file can then be imported on the consumer server to initialize the consumer replica, as described in Initializing Replicas

  For more information about these commands, see the dsadm(1M) and dsconf(1M) man pages.