Red Hat DIRECTORY SERVER 7.1 Installation Manual

Also see for DIRECTORY SERVER 7.1: Manual Deployment guide Configuration Reference Administrator's guide

Contents

Chapter 1. Preparing for a Directory Server Installation 5must decide which one will host the configuration directory tree, o=NetscapeRoot. You must makethis decision before you install any compatible server applications, including Directory Server.For ease of upgrades, you should use a Directory Server instance that is dedicated to supporting theo=NetscapeRoot tree; this server instance should perform no other function with regard to managingyour enterprise’s directory data. Also, do not use port 389 for this server instance because doing socould prevent you from installing a Directory Server on that host that can be used for management ofyour enterprise’s directory data.Because the configuration directory normally experiences very little traffic, you can allow its server in-stance 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 server instances, you may want to dedicate alow-end machine to the configuration directory so as not to hurt the performance of your other pro-duction servers. Directory 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 otherdirectory activities.Also, as with any directory installation, consider replicating the configuration directory to increaseavailability and reliability. See the Red Hat Directory Server Deployment Guide for information onusing replication and DNS round-robins to increase directory availability.CautionCorrupting the configuration directory tree can result in the necessity of reinstalling all other DirectoryServers that are registered in that configuration directory. Remember the following guidelines whendealing with the configuration directory:• Always back up your configuration directory after you install a new Directory Server.• Never change the host name or port number used by the configuration directory.• Never directly modify the configuration directory tree. Only the setup program should ever modifythe configuration.1.2.7. Determining the Location of the User DirectoryJust as the configuration directory is the Directory Server that is used for server administration, theuser directory is the Directory Server that contains the entries for users and groups in your enterprise.For most directory installations, the user directory and the configuration directory should be twoseparate server instances. These server instances can be installed on the same machine, but, for bestresults, you should consider placing the configuration directory on a separate machine.Between your user directory and your configuration directory, it is your user directory that will re-ceive the overwhelming percentage of the directory traffic. For this reason, you should give the userdirectory the greatest computing resources. Because the configuration directory should receive verylittle traffic, it can be installed on a machine with very low-end resources.You cannot install a user directory until you have installed a configuration directory somewhere onyour network.1.2.8. Determining the Administration DomainThe administration domain allows you to group servers together logically so that you can more easilydistribute server administrative tasks. A common scenario is for two divisions in a company to each