Searching the Directory
118 Netscape Directory Server Gateway Customization Guide
ou=Marketing, o=Airius.com
ou=Accounting, o=Airius.com
Entries for people and resources within the organization appear below the
organizational branches.
Distinguished Name Syntax
A directory entry is uniquely identified by its distinguished name (DN). The DN
for an entry is represented as a series of comma-separated attributes and
attribute values. The left-most value represents the entry’s name. Each
subsequent attribute represents a branch point above the entry. For example,
this DN represents the entry named malonso in the subdirectory named people
in the directory named airius.com:
uid=malonso, ou=people, o=airius.com
Unique Distinguished Names
The directory server interface will not permit duplicate entries. To avoid
duplications, use distinguished names that be in with the person’s user ID (uid)
rather than the person’s common name. Since email IDs are by definition
unique within an organization, one common method is to use a person’s email
address as their user ID. For example:
jwatson@airius.com
becomes the DN
uid=jwatson, o=airius.com
Searching the Directory
The directory server interface provides two types of searches:
• Standard search selects an appropriate method of searching based on the
value specified. For example, entering the search string “moz@airius.com”
initiates a search for matching email addresses.
• Advanced Search provides a means for searching against specific entry
attributes. For example, it is possible to search for users whose last names
start with “K” and whose phone numbers end with “2110”.
