SLAPD(8) System Manager's Manual SLAPD(8)
NAME
slapd - Stand-alone LDAP Daemon
SYNOPSIS
/usr/sbin/slapd [-V[V[V]] [-4|-6] [-T {acl|a[dd]|auth|c[at]|
d[n]|i[ndex]|m[odify]|p[asswd]|s[chema]|t[est]}] [-d debug-level]
[-f slapd-config-file] [-F slapd-config-directory] [-h URLs] [-n ser-
vice-name] [-s syslog-level] [-l syslog-local-user] [-o option[=value]]
[-r directory] [-u user] [-g group] [-c cookie]
DESCRIPTION
Slapd is the stand-alone LDAP daemon. It listens for LDAP connections on
any number of ports (default 389), responding to the LDAP operations it
receives over these connections. slapd is typically invoked at boot
time, usually out of /etc/rc.local. Upon startup, slapd normally forks
and disassociates itself from the invoking tty. If configured in the
config file (or config directory), the slapd process will print its
process ID (see getpid(2)) to a .pid file, as well as the command line
options during invocation to an .args file (see slapd.conf(5)). If the
-d flag is given, even with a zero argument, slapd will not fork and
disassociate from the invoking tty.
See the "OpenLDAP Administrator's Guide" for more details on slapd.
OPTIONS
-V[V[V]]
Print version info and proceed with startup. If -VV is given,
exit after providing version info. If -VVV is given, additionally
provide information on static overlays and backends.
-4 Listen on IPv4 addresses only.
-6 Listen on IPv6 addresses only.
-T tool
Run in Tool mode. The tool argument selects whether to run as
slapadd, slapcat, slapdn, slapindex, slapmodify, slappasswd,
slapschema, or slaptest (slapacl and slapauth need the entire acl
and auth option value to be spelled out, as a is reserved to sla-
padd). This option should be the first option specified when it
is used; any remaining options will be interpreted by the corre-
sponding slap tool program, according to the respective man
pages. Note that these tool programs will usually be symbolic
links to slapd. This option is provided for situations where
symbolic links are not provided or not usable.
-d debug-level
Turn on debugging as defined by debug-level. If this option is
specified, even with a zero argument, slapd will not fork or dis-
associate from the invoking terminal. Some general operation and
status messages are printed for any value of debug-level. debug-
level is taken as a bit string, with each bit corresponding to a
different kind of debugging information. Comma-separated arrays
of friendly names can be specified to select debugging output of
the corresponding debugging information. All the names recog-
nized by the loglevel directive described in slapd.conf(5) are
supported. If debug-level is ?, a list of installed debug-levels
is printed, and slapd exits.
Remember that if you turn on packet logging, packets containing
bind passwords will be output, so if you redirect the log to a
logfile, that file should be read-protected.
-s syslog-level
This option tells slapd at what debug-level debugging statements
should be logged to the syslog(8) facility. The value syslog-
level can be set to any value or combination allowed by the -d
switch. Slapd logs all messages selected by syslog-level at the
syslog(3) severity debug-level DEBUG, on the unit specified with
-l.
-n service-name
Specifies the service name for logging and other purposes. De-
faults to basename of argv[0], i.e.: "slapd".
-l syslog-local-user
Selects the local user of the syslog(8) facility. Value can be
LOCAL0, through LOCAL7, as well as USER and DAEMON. The default
is LOCAL4. However, this option is only permitted on systems
that support local users with the syslog(8) facility. Logging to
syslog(8) occurs at the "DEBUG" severity debug-level.
-f slapd-config-file
Specifies the slapd configuration file. The default is
/etc/ldap/slapd.conf.
-F slapd-config-directory
Specifies the slapd configuration directory. The default is
/etc/ldap/slapd.d. If both -f and -F are specified, the config
file will be read and converted to config directory format and
written to the specified directory. If neither option is speci-
fied, slapd will attempt to read the default config directory be-
fore trying to use the default config file. If a valid config di-
rectory exists then the default config file is ignored. All of
the slap tools that use the config options observe this same be-
havior.
-h URLlist
slapd will by default serve ldap:/// (LDAP over TCP on all inter-
faces on default LDAP port). That is, it will bind using IN-
ADDR_ANY and port 389. The -h option may be used to specify LDAP
(and other scheme) URLs to serve. For example, if slapd is given
-h "ldap://127.0.0.1:9009/ ldaps:/// ldapi:///", it will listen
on 127.0.0.1:9009 for LDAP, 0.0.0.0:636 for LDAP over TLS, and
LDAP over IPC (Unix domain sockets). Host 0.0.0.0 represents IN-
ADDR_ANY (any interface). A space separated list of URLs is ex-
pected. The URLs should be of the LDAP, PLDAP, LDAPS, PLDAPS, or
LDAPI schemes, and generally without a DN or other optional para-
meters (excepting as discussed below). Support for the latter
three schemes depends on selected configuration options. Hosts
may be specified by name or IPv4 and IPv6 address formats.
Ports, if specified, must be numeric. The default ldap:// port
is 389 and the default ldaps:// port is 636, same for the proxy
enabled variants.
The PLDAP and PLDAPS URL schemes provide support for the HAProxy
proxy protocol version 2, which allows a load balancer or proxy
server to provide the remote client IP address to slapd to be
used for access control or logging. Ports configured for PLDAP or
PLDAPS will only accept connections that include the necessary
proxy protocol header. Connections to these ports should be re-
stricted at the network level to only trusted load balancers or
proxies to avoid spoofing of client IP addresses by third par-
ties.
For LDAP over IPC, name is the name of the socket, and no port is
required, nor allowed; note that directory separators must be
URL-encoded, like any other characters that are special to URLs;
so the socket
/usr/local/var/ldapi
must be specified as
ldapi://%2Fusr%2Flocal%2Fvar%2Fldapi
The default location for the IPC socket is /var/run/ldapi
The listener permissions are indicated by "x-mod=-rwxrwxrwx",
"x-mod=0777" or "x-mod=777", where any of the "rwx" can be "-" to
suppress the related permission, while any of the "7" can be any
legal octal digit, according to chmod(1). The listeners can take
advantage of the "x-mod" extension to apply rough limitations to
operations, e.g. allow read operations ("r", which applies to
search and compare), write operations ("w", which applies to add,
delete, modify and modrdn), and execute operations ("x", which
means bind is required). "User" permissions apply to authenti-
cated users, while "other" apply to anonymous users; "group" per-
missions are ignored. For example,
"ldap:///????x-mod=-rw-------" means that read and write is only
allowed for authenticated connections, and bind is required for
all operations. This feature is experimental, and requires to be
manually enabled at configure time.
-r directory
Specifies a directory to become the root directory. slapd will
change the current working directory to this directory and then
chroot(2) to this directory. This is done after opening listen-
ers but before reading any configuration file or initializing any
backend. When used as a security mechanism, it should be used in
conjunction with -u and -g options.
-u user
slapd will run slapd with the specified user name or id, and that
user's supplementary group access list as set with initgroups(3).
The group ID is also changed to this user's gid, unless the -g
option is used to override. Note when used with -r, slapd will
use the user database in the change root environment.
Note that on some systems, running as a non-privileged user will
prevent passwd back-ends from accessing the encrypted passwords.
Note also that any shell back-ends will run as the specified non-
privileged user.
-g group
slapd will run with the specified group name or id. Note when
used with -r, slapd will use the group database in the change
root environment.
-c cookie
This option provides a cookie for the syncrepl replication con-
sumer. The cookie is a comma separated list of name=value pairs.
Currently supported syncrepl cookie fields are rid, sid, and csn.
rid identifies a replication thread within the consumer server
and is used to find the syncrepl specification in slapd.conf(5)
or slapd-config(5) having the matching replication identifier in
its definition. The rid must be provided in order for any other
specified values to be used. sid is the server id in a multi-
provider configuration. csn is the commit sequence number re-
ceived by a previous synchronization and represents the state of
the consumer content which the syncrepl engine will synchronize
to the current provider content. In case of multi-provider
replication agreement, multiple csn values, semicolon separated,
can appear. Use only the rid part to force a full reload.
-o option[=value]
This option provides a generic means to specify options without
the need to reserve a separate letter for them.
It supports the following options:
slp={on|off|slp-attrs}
When SLP support is compiled into slapd, disable it (off),
enable it by registering at SLP DAs without specific SLP
attributes (on), or with specific SLP attributes slp-attrs
that must be an SLP attribute list definition according to
the SLP standard.
For example, "slp=(tree=production),(server-type=OpenL-
DAP),(server-version=2.4.15)" registers at SLP DAs with
the three SLP attributes tree, server-type and server-ver-
sion that have the values given above. This allows one to
specifically query the SLP DAs for LDAP servers holding
the production tree in case multiple trees are available.
EXAMPLES
To start slapd and have it fork and detach from the terminal and start
serving the LDAP databases defined in the default config file, just
type:
/usr/sbin/slapd
To start slapd with an alternate configuration file, and turn on volumi-
nous debugging which will be printed on standard error, type:
/usr/sbin/slapd -f /var/tmp/slapd.conf -d 255
To test whether the configuration file is correct or not, type:
/usr/sbin/slapd -Tt
SEE ALSO
ldap(3), slapd.conf(5), slapd-config(5), slapd.access(5), slapacl(8),
slapadd(8), slapauth(8), slapcat(8), slapdn(8), slapindex(8), slapmod-
ify(8), slappasswd(8), slapschema(8), slaptest(8).
"OpenLDAP Administrator's Guide" (http://www.OpenLDAP.org/doc/admin/)
BUGS
See http://www.openldap.org/its/
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
OpenLDAP Software is developed and maintained by The OpenLDAP Project
<http://www.openldap.org/>. OpenLDAP Software is derived from the Uni-
versity of Michigan LDAP 3.3 Release.
OpenLDAP 2.6.10+dfsg-1 2025/05/22 SLAPD(8)
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