Red Hat Directory Server 8.0 Administrator's Guide

Appendix A. LDAP Data Interchange
Format
Red Hat Directory Server (Directory Server) uses the LDAP Data Interchange Format (LDIF) to
describe a directory and directory entries in text format. LDIF is commonly used to build the
initial directory database or to add large numbers of entries to the directory all at once. In
addition, LDIF is also used to describe changes to directory entries. For this reason, most of
Directory Server's command-line utilities rely on LDIF for either input or output.
Because LDIF is a text file format, LDIF files can be created using virtually any language. All
directory data is stored using the UTF-8 encoding of Unicode. Therefore, the LDIF files created
must also be UTF-8 encoded.
For information on using LDIF to modify directory entries, see Chapter 2, Creating Directory
Entries.
1. About the LDIF File Format
LDIF consists of one or more directory entries separated by a blank line. Each LDIF entry
consists of an optional entry ID, a required distinguished name, one or more object classes, and
multiple attribute definitions.
The LDIF format is defined in RFC 2849, The LDAP Data Interchange Format (LDIF). Directory
Server is compliant with this standard.
The basic form of a directory entry represented in LDIF is as follows:
dn: distinguished_name
objectClass: object_class
objectClass: object_class
...
attribute_type[;subtype]:attribute_value
...
• Every LDIF entry must have a DN and at least one object class definition.
• Include any attributes required by the object classes defined for the entry.
• All other attributes and object classes are optional.
• Object classes and attributes can be specified in any order.
• The space after the colon is optional.
Table A.1, “LDIF Fields” describes the LDIF fields shown in the previous definition.
539