Sun Microsystems Sun Fire X4200 - Manual (Page 81)

Chapter 7 Command Line Interface Tasks 7-5
FIGURE 7-2 LDAP Distinguished Names
7.2.3 How LDAP Clients and Servers Work
In the LDAP client-server model, LDAP servers make information about people,
organizations, and resources accessible to LDAP clients. Clients make changes to the
LDAP database using a client utility, usually bundled with the LDAP server. When a
change is made to the LDAP database, all client applications see the change
immediately so there is no need to update each distributed application. An LDAP
client can perform these operations, among others:
■ Search for and retrieve entries from the directory.
■ Add new entries to the directory.
■ Update entries in the directory.
■ Delete entries from the directory.
■ Rename entries in the directory.
For example, to update an entry in the directory, an LDAP client submits the
distinguished name of the entry with updated attribute information to the LDAP
server. The LDAP server uses the distinguished name to find the entry and performs
a modify operation to update the entry in the directory. The updated information is
immediately available to all the distributed applications using that LDAP server.
To perform any of these LDAP operations, an LDAP client needs to establish a
connection with an LDAP server. LDAP specifies the use of TCP/IP port number
389, although servers may run on other ports.