H1: Configuring slapd
Once the software has been built and installed, you are ready
-to configure {{slapd}}(8) for use at your site. Unlike previous
+to configure {{slapd}}(8) for use at your site.
+
+Unlike previous
OpenLDAP releases, the slapd(8) runtime configuration in 2.3 (and later)
is fully LDAP-enabled and can be managed using the standard LDAP
operations with data in {{TERM:LDIF}}. The LDAP configuration engine
allows all of slapd's configuration options to be changed on the fly,
generally without requiring a server restart for the changes
-to take effect. The old style {{slapd.conf}}(5) file is still
+to take effect.
+
+The old style {{slapd.conf}}(5) file is still
supported, but must be converted to the new {{slapd-config}}(5) format
to allow runtime changes to be saved. While the old style
configuration uses a single file, normally installed as
{{F:/usr/local/etc/openldap/slapd.conf}}, the new style
uses a slapd backend database to store the configuration. The
configuration database normally resides in the
-{{F:/usr/local/etc/openldap/slapd.d}} directory. When
-converting from the slapd.conf format to slapd.d format, any
-include files will also be integrated into the resulting configuration
-database.
+{{F:/usr/local/etc/openldap/slapd.d}} directory. An alternate configuration
+directory (or file) can be specified via a command-line option to
+{{slapd}}(8).
-An alternate configuration directory (or file) can be specified via
-a command-line option to {{slapd}}(8). This chapter describes the
-general format of the configuration system, followed by a detailed
-description of commonly used config settings.
+This chapter briefly discusses converting to the new style configuration,
+then describes the general format of the configuration system, followed by
+a detailed description of commonly used config settings.
Note: some of the backends and of the distributed overlays
do not support runtime configuration yet. In those cases,
the old style {{slapd.conf}}(5) file must be used.
+H2: Converting old style {{slapd.conf}}(5) file to {{cn=config}} format
+
+An existing {{slapd.conf}}(5) file can be converted to the new format using
+{{slaptest}}(8) or any of the slap tools:
+
+> slaptest -f /usr/local/etc/openldap/slapd.conf -F /usr/local/etc/openldap/slapd.d
+
+You can then discard the old {{slapd.conf}}(5) file. Make sure to launch
+{{slapd}}(8) with the {{-F}} option to specify the configuration directory.
+
+Note: When converting from the slapd.conf format to slapd.d format, any
+included files will also be integrated into the resulting configuration
+database.
+
+
H2: Configuration Layout
The slapd configuration is stored as a special LDAP directory with