From c8a6d52e0423f9366aa6fc064566295ef5f4f46d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Kurt Zeilenga <kurt@openldap.org>
Date: Sat, 17 May 2003 18:37:40 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] Rework CAVEATS

---
 doc/man/man5/slapd.access.5 | 40 ++++++++++++++++---------------------
 1 file changed, 17 insertions(+), 23 deletions(-)

diff --git a/doc/man/man5/slapd.access.5 b/doc/man/man5/slapd.access.5
index 34afa8e692..215357e9aa 100644
--- a/doc/man/man5/slapd.access.5
+++ b/doc/man/man5/slapd.access.5
@@ -429,42 +429,36 @@ privileges to authenticated clients.
 It is strongly recommended to explicitly use the most appropriate
 DN 
 .BR style ,
-for performance (avoid unrequired regex matching when
-an exact match suffices) but also to avoid possible 
-misimplementations of the access rules.
-In fact, a rule of the form
+to avoid possible 
+incorrect specifications of the access rules as well
+as for performance (avoid unrequired regex matching when
+an exact match suffices) reasons.
+.LP
+An adminisistrator might create a rule of the form:
 .LP
 .nf
 	access to dn="dc=example,dc=com"
 		by ...
 .fi
 .LP
-implies that all the subtree "dc=example,dc=com" matches, and the
-match is done using a regex. 
-.LP
-.nf
-access to dn.subtree="dc=example,dc=com"
-	by ...
-.fi
-.LP
-would be far more appropriate.
+expecting it to match all entries in the subtree "dc=example,dc=com".
+However, this rule actually matches any DN which contains anywhere
+the substring "dc=example,dc=com".  That is, the rule matches both
+"uid=joe,dc=example,dc=com" and "dc=example,dc=com,uid=joe".
 .LP
-Another quirk is related to the 
-.B by
-clause:
-a rule of the form
+To match the desired subtree, the rule would be more precisely
+written:
 .LP
 .nf
-	access to *
-		by dn="cn=User,dc=example,dc=com" write
+	access to dn.regex="^(.+,)?dc=example,dc=com$$"
+		by ...
 .fi
 .LP
-gives write access to every DN below "cn=User,dc=example,dc=com";
-if only that DN should have write access, the correct rule would be
+For performance reasons, it would be better to use the subtree style.
 .LP
 .nf
-	access to *
-		by dn.exact="cn=User,dc=example,dc=com" write
+access to dn.subtree="dc=example,dc=com"
+	by ...
 .fi
 .LP
 .SH FILES
-- 
2.39.5