slapd-sql(5) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | CONFIGURATION | DATA SOURCE CONFIGURATION | SCOPING CONFIGURATION | STATEMENT CONFIGURATION | HELPER CONFIGURATION | METAINFORMATION USED | TYPICAL SQL BACKEND OPERATION | COMMON TECHNIQUES | CAVEATS | BUGS | PROXY CACHE OVERLAY | EXAMPLES | ACCESS CONTROL | FILES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

SLAPD-SQL(5)               File Formats Manual              SLAPD-SQL(5)

NAME         top

       slapd-sql - SQL backend to slapd

SYNOPSIS         top

       ETCDIR/slapd.conf

DESCRIPTION         top

       The primary purpose of this slapd(8) backend is to PRESENT
       information stored in some RDBMS as an LDAP subtree without any
       programming (some SQL and maybe stored procedures can't be
       considered programming, anyway ;).

       That is, for example, when you (some ISP) have account
       information you use in an RDBMS, and want to use modern solutions
       that expect such information in LDAP (to authenticate users, make
       email lookups etc.).  Or you want to synchronize or distribute
       information between different sites/applications that use RDBMSes
       and/or LDAP.  Or whatever else...

       It is NOT designed as a general-purpose backend that uses RDBMS
       instead of LMDB (as the standard MDB backend does), though it can
       be used as such with several limitations.  You can take a look at
       http://www.openldap.org/faq/index.cgi?file=378 (OpenLDAP
       FAQ-O-Matic/General LDAP FAQ/Directories vs. conventional
       databases) to find out more on this point.

       The idea (detailed below) is to use some meta-information to
       translate LDAP queries to SQL queries, leaving relational schema
       untouched, so that old applications can continue using it without
       any modifications.  This allows SQL and LDAP applications to
       inter-operate without replication, and exchange data as needed.

       The SQL backend is designed to be tunable to virtually any
       relational schema without having to change source (through that
       meta-information mentioned).  Also, it uses ODBC to connect to
       RDBMSes, and is highly configurable for SQL dialects RDBMSes may
       use, so it may be used for integration and distribution of data
       on different RDBMSes, OSes, hosts etc., in other words, in highly
       heterogeneous environment.

       This backend is experimental.

CONFIGURATION         top

       These slapd.conf options apply to the SQL backend database, which
       means that they must follow a "database sql" line and come before
       any subsequent "backend" or "database" lines.  Other database
       options not specific to this backend are described in the
       slapd.conf(5) manual page.

DATA SOURCE CONFIGURATION         top

       dbname <datasource name>
              The name of the ODBC datasource to use.

       dbhost <hostname>
       dbpasswd <password>
       dbuser <username>
              The three above options are generally unneeded, because
              this information is taken from the datasource specified by
              the dbname directive.  They allow to override datasource
              settings.  Also, several RDBMS' drivers tend to require
              explicit passing of user/password, even if those are given
              in datasource (Note: dbhost is currently ignored).

SCOPING CONFIGURATION         top

       These options specify SQL query templates for scoping searches.

       subtree_cond <SQL expression>
              Specifies a where-clause template used to form a subtree
              search condition (dn="(.+,)?<dn>$").  It may differ from
              one SQL dialect to another (see samples).  By default, it
              is constructed based on the knowledge about how to
              normalize DN values (e.g.  "<upper_func>(ldap_entries.dn)
              LIKE CONCAT('%',?)"); see upper_func, upper_needs_cast,
              concat_pattern and strcast_func in "HELPER CONFIGURATION"
              for details.

       children_cond <SQL expression>
              Specifies a where-clause template used to form a children
              search condition (dn=".+,<dn>$").  It may differ from one
              SQL dialect to another (see samples).  By default, it is
              constructed based on the knowledge about how to normalize
              DN values (e.g.  "<upper_func>(ldap_entries.dn) LIKE
              CONCAT('%,',?)"); see upper_func, upper_needs_cast,
              concat_pattern and strcast_func in "HELPER CONFIGURATION"
              for details.

       use_subtree_shortcut { YES | no }
              Do not use the subtree condition when the searchBase is
              the database suffix, and the scope is subtree; rather
              collect all entries.

STATEMENT CONFIGURATION         top

       These options specify SQL query templates for loading schema
       mapping meta-information, adding and deleting entries to
       ldap_entries, etc.  All these and subtree_cond should have the
       given default values.  For the current value it is recommended to
       look at the sources, or in the log output when slapd starts with
       "-d 5" or greater.  Note that the parameter number and order must
       not be changed.

       oc_query <SQL expression>
              The query that is used to collect the objectClass mapping
              data from table ldap_oc_mappings; see "METAINFORMATION
              USED" for details.  The default is "SELECT id, name,
              keytbl, keycol, create_proc, delete_proc, expect_return
              FROM ldap_oc_mappings".

       at_query <SQL expression>
              The query that is used to collect the attributeType
              mapping data from table ldap_attr_mappings; see
              "METAINFORMATION USED" for details.  The default is
              "SELECT name, sel_expr, from_tbls, join_where, add_proc,
              delete_proc, param_order, expect_return FROM
              ldap_attr_mappings WHERE oc_map_id=?".

       id_query <SQL expression>
              The query that is used to map a DN to an entry in table
              ldap_entries; see "METAINFORMATION USED" for details.  The
              default is "SELECT id,keyval,oc_map_id,dn FROM
              ldap_entries WHERE <DN match expr>", where <DN match expr>
              is constructed based on the knowledge about how to
              normalize DN values (e.g. "dn=?" if no means to uppercase
              strings are available; typically, "<upper_func>(dn)=?" is
              used); see upper_func, upper_needs_cast, concat_pattern
              and strcast_func in "HELPER CONFIGURATION" for details.

       insentry_stmt <SQL expression>
              The statement that is used to insert a new entry in table
              ldap_entries; see "METAINFORMATION USED" for details.  The
              default is "INSERT INTO ldap_entries (dn, oc_map_id,
              parent, keyval) VALUES (?, ?, ?, ?)".

       delentry_stmt <SQL expression>
              The statement that is used to delete an existing entry
              from table ldap_entries; see "METAINFORMATION USED" for
              details.  The default is "DELETE FROM ldap_entries WHERE
              id=?".

       delobjclasses_stmt <SQL expression>
              The statement that is used to delete an existing entry's
              ID from table ldap_objclasses; see "METAINFORMATION USED"
              for details.  The default is "DELETE FROM
              ldap_entry_objclasses WHERE entry_id=?".

HELPER CONFIGURATION         top

       These statements are used to modify the default behavior of the
       backend according to issues of the dialect of the RDBMS.  The
       first options essentially refer to string and DN normalization
       when building filters.  LDAP normalization is more than upper-
       (or lower-)casing everything; however, as a reasonable trade-off,
       for case-sensitive RDBMSes the backend can be instructed to
       uppercase strings and DNs by providing the upper_func directive.
       Some RDBMSes, to use functions on arbitrary data types, e.g.
       string constants, requires a cast, which is triggered by the
       upper_needs_cast directive.  If required, a string cast function
       can be provided as well, by using the strcast_func directive.
       Finally, a custom string concatenation pattern may be required;
       it is provided by the concat_pattern directive.

       upper_func <SQL function name>
              Specifies the name of a function that converts a given
              value to uppercase.  This is used for case insensitive
              matching when the RDBMS is case sensitive.  It may differ
              from one SQL dialect to another (e.g. UCASE, UPPER or
              whatever; see samples).  By default, none is used, i.e.
              strings are not uppercased, so matches may be case
              sensitive.

       upper_needs_cast { NO | yes }
              Set this directive to yes if upper_func needs an explicit
              cast when applied to literal strings.  A cast in the form
              CAST (<arg> AS VARCHAR(<max DN length>)) is used, where
              <max DN length> is builtin in back-sql; see macro
              BACKSQL_MAX_DN_LEN (currently 255; note that slapd's
              builtin limit, in macro SLAP_LDAPDN_MAXLEN, is set to
              8192).  This is experimental and may change in future
              releases.

       strcast_func <SQL function name>
              Specifies the name of a function that converts a given
              value to a string for appropriate ordering.  This is used
              in "SELECT DISTINCT" statements for strongly typed RDBMSes
              with little implicit casting (like PostgreSQL), when a
              literal string is specified.  This is experimental and may
              change in future releases.

       concat_pattern <pattern>
              This statement defines the pattern that is used to
              concatenate strings.  The pattern MUST contain two
              question marks, '?', that will be replaced by the two
              strings that must be concatenated.  The default value is
              CONCAT(?,?); a form that is known to be highly portable
              (IBM db2, PostgreSQL) is ?||?, but an explicit cast may be
              required when operating on literal strings: CAST(?||? AS
              VARCHAR(<length>)).  On some RDBMSes (IBM db2, MSSQL) the
              form ?+?  is known to work as well.  Carefully check the
              documentation of your RDBMS or stay with the examples for
              supported ones.  This is experimental and may change in
              future releases.

       aliasing_keyword <string>
              Define the aliasing keyword.  Some RDBMSes use the word
              "AS" (the default), others don't use any.

       aliasing_quote <string>
              Define the quoting char of the aliasing keyword.  Some
              RDBMSes don't require any (the default), others may
              require single or double quotes.

       has_ldapinfo_dn_ru { NO | yes }
              Explicitly inform the backend whether the dn_ru column (DN
              in reverse uppercased form) is present in table
              ldap_entries.  Overrides automatic check (this is
              required, for instance, by PostgreSQL/unixODBC).  This is
              experimental and may change in future releases.

       fail_if_no_mapping { NO | yes }
              When set to yes it forces attribute write operations to
              fail if no appropriate mapping between LDAP attributes and
              SQL data is available.  The default behavior is to ignore
              those changes that cannot be mapped.  It has no impact on
              objectClass mapping, i.e. if the structuralObjectClass of
              an entry cannot be mapped to SQL by looking up its name in
              ldap_oc_mappings, an add operation will fail regardless of
              the fail_if_no_mapping switch; see section
              "METAINFORMATION USED" for details.  This is experimental
              and may change in future releases.

       allow_orphans { NO | yes }
              When set to yes orphaned entries (i.e. without the parent
              entry in the database) can be added.  This option should
              be used with care, possibly in conjunction with some
              special rule on the RDBMS side that dynamically creates
              the missing parent.

       baseObject [ <filename> ]
              Instructs the database to create and manage an in-memory
              baseObject entry instead of looking for one in the RDBMS.
              If the (optional) <filename> argument is given, the entry
              is read from that file in LDIF(5) format; otherwise, an
              entry with objectClass extensibleObject is created based
              on the contents of the RDN of the baseObject.  This is
              particularly useful when ldap_entries information is
              stored in a view rather than in a table, and union is not
              supported for views, so that the view can only specify one
              rule to compute the entry structure for one objectClass.
              This topic is discussed further in section
              "METAINFORMATION USED".  This is experimental and may
              change in future releases.

       create_needs_select { NO | yes }
              Instructs the database whether or not entry creation in
              table ldap_entries needs a subsequent select to collect
              the automatically assigned ID, instead of being returned
              by a stored procedure.

       fetch_attrs <attrlist>
       fetch_all_attrs { NO | yes }
              The first statement allows one to provide a list of
              attributes that must always be fetched in addition to
              those requested by any specific operation, because they
              are required for the proper usage of the backend.  For
              instance, all attributes used in ACLs should be listed
              here.  The second statement is a shortcut to require all
              attributes to be always loaded.  Note that the dynamically
              generated attributes, e.g. hasSubordinates, entryDN and
              other implementation dependent attributes are NOT
              generated at this point, for consistency with the rest of
              slapd.  This may change in the future.

       check_schema { YES | no }
              Instructs the database to check schema adherence of
              entries after modifications, and structural objectClass
              chain when entries are built.  By default it is set to
              yes.

       sqllayer <name> [...]
              Loads the layer <name> onto a stack of helpers that are
              used to map DNs from LDAP to SQL representation and vice-
              versa.  Subsequent args are passed to the layer
              configuration routine.  This is highly experimental and
              should be used with extreme care.  The API of the layers
              is not frozen yet, so it is unpublished.

       autocommit { NO | yes }
              Activates autocommit; by default, it is off.

METAINFORMATION USED         top

       Almost everything mentioned later is illustrated in examples
       located in the servers/slapd/back-sql/rdbms_depend/ directory in
       the OpenLDAP source tree, and contains scripts for generating
       sample database for Oracle, MS SQL Server, mySQL and more
       (including PostgreSQL and IBM db2).

       The first thing that one must arrange is what set of LDAP object
       classes can present your RDBMS information.

       The easiest way is to create an objectClass for each entity you
       had in ER-diagram when designing your relational schema.  Any
       relational schema, no matter how normalized it is, was designed
       after some model of your application's domain (for instance,
       accounts, services etc. in ISP), and is used in terms of its
       entities, not just tables of normalized schema.  It means that
       for every attribute of every such instance there is an effective
       SQL query that loads its values.

       Also you might want your object classes to conform to some of the
       standard schemas like inetOrgPerson etc.

       Nevertheless, when you think it out, we must define a way to
       translate LDAP operation requests to (a series of) SQL queries.
       Let us deal with the SEARCH operation.

       Example: Let's suppose that we store information about persons
       working in our organization in two tables:

         PERSONS              PHONES
         ----------           -------------
         id integer           id integer
         first_name varchar   pers_id integer references persons(id)
         last_name varchar    phone
         middle_name varchar
         ...

       (PHONES contains telephone numbers associated with persons).  A
       person can have several numbers, then PHONES contains several
       records with corresponding pers_id, or no numbers (and no records
       in PHONES with such pers_id).  An LDAP objectclass to present
       such information could look like this:

         person
         -------
         MUST cn
         MAY telephoneNumber $ firstName $ lastName
         ...

       To fetch all values for cn attribute given person ID, we
       construct the query:

         SELECT CONCAT(persons.first_name,' ',persons.last_name)
             AS cn FROM persons WHERE persons.id=?

       for telephoneNumber we can use:

         SELECT phones.phone AS telephoneNumber FROM persons,phones
             WHERE persons.id=phones.pers_id AND persons.id=?

       If we wanted to service LDAP requests with filters like
       (telephoneNumber=123*), we would construct something like:

         SELECT ... FROM persons,phones
             WHERE persons.id=phones.pers_id
                 AND persons.id=?
                 AND phones.phone like '%1%2%3%'

       (note how the telephoneNumber match is expanded in multiple
       wildcards to account for interspersed ininfluential chars like
       spaces, dashes and so; this occurs by design because
       telephoneNumber is defined after a specially recognized syntax).
       So, if we had information about what tables contain values for
       each attribute, how to join these tables and arrange these
       values, we could try to automatically generate such statements,
       and translate search filters to SQL WHERE clauses.

       To store such information, we add three more tables to our schema
       and fill it with data (see samples):

         ldap_oc_mappings (some columns are not listed for clarity)
         ---------------
         id=1
         name="person"
         keytbl="persons"
         keycol="id"

       This table defines a mapping between objectclass (its name held
       in the "name" column), and a table that holds the primary key for
       corresponding entities.  For instance, in our example, the person
       entity, which we are trying to present as "person" objectclass,
       resides in two tables (persons and phones), and is identified by
       the persons.id column (that we will call the primary key for this
       entity).  Keytbl and keycol thus contain "persons" (name of the
       table), and "id" (name of the column).

         ldap_attr_mappings (some columns are not listed for clarity)
         -----------
         id=1
         oc_map_id=1
         name="cn"
         sel_expr="CONCAT(persons.first_name,' ',persons.last_name)"
         from_tbls="persons"
         join_where=NULL
         ************
         id=<n>
         oc_map_id=1
         name="telephoneNumber"
         sel_expr="phones.phone"
         from_tbls="persons,phones"
         join_where="phones.pers_id=persons.id"

       This table defines mappings between LDAP attributes and SQL
       queries that load their values.  Note that, unlike LDAP schema,
       these are not attribute types - the attribute "cn" for "person"
       objectclass can have its values in different tables than "cn" for
       some other objectclass, so attribute mappings depend on
       objectclass mappings (unlike attribute types in LDAP schema,
       which are indifferent to objectclasses).  Thus, we have oc_map_id
       column with link to oc_mappings table.

       Now we cut the SQL query that loads values for a given attribute
       into 3 parts.  First goes into sel_expr column - this is the
       expression we had between SELECT and FROM keywords, which defines
       WHAT to load.  Next is table list - text between FROM and WHERE
       keywords.  It may contain aliases for convenience (see examples).
       The last is part of the where clause, which (if it exists at all)
       expresses the condition for joining the table containing values
       with the table containing the primary key (foreign key equality
       and such).  If values are in the same table as the primary key,
       then this column is left NULL (as for cn attribute above).

       Having this information in parts, we are able to not only
       construct queries that load attribute values by id of entry (for
       this we could store SQL query as a whole), but to construct
       queries that load id's of objects that correspond to a given
       search filter (or at least part of it).  See below for examples.

         ldap_entries
         ------------
         id=1
         dn=<dn you choose>
         oc_map_id=...
         parent=<parent record id>
         keyval=<value of primary key>

       This table defines mappings between DNs of entries in your LDAP
       tree, and values of primary keys for corresponding relational
       data.  It has recursive structure (parent column references id
       column of the same table), which allows you to add any tree
       structure(s) to your flat relational data.  Having id of
       objectclass mapping, we can determine table and column for
       primary key, and keyval stores value of it, thus defining the
       exact tuple corresponding to the LDAP entry with this DN.

       Note that such design (see exact SQL table creation query)
       implies one important constraint - the key must be an integer.
       But all that I know about well-designed schemas makes me think
       that it's not very narrow ;) If anyone needs support for
       different types for keys - he may want to write a patch, and
       submit it to OpenLDAP ITS, then I'll include it.

       Also, several users complained that they don't really need very
       structured trees, and they don't want to update one more table
       every time they add or delete an instance in the relational
       schema.  Those people can use a view instead of a real table for
       ldap_entries, something like this (by Robin Elfrink):

         CREATE VIEW ldap_entries (id, dn, oc_map_id, parent, keyval)
             AS
                 SELECT 0, UPPER('o=MyCompany,c=NL'),
                     3, 0, 'baseObject' FROM unixusers WHERE userid='root'
             UNION
                 SELECT (1000000000+userid),
                     UPPER(CONCAT(CONCAT('cn=',gecos),',o=MyCompany,c=NL')),
                     1, 0, userid FROM unixusers
             UNION
                 SELECT (2000000000+groupnummer),
                     UPPER(CONCAT(CONCAT('cn=',groupname),',o=MyCompany,c=NL')),
                     2, 0, groupnummer FROM groups;

       If your RDBMS does not support unions in views, only one
       objectClass can be mapped in ldap_entries, and the baseObject
       cannot be created; in this case, see the baseObject directive for
       a possible workaround.

TYPICAL SQL BACKEND OPERATION         top

       Having meta-information loaded, the SQL backend uses these tables
       to determine a set of primary keys of candidates (depending on
       search scope and filter).  It tries to do it for each objectclass
       registered in ldap_objclasses.

       Example: for our query with filter (telephoneNumber=123*) we
       would get the following query generated (which loads candidate
       IDs)

         SELECT ldap_entries.id,persons.id, 'person' AS objectClass,
                ldap_entries.dn AS dn
           FROM ldap_entries,persons,phones
          WHERE persons.id=ldap_entries.keyval
            AND ldap_entries.objclass=?
            AND ldap_entries.parent=?
            AND phones.pers_id=persons.id
            AND (phones.phone LIKE '%1%2%3%')

       (for ONELEVEL search) or "... AND dn=?" (for BASE search) or "...
       AND dn LIKE '%?'" (for SUBTREE)

       Then, for each candidate, we load the requested attributes using
       per-attribute queries like

         SELECT phones.phone AS telephoneNumber
           FROM persons,phones
          WHERE persons.id=? AND phones.pers_id=persons.id

       Then, we use test_filter() from the frontend API to test the
       entry for a full LDAP search filter match (since we cannot
       effectively make sense of SYNTAX of corresponding LDAP schema
       attribute, we translate the filter into the most relaxed SQL
       condition to filter candidates), and send it to the user.

       ADD, DELETE, MODIFY and MODRDN operations are also performed on
       per-attribute meta-information (add_proc etc.).  In those fields
       one can specify an SQL statement or stored procedure call which
       can add, or delete given values of a given attribute, using the
       given entry keyval (see examples -- mostly PostgreSQL, ORACLE and
       MSSQL - since as of this writing there are no stored procs in
       MySQL).

       We just add more columns to ldap_oc_mappings and
       ldap_attr_mappings, holding statements to execute (like
       create_proc, add_proc, del_proc etc.), and flags governing the
       order of parameters passed to those statements.  Please see
       samples to find out what are the parameters passed, and other
       information on this matter - they are self-explanatory for those
       familiar with the concepts expressed above.

COMMON TECHNIQUES         top

       First of all, let's recall that among other major differences to
       the complete LDAP data model, the above illustrated concept does
       not directly support such features as multiple objectclasses per
       entry, and referrals.  Fortunately, they are easy to adopt in
       this scheme.  The SQL backend requires that one more table is
       added to the schema: ldap_entry_objectclasses(entry_id,oc_name).

       That table contains any number of objectclass names that
       corresponding entries will possess, in addition to that mentioned
       in mapping.  The SQL backend automatically adds attribute mapping
       for the "objectclass" attribute to each objectclass mapping that
       loads values from this table.  So, you may, for instance, have a
       mapping for inetOrgPerson, and use it for queries for "person"
       objectclass...

       Referrals used to be implemented in a loose manner by adding an
       extra table that allowed any entry to host a "ref" attribute,
       along with a "referral" extra objectClass in table
       ldap_entry_objclasses.  In the current implementation, referrals
       are treated like any other user-defined schema, since "referral"
       is a structural objectclass.  The suggested practice is to define
       a "referral" entry in ldap_oc_mappings, holding a naming
       attribute, e.g. "ou" or "cn", a "ref" attribute, containing the
       url; in case multiple referrals per entry are needed, a separate
       table for urls can be created, where urls are mapped to the
       respective entries.  The use of the naming attribute usually
       requires to add an "extensibleObject" value to
       ldap_entry_objclasses.

CAVEATS         top

       As previously stated, this backend should not be considered a
       replacement of other data storage backends, but rather a gateway
       to existing RDBMS storages that need to be published in LDAP
       form.

       The hasSubordinates operational attribute is honored by back-sql
       in search results and in compare operations; it is partially
       honored also in filtering.  Owing to design limitations, a
       (brain-dead?) filter of the form (!(hasSubordinates=TRUE)) will
       give no results instead of returning all the leaf entries,
       because it actually expands into ... AND NOT (1=1).  If you need
       to find all the leaf entries, please use (hasSubordinates=FALSE)
       instead.

       A directoryString value of the form "__First___Last_" (where
       underscores mean spaces, ASCII 0x20 char) corresponds to its
       prettified counterpart "First_Last"; this is not currently
       honored by back-sql if non-prettified data is written via RDBMS;
       when non-prettified data is written through back-sql, the
       prettified values are actually used instead.

BUGS         top

       When the ldap_entry_objclasses table is empty, filters on the
       objectClass attribute erroneously result in no candidates.  A
       workaround consists in adding at least one row to that table, no
       matter if valid or not.

PROXY CACHE OVERLAY         top

       The proxy cache overlay allows caching of LDAP search requests
       (queries) in a local database.  See slapo-pcache(5) for details.

EXAMPLES         top

       There are example SQL modules in the slapd/back-sql/rdbms_depend/
       directory in the OpenLDAP source tree.

ACCESS CONTROL         top

       The sql backend honors access control semantics as indicated in
       slapd.access(5) (including the disclose access privilege when
       enabled at compile time).

FILES         top

       ETCDIR/slapd.conf
              default slapd configuration file

SEE ALSO         top

       slapd.conf(5), slapd(8).

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the OpenLDAP (an open source implementation
       of the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) project.
       Information about the project can be found at 
       ⟨http://www.openldap.org/⟩.  If you have a bug report for this
       manual page, see ⟨http://www.openldap.org/its/⟩.  This page was
       obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨https://git.openldap.org/openldap/openldap.git⟩ on 2024-06-14.
       (At that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found
       in the repository was 2024-06-13.)  If you discover any rendering
       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there
       is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
       corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

OpenLDAP LDVERSION             RELEASEDATE                  SLAPD-SQL(5)

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