Determining if an attribute can be specified as unique

 

Use this information to determine if an attribute can be specified as unique. Not all attributes can be specified as unique. See the following for a list of conditions when an attribute cannot be designated as unique:

• Binary attributes, operational attributes, configuration attributes, and the objectclass attribute cannot be designated as unique.

• Attributes with existing conflicting values cannot be made unique.

• On a per-attribute basis, language tags are mutually exclusive with unique attributes. If you designate a particular attribute as being an unique attribute, it cannot have language tags associated with it.

The Web administration tool Manage unique attributes task shows you only those attributes which satisfy the first condition. You can get the same list of attributes by executing the ldapexop command after binding as administrator. To get a list of attributes that can be unique, specify the following:

ldapexop -op getattributes -attrType unique -matches true

To get a list of attributes that cannot be unique, specify the following:

ldapexop -op getattributes -attrType unique -matches false

Some of the attributes listed as allowed for unique attributes may have conflicting values and thus cannot be made unique. To determine if a specific attribute can be specified as unique, use the ldapexop command. For example, the command:

ldapexop -op uniqueattr -a uid

indicates if the uid attribute can be made unique. It also lists conflicting values, if any, for the attribute. If the ldapexop command indicates there are conflicting values, the ldapsearch command can be used to find the entries having that value. For example, the following command lists all entries having uid=jsmith:

ldapsearch -b "" -s sub "(uid=jsmith)"

 

Parent topic:

Unique attribute tasks