slapo-unique.5

.TH SLAPO-UNIQUE 5 "RELEASEDATE" "OpenLDAP LDVERSION"
.\" Copyright 2004-2020 The OpenLDAP Foundation All Rights Reserved.
.\" Copying restrictions apply.  See COPYRIGHT/LICENSE.
.\" $OpenLDAP$
.SH NAME
slapo\-unique \- Attribute Uniqueness overlay to slapd
.SH SYNOPSIS
ETCDIR/slapd.conf
.SH DESCRIPTION
The Attribute Uniqueness overlay can be used with a backend database such as
.BR slapd\-mdb (5)
to enforce the uniqueness of some or all attributes within a
scope. This subtree defaults to all objects within the subtree of the
database for which the Uniqueness overlay is configured.
.LP
Uniqueness is enforced by searching the subtree to ensure that the values of
all attributes presented with an
.BR add ,
.B modify
or
.B modrdn
operation are unique within the scope.
For example, if uniqueness were enforced for the
.B uid
attribute, the subtree would be searched for any other records which also
have a
.B uid
attribute containing the same value. If any are found, the request is
rejected.
.LP
The search is performed using the rootdn of the database, to avoid issues
with ACLs preventing the overlay from seeing all of the relevant data. As
such, the database must have a rootdn configured.
.SH CONFIGURATION
These
.B slapd.conf
options apply to the Attribute Uniqueness overlay.
They should appear after the
.B overlay
directive.
.TP
.B unique_uri <[strict ][ignore ][serialize ]URI[URI...]...>
Configure the base, attributes, scope, and filter for uniqueness
checking.  Multiple URIs may be specified within a domain,
allowing complex selections of objects.  Multiple
.B unique_uri
statements or
.B olcUniqueURI
attributes will create independent domains, each with their own
independent lists of URIs and ignore/strict settings.

Keywords
.BR strict ,
.BR ignore ,
and
.B serialize
have to be enclosed in quotes (") together with the URI.

The LDAP URI syntax is a subset of
.B RFC-4516,
and takes the form:

ldap:///[base dn]?[attributes...]?scope[?filter]

The
.B base dn
defaults to that of the back-end database.
Specified base dns must be within the subtree of the back-end database.

If no
.B attributes
are specified, the URI applies to all non-operational attributes.

The
.B scope
component is effectively mandatory, because LDAP URIs default to
.B base
scope, which is not valid for uniqueness, because groups of one object
are always unique.  Scopes of
.B sub
(for subtree) and
.B one
for one-level are valid.

The
.B filter
component causes the domain to apply uniqueness constraints only to
matching objects.  e.g.
.B ldap:///?cn?sub?(sn=e*)
would require unique
.B cn
attributes for all objects in the subtree of the back-end database whose
.B sn
starts with an e.

It is possible to assert uniqueness upon all non-operational
attributes except those listed by prepending the keyword
.B ignore
If not configured, all non-operational (e.g., system) attributes must be
unique. Note that the
.B attributes
list of an
.B ignore
URI should generally contain the
.BR objectClass ,
.BR dc ,
.B ou
and
.B o
attributes, as these will generally not be unique, nor are they operational
attributes.

It is possible to set strict checking for the uniqueness domain by
prepending the keyword
.B strict.
By default, uniqueness is not enforced
for null values. Enabling
.B strict
mode extends the concept of uniqueness to include null values, such
that only one attribute within a subtree will be allowed to have a
null value.  Strictness applies to all URIs within a uniqueness
domain, but some domains may be strict while others are not.

It is possible to enforce strict serialization of modifications by
prepending the keyword
.B serialize.
By default, no serialization is performed, so multiple modifications
occurring nearly simultaneously may see incomplete uniqueness results.
Using
.B serialize
will force individual write operations to fully complete before allowing
any others to proceed, to ensure that each operation's uniqueness checks
are consistent.
.LP
It is not possible to set both URIs and legacy slapo\-unique configuration
parameters simultaneously. In general, the legacy configuration options
control pieces of a single unfiltered subtree domain.
.TP
.B unique_base <basedn>
This legacy configuration parameter should be converted to the
.B base dn
component of the above
.B unique_uri
style of parameter.
.TP
.B unique_ignore <attribute...>
This legacy configuration parameter should be converted to a
.B unique_uri
parameter with
.B ignore
keyword as described above.
.TP
.B unique_attributes <attribute...>
This legacy configuration parameter should be converted to a
.B unique_uri
parameter, as described above.
.TP
.B unique_strict <attribute...>
This legacy configuration parameter should be converted to a
.B strict
keyword prepended to a
.B unique_uri
parameter, as described above.
.SH CAVEATS
.LP
.B unique_uri
cannot be used with the old-style of configuration, and vice versa.
.B unique_uri
can implement everything the older system can do, however.
.LP
Typical attributes for the
.B ignore ldap:///...
URIs are intentionally not hardcoded into the overlay to allow for
maximum flexibility in meeting site-specific requirements.
.LP
Replication and operations with the
.B relax
control are allowed to bypass this enforcement. It is therefore important that
all servers accepting writes have this overlay configured in order to maintain
uniqueness in a replicated DIT.
.SH FILES
.TP
ETCDIR/slapd.conf
default slapd configuration file
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR slapd.conf (5),
.BR slapd\-config (5).