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Re: Simple question

At 10:01 AM 3/9/00 EST, Stephen A. Cochran wrote:
>What is the purpose of having an objectclass=top? I have seen this in many
>examples, but I can find no description of it's purpose.

'top' is the root of the object class inheritance tree and as such
all other classes inherit it sets of allowed and required attributes.
Specifically, 'top' requires 'objectclass' and hence ensures that
all entries include a list of applicable object classes.

For more details on the LDAP/X.500 information model, I
suggest reviewing Chadwick "Understanding X.500" <http://www.salford.ac.uk/its024/Version.Web/Contents.htm>.

>In the QuickStart guide, in the ldif example, they use objectclass=dcObject. But
>I'm guessing that is because the orginaztion is identified by domain and domain
>suffux instead of the o=Org,c=US syntax.

Yes.  The organization object class does not allow the dc
(domain component) attribute type.  The dcObject auxiliary
object class is used to allow the inclusion of the type.