can bind, but cannot write or read

["Julian Darley (mail.com)" <jdarley@mail.com>]

i am running openldap 2.0.7 on openbsd 2.8.

the overall problem that i am having is one of getting write permissions to 
my own server.
i have belatedly put

access to * by * write

in the slapd.conf file, but how can tell whether slapd is reading this 
changed conf file?


i would also like to know how to elegantly restart slapd. i have seen

kill -INT slapd

which i tried and also a changed version:

kill -INT /usr/local/libexec/slapd since that is where my slapd lives.

both commands produced:

bash: kill: /usr/local/libexec/slapd: no such pid

i have also tried

kill -TERM `cat $(ETCDIR)/slapd.pid` (as described in 
http://www.umich.edu/~dirsvcs/ldap/doc/guides/slapd/6.html#RTFToC36 )

after substituting $(ETCDIR) with /usr/local/var/slapd.pid, i received just 
this:

>

obviously the program is waiting for some input, but i don't know what input!


i am using php code to connect with ldap, and i can get as far as binding, 
but can neither read nor write anything. slapcat does however produced a 
good result.

many thanks,
julian