colons and periods in attribute values

["J. A. Landamore" <jal@mcs.le.ac.uk>]

We're using OpenLDAP 2.2.14 (yes I know it's old)

I suspect I'm missing something obvious, but I've been banging my head 
against this for a couple of days and cannot see the light.

We keep macAddress values colon seperated, e.g 00:01:FE:9B:00:FF
We keep ipHostNumber values period seperated, e.g 143.210.97.123

Now the puzzle.

ldapsearch -h <host> -b <base> \(macAddress=*\)

returns all the entries that have a macAddress attribute

ldapsearch -h <host> -b <base> \(macAddress=00:01:FE:9B:00:FF\)

returns the entry that has that precise macAddress attribute; but

ldapsearch -h <host> -b <base> \(macAddress=0*\)
ldapsearch -h <host> -b <base> \(macAddress=*F\)
ldapsearch -h <host> -b <base> \(macAddress=00:01:FE:9B:00:*F\)

return empty.

Similarly with ipHostNumber

ldapsearch -h <host> -b <base> \(iphostnumber=*\)

returns all the entries that have an ipHostNumber attribute

ldapsearch -h <host> -b <base> \(iphostnumber=143.210.97.123\)

returns the entry that has that precise ipHostNumber attribute; but

ldapsearch -h <host> -b <base> \(iphostnumber=14*\)
ldapsearch -h <host> -b <base> \(iphostnumber=*23\)
ldapsearch -h <host> -b <base> \(iphostnumber=143.210.97.*3\)

return empty.

Is this correct behaviour, am I missing something obvious?

Any guidance greatly appreciated.

John Landamore

School of Mathematics & Computer Science
University of Leicester
University Road, LEICESTER, LE1 7RH
J.Landamore@mcs.le.ac.uk
Phone: +44 (0)116 2523410       Fax: +44 (0)116 2523604