understanding userid .vs. uid

[Stefan Palme <palme@kapott.org>]

Hi all,

This is not a problem, just a question to understand the things
"behind the scenes".

I am just playing around with some LDAP frontends helping the user
to add the correct attributes depending on the selected objectclass(es)
when creating new LDAP entries. 

A have tried to add an entry with objectclass "account", which requires
an attribute "userid" and may have some more attributes. After adding
the entry with "userid=test", the LDAP tree contained an appropriate
entry, but the attributes "userid" is named "uid" now.

Although I gave the entry an RDN with "userid=test", the RDH has also
automagically changed to "uid=test". 

Obviously, userid and uid are "the same" attribute, and here are my
questions:

1) The objectclass "account" is defined with "MUST userid" - but I can
   create an "account" entry either by giving it an "userid" attribute
   or by using "uid" - both works (I've expected the "uid" approach to
   fail). Why?

2) Where is the relationship between userid and uid defined? I've found
   some "attributetype" definitions in the schema files (namely
   NAME ('uid', 'userid')), but they are commented out. So is this
   relationship hardcoded in OpenLDAP's source code? If yes - is this
   a standard relationship also used by other LDAP servers?

3) Are there some more attribute pairs like userid/uid which are
   "interchangable" in this way? If yes, can I derive the list of such
   attributes from the schema files somehow? Or is there a RFC or
   something naming all such attributes?

Thanks and regards
-stefan-


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Stefan Palme

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