<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML ><HEAD ><TITLE >How does LDAP work ?</TITLE ><META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.7"><LINK REL="HOME" TITLE="LDAP Linux HOWTO" HREF="index.html"><LINK REL="UP" TITLE="Introduction" HREF="introduction.html"><LINK REL="PREVIOUS" TITLE="What's LDAP ?" HREF="whatisldap.html"><LINK REL="NEXT" TITLE="LDAP backends, objects and attributes" HREF="ldapbackends.html"></HEAD ><BODY CLASS="section" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#840084" ALINK="#0000FF" ><DIV CLASS="NAVHEADER" ><TABLE SUMMARY="Header navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TH COLSPAN="3" ALIGN="center" >LDAP Linux HOWTO</TH ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="whatisldap.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="80%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" >Chapter 1. Introduction</TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="ldapbackends.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"></DIV ><DIV CLASS="section" ><H1 CLASS="section" ><A NAME="HowitWorks" ></A >1.2. How does LDAP work ?</H1 ><P >LDAP directory service is based on a client-server model. One or more LDAP servers contain the data making up the LDAP directory tree or LDAP backend database. An LDAP client connects to an LDAP server and asks it a question. The server responds with the answer, or with a pointer to where the client can get more information (typically, another LDAP server). No matter what LDAP server a client connects to, it sees the same view of the directory; a name presented to one LDAP server references the same entry it would at another LDAP server. This is an important feature of a global directory service, like LDAP.</P ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="NAVFOOTER" ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"><TABLE SUMMARY="Footer navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="whatisldap.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="index.html" ACCESSKEY="H" >Home</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="ldapbackends.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" >What's LDAP ?</TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="introduction.html" ACCESSKEY="U" >Up</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" >LDAP backends, objects and attributes</TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ></BODY ></HTML >
