4.4 Starting slapd

Once the final tweaks have been added to the configuration file, the next step is to start the slapd daemon by executing the following command as root:

root# /usr/local/libexec/slapd

Use the ps command to verify that slapd is running. On a Linux system, the output should appear similar to:

$ ps -ef | grep slapd 
root   8235     1  0 12:37 ?   00:00:00 /usr/local/libexec/slapd
root   8241  8235  0 12:37 ?   00:00:00 /usr/local/libexec/slapd
root   8242  8241  0 12:37 ?   00:00:00 /usr/local/libexec/slapd

On Linux and IRIX, multiple threads of a process will show up as individual entries in the output from ps. On Solaris, slapd will be displayed as a single process.

Stopping the OpenLDAP server requires that the daemon have a chance to flush modified directory data to disk. The best way to do this is to send the parent slapd process an INT signal, as shown here (the pidfile location was defined in the server's configuration file):

root# kill -INT 'cat /var/run/slapd.pid'

Shutting down slapd by more drastic means, such as kill -9, can result in data corruption and should be avoided at all costs.

In the absence of any command-line options, slapd's behavior is governed by compile-time defaults or options defined in the slapd.conf file. At times, it is necessary to override some of these settings via the command line. Table 4-1 lists the available slapd options.

Table 4-1. Command-line options for the slapd server

Option	Description
-d integer	Specifies the log level to use for logging information. This option causes slapd to log all information to standard output on the controlling terminal; it can be very helpful for quick server debugging sessions. The integer value specified should be a combination of the logging levels associated with the loglevel parameter in slapd.conf.
-f filename	Uses a configuration file other than the compile-time default (slapd.conf).
-h URI_list	Specifies a space-separated list of LDAP URIs that the slapd daemon should serve. The most common URIs are ldap:/// (LDAP on port 389; the default), ldaps:/// (LDAP over SSL on port 636), and ldapi:/// (LDAP over IPC).
-l syslog-local-user	Specifies the local user of the syslog facility. The default value is LOCAL4. Possible values range from LOCAL0 to LOCAL7. This option may not be supported on all systems. Check the syslog(8) manpage to verify the existence of the local-user syslog facility.
-n name	Defines the service name used when logging messages to syslog. This is for convenience only and defaults to the string slapd.
-r directory	Specifies a chroot(1) jail directory to be used by slapd.
-s syslog-level	Defines a syslog level other than the default level to log all syslog messages. Refer to the syslog.conf(5) manpage for available levels on your system.
-u username -g groupname	Specify the effective user or group ID for slapd.

Of course, starting slapd from the command line is something you do only while testing. In practice, it would be started by one of the system's boot time initialization scripts—either rc.local for BSD systems, or one of the /etc/rc.d/rc?.d/ (or /etc/init.d/) scripts for System V hosts. You should refer to the init(8) manpage for a brief description of run levels and which levels are used (and for what functions) on your system. On most Linux systems, the slapd daemon should be launched at run levels 3 and 5. Run level 5 is basically the same as run level 3 with the addition of X11.