13.5. The /etc/openldap/schema/ Directory

The /etc/openldap/schema/ directory holds LDAP definitions, previously located in the slapd.at.conf and slapd.oc.conf files. All attribute syntax definitions and objectclass definitions are now located in the different schema files. The various schema files are referenced in /etc/openldap/slapd.conf using include lines, as shown in this example:

include		/etc/openldap/schema/core.schema
include		/etc/openldap/schema/cosine.schema
include		/etc/openldap/schema/inetorgperson.schema
include		/etc/openldap/schema/nis.schema
include		/etc/openldap/schema/rfc822-MailMember.schema
include		/etc/openldap/schema/autofs.schema
include		/etc/openldap/schema/kerberosobject.schema

	Caution
	You should not modify any of the schema items defined in the schema files installed by OpenLDAP.

You can extend the schema used by OpenLDAP to support additional attribute types and object classes using the default schema files as a guide. To do this, create a local.schema file in the /etc/openldap/schema directory. Reference this new schema within slapd.conf by adding the following line below your default include schema lines:

include          /etc/openldap/schema/local.schema

Next, define new attribute types and object classes within the local.schema file. Many organizations use existing attribute types from the schema files installed by default and add new object classes to the local.schema file.

Extending schema to match certain specialized requirements is quite involved and beyond the scope of this chapter. Visit http://www.openldap.org/doc/admin/schema.html for information on writing new schema files.