Directory Server is based on an open-systems server protocol called the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP). The Directory Server is a robust, scalable server designed to manage large scale directories to support an enterprise-wide directory of users and resources, extranets, and e-commerce applications over the Internet. The Directory Server runs as the ns-slapd process or service on the machine. The server manages the directory databases and responds to client requests.

This reference deals with the other methods of managing the Directory Server by altering the server configuration attributes using the command line and using command-line utilities and scripts.