LDAP directory referrals

Referrals allow Directory Servers to work in teams. If the DN that a client requests is not in one directory, the server can automatically send (refer) the request to any other LDAP server.

Directory Server allows you to use two different types of referrals. You can specify default referral servers, where the LDAP server will refer clients whenever any DN is not in the directory. You can also use your LDAP client to add entries to the directory server that have the objectClass referral. This allows you to specify referrals that are based on what specific DN a client requests.

Note:
With Directory Server, referral objects must contain only a distinguished name (dn), an objectClass (objectClass), and a referral (ref) attribute. See ldapsearch for an example that illustrates this restriction.

Referral servers are closely related to replica servers. Because data on replica servers cannot be changed from clients, the replica refers any requests to change directory data to the master server.