What is an LDAP Distinguished Name?
Created May 4, 2012
A directory service has entries that are similar to the UNIX file structure.
For e.g., in Unix we have
/etc
/bin
/usr/bin
/usr/local
In a LDAP directory service, we can have the distinguished name:
cn=John Zukowski, ou=FAQ Guru, o=JGuru
Where:
o is Organization
ou is the Organizational Unit
cn is the Common Name
In the same LDAP service we can have the distinguished name:
cn=John Zukowski, ou=FAQ Member, o=JGuru
Both of these entries relate to same person (John Zukowski), but in different sub-trees (ou). One entry might have different permissions, rights, etc. when compared to the other. So the only way we can distinguish these two entries is by using their Distinguished names.