The LDAP base is the default base DN that the LDAP client uses to perform LDAP queries. All searches, including user, group, and netgroup searches, are done using the base DN. This option is appropriate when your LDAP directory is relatively small and all relevant entries are located in the same DN.

If you do not specify a custom base DN, the default is root. This means that each query searches the entire directory. Although this maximizes the chances of success of the LDAP query, it can be inefficient and result in significantly decreased performance with large LDAP directories.

The LDAP base scope is the default search scope that the LDAP client uses to perform LDAP queries. All searches, including user, group, and netgroup searches, are done using the base scope. It determines whether the LDAP query searches only the named entry, entries one level below the DN, or the entire subtree below the DN.

If you do not specify a custom base scope, the default is subtree. This means that each query searches the entire subtree below the DN. Although this maximizes the chances of success of the LDAP query, it can be inefficient and result in significantly decreased performance with large LDAP directories.

Optionally, you can specify separate base and scope values for user, group, and netgroup searches. Limiting the search base and scope of queries this way can significantly improve performance because it limits the search to a smaller subsection of the LDAP directory.

If you specify custom base and scope values, they override the general default search base and scope for user, group, and netgroup searches. The parameters to specify custom base and scope values are available at the advanced privilege level.

If your LDAP directory structure is more complex, it might be necessary for you to specify multiple base DNs to search multiple parts of your LDAP directory for certain information. You can specify multiple DNs for the user, group, and netgroup DN parameters by separating them with a semicolon (;) and enclosing the entire DN search list with double quotes ("). If a DN contains a semicolon, you must add an escape character (\) immediately before the semicolon in the DN.

Note that the scope applies to the entire list of DNs specified for the corresponding parameter. For example, if you specify a list of three different user DNs and subtree for the user scope, then LDAP user searches search the entire subtree for each of the three specified DNs.

You can also specify LDAP referral chasing, which allows the ONTAP LDAP client to refer look-up requests to other LDAP servers if an LDAP referral response is not returned by the primary LDAP server. The client uses that referral data to retrieve the target object from the server described in the referral data. To search for objects present in the referred LDAP servers, the base-dn of the referred objects can be added to the base-dn as part of LDAP client configuration. However, referred objects are only looked up when referral chasing is enabled (using the -referral-enabled true option) during LDAP client creation or modification.