7.3.2.3 Values for street and streetAddress

Active Directory uses the attribute streetAddress for a user or group's postal address; this is the way that Directory Server uses the street attribute. There are two important differences in the way that Active Directory and Directory Server use the streetAddress and street attributes, respectively:

•In Directory Server, streetAddress is an alias for street. Active Directory also has the street attribute, but it is a separate attribute that can hold an independent value, not an alias for streetAddress.

•Active Directory defines both streetAddress and street as single-valued attributes, while Directory Server defines street as a multi-valued attribute, as specified in RFC 4519.

Because of the different ways that Directory Server and Active Directory handle streetAddress and street attributes, there are two rules to follow when setting address attributes in Active Directory and Directory Server:

•Windows Sync maps streetAddress in the Windows entry to street in Directory Server. To avoid conflicts, the street attribute should not be used in Active Directory.

•Only one Directory Server street attribute value is synced to Active Directory. If the streetAddress attribute is changed in Active Directory and the new value does not already exist in Directory Server, then all street attribute values in Directory Server are replaced with the new, single Active Directory value.

7.3.2.4Contraints on the initials attribute

For the initials attribute, Active Directory imposes a maximum length constraint of six characters, but Directory Server does not have a length limit. If an initials attribute longer than six characters is added to Directory Server, the value is trimmed when it is synchronized with the Active Directory entry.

7.3.3 Group attributes synchronized between Directory Server and Active Directory

Only a subset of Directory Server and Active Directory attributes are synchronized. These attributes are hardcoded and are defined regardless of which way the entry is being synchronized. Any other attributes present in the entry, either in Directory Server or in Active Directory, remain unaffected by synchronization.

Some attributes used in Directory Server and Active Directory group entries are identical. These are usually attributes defined in an LDAP standard, which are common among all LDAP services. These attributes are synchronized to one another exactly. Table 7-4 “Group entry attributes that are the same between Directory Server and Active Directory” shows ttributes that are the same between the Directory Server and Windows servers.

Some attributes define the same information, but the names of the attributes or their schema definitions are different. These attributes are mapped between Active Directory and Directory Server, so that attribute A in one server is treated as attribute B in the other. For synchronization, many of these attributes relate to Windows-specific information. Table 7-3 “Group entry attribute mapping between Directory Server and Active Directory” shows the attributes that are mapped between the Directory Server and Windows servers.

For more information on the differences in ways that Directory Server and Active Directory handle some schema elements, see “Group schema differences between Directory Server and Active Directory”.

Table 7-3 Group entry attribute mapping between Directory Server and Active Directory

Directory Server

Active Directory

cn

name

 

 

ntGroupAttributes

groupAttributes

 

 

7.3 Schema elements sycnhronized between Active Directory and Directory Server 101