Before we jump into directory services, let's talk about the underlying protocol

that's used in directory services called LDAP or lightweight directory access

protocol. LDAP is used to access information in directory services like over a
network. Two of the most popular directory services that use LDAP are active
directory and openLDAP, which we'll talk about more in upcoming lessons. There are
a lot of different operations you can use in LDAP. You can add a new entry in the
directory server database like creating a new user objects called Cristi. You can
delete an entry in the directory server database. You can modify entries and much,
much more. When we say entry, we're reffering to the LDAP entry format or LDAP
notation for records in the directory service. An LDAP entry is just a collection
of information that's used to describe something. Take a look at this example.
Don't worry too much about what this says. The format of LDAP entry basically has a
unique entry name denoted by dn or distinguished name, then attributes and values
associated with that entry. So, CN is the common name of the object. In this case,
since it's a person, we use Devan Sri-Tharan as the name. OU is the organizational
unit such as a group. And in this case, Sysadmin is used. DC is the main component.
So example.com is split into example then com. Again, it's not necessary to
remember these attributes. You can reference them in the next reading. The takeaway
here is that LDAP notation is used for entries in directory services to describe
attributes using values.