Microsoft KB Archive/283791

= How to Modify Schema Information Using the Ldifde Utility =

PSS ID Number: 283791

Article Last Modified on 11/4/2003

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The information in this article applies to:


 * Microsoft Windows 2000 Server SP1
 * Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP1

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This article was previously published under Q283791



IMPORTANT: This article contains information about modifying the Active Directory schema. If problems occur when you modify the schema, a System State backup or reinstallation may be the only way to recover data.



SUMMARY
This article describes how to use the Windows 2000 Ldifde utility to modify Active Directory schema class attributes.



MORE INFORMATION
CAUTION: Be extremely careful when you make any changes to the Active Directory schema. Changes are propagated forest-wide. You cannot remove objects and attributes that you add to the schema.

When you use the Ldifde utility, the text file that you use must be in a certain format so that Windows 2000 can correctly process the file. To modify attribute values for existing schema classes, use the following general format:

dn:

changetype: modify

replace:





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add:



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delete:



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The text file can contain multiple sections of each operation type (or no section at all for a type of operation, if there is no need to perform an operation of that type), and you can place the sections in any order in the text file. This example replaces the value of one attribute with two values, adds a new value to another attribute, and deletes a specific value from yet another attribute.

NOTE: The hyphen (-) at the end of the file and the hyphens that separate the sections are required.

For example, to add the healthcarerole attribute value as an optional type of property (mayContain) to the companyorgperson schema class, create a text file named Modify.ldf that contains the following information:

dn: CN=companyorgperson,CN=Schema,CN=Configuration,DC= ,DC=com

changetype: modify

add: mayContain

mayContain: healthcarerole

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To import the information that is in the Modify.ldf file, type the following command at a command prompt:

ldifde -i -f modify.ldf

The Ldifde utility modifies the attributes as specified in the Modify.ldf file.

For additional information about LDAP Data Interchange Format (LDIF), see Request for Comments (RFC) 2849, which defines the grammar for LDIF files.

NOTE: The Ldifde utility does not support the &quot;control:&quot; keyword from RFC 2849.

For additional information about the Active Directory schema and LDIF, see chapter 4 of the Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Distributed Systems Guide, which is part of the Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Resource Kit.

For additional information about the Ldifde utility, type the following command at a command prompt on a computer that is running Windows 2000 Server:

ldifde /?

Additional query words: ldifde exe

Keywords: kbhowto kbSchema KB283791

Technology: kbwin2000AdvServ kbwin2000AdvServSearch kbWin2000AdvServSP1 kbwin2000Search kbwin2000Serv kbwin2000ServSearch kbwin2000ServSP1 kbWinAdvServSearch

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