| Just as you don't really need to know how a combustion engine works in order to drive a car, it is not necessary for you to have an intricate knowledge of the directory services (DS) database file structure in order to use, manage, and troubleshoot eDirectory. On the other hand, knowing that the eDirectory database is made up of a number of files and knowing what components make up the eDirectory database can make troubleshooting easier. Although this chapter is by no means an in-depth technical view of the DS database files, it gives you an idea of what the files are named, where they are located, and what the purpose of each is. The set of DS database files is officially known as the Directory Information Base (DIB). Oftentimes, these files are simply referred to as NDS files ; however, in a number of Novell utilities, such as DSRepair, the term DIB is used. Because there are still many NetWare 4 and NetWare 5 servers being used around the world, this chapter covers the DIB sets used in NDS 6, 7, and NDS 8/eDirectory. |
