ando@sys-net.it wrote:

hyc@symas.com wrote:

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Reading the man page, I thought that the directives don't modify DB_CONFIG, but were applied at slapd's startup.

For slapd.conf, the directives can only take effect after they are written to DB_CONFIG. They will only be written to DB_CONFIG at startup time, and only if no such file already existed.

The main reason this directive was added was for the benefit of cn=config. Using it in slapd.conf is rather pointless. Once you start managing slapd through cn=config, you are expected to stop editing DB_CONFIG manually.

I didn't mention that the whole discussion started because Debian seems to ship with both a default DB_CONFIG installed in the database directory, and the very same directives echoed in slapd.conf. People find the dbconfig directives, modify them and complain because they don't take effect. And, I couldn't disambiguate the man page because I didn't find it clear enough about this point.

The manpage also says "This allows one to set initial values without overwriting/destroying a DB_CONFIG file that was already customized through other means." If the dbconfig settings had any other effect they would (a) no longer be *initial* values and (b) overwrite/destroy an existing DB_CONFIG file. Clearly that's not the intended behavior.