Mike wrote:

I'm currently working on setting up replication between two LDAP servers. I understand with OpenLDAP 2.4 this requires the use of syncrepl. I have read that it supports push and pull replication (as well as the wizzy-cool N-way) but I was wondering if anyone could advise how this works at the transport layer.

From reading through the docs, I infer that with pull the slave periodically makes a TCP connection to the master in order to check for changes and with push, the slave makes a persistent TCP connection to the master, over which updates are propogated from the master. Is this correct?

I would like to know if there is a way to initiate the TCP connections from the master to the slave as this would make life a little easier for me?

AFAIK, you are correct on the connections. I set up a replication system using refreshAndPersist and the client still initiates the connection to the master. There is some documentation in the OpenLDAP 2.4 Admin Guide that give a possible way around this. It is in section 18.2.4 and is called Syncrepl Proxy Mode (http://www.openldap.org/doc/admin24/replication.html#Syncrepl%20Proxy%20Mode). I have never done it but hopefully that points you in the right direction.

a different mike