HI!
In web2ldap I've implemented a feature some time ago which uses the no-op search control to determine the overall number of results when only displaying a partial result set. Obviously this does not scale well when interactively browsing into a container with many entries.
So I'm considering whether to make this configurable (default off) or to make something automagically. My current working code sends a search no-op request with small timeout (5 sec), catches the error if the no-op search would take longer (Python exception ldap.TIMEOUT) and sends abandon request in this case.
The idea is trying to determine the overall number of results only if it does not put too much burden on the server. But I wonder whether sending the abandon request really helps to reduce the server load: Does slapd immediately stop processing the no-op search request? Or does it generate the result set but not return it to the client?
Ciao, Michael.