This is a constant problem with community projects. Those who are capable of writing good documentation are busy writing code.

In the case of OpenLDAP, part of the problem is the complexity of the system. There should probably be a warning on the quickstart guide, because LDAP is not something that you want to setup quickly, unless you are just experimenting. When I was building my LDAP clusters I read the entire Admin guide multiple times, along with many pages of RFCs, and asked lots of questions, and I still consider myself a beginner.

The good news is, there is a vibrant community around OpenLDAP. You can write an email or get on IRC and promptly get answers from the worlds' foremost OpenLDAP experts. I recommend polite, well-documented questions; complaints are not so useful. Here's a helpful template:

"I am on step X of the quickstart guide. I am compiling OpenLDAP version X on <OS> version X, and when I type this "..." I expect result X but Y happens instead. Here are the error messages and log entries, and the relevant portion of my config:..."

From: openldap-technical [mailto:openldap-technical-bounces@openldap.org] On Behalf Of Tom Jay Sent: Monday, April 04, 2016 2:12 AM To: openldap-technical@openldap.org Subject: Documentation Feedback

Hello,

I would like to voice my frustration with the quality of the openLDAP documentation. I am compiling openLDAP from source on Debian 7, and have spent about 2-3 continuous days getting to the point where I can add an LDAP user with a UID. I have been close to giving up with the software, but need it for the LDAP functionality, and as very few viable alternatives exist, have been forced to continue with the installation. I have however almost lost confidence in the product, and am concerned that if there are any problems with it in the future, or I want to enable another feature, I will be almost helpless in getting it to work.

The main problem is the Quick-Start Guide. This is anything but quick, and forces the user to consult the less-than-succinct Admin guide. The two together are inconsistent, difficult to follow and do a poor job of explaining what each feature does. The accessibility of information is less than optimal, which means that the user has to look elsewhere, consuming even more time. Unfortunately, there is not much relevant information on the Internet, forcing the user to get stuck in an almost endless loop of checking documentation, testing, reading manuals, and searching on the Internet, in order to get some kind of idea how the software works and what needs to be done to get it working.

I would offer to contribute to the documentation, but due to its lack of usefulness, do not have an understanding of the basic concepts myself. The best I would be able to do is describe my experience and provide the steps that I followed to get a basic installation working.

Hopefully someone can volunteer the time to test the documentation, in the same way a new user would!

Tom

Am Mon, 4 Apr 2016 06:11:55 +0000 schrieb Tom Jay tom_jay@hotmail.com:

Hello,

I would like to voice my frustration with the quality of the openLDAP documentation. I am compiling openLDAP from source on Debian 7, and have spent about 2-3 continuous days getting to the point where I can add an LDAP user with a UID. I have been close to giving up with the software, but need it for the LDAP functionality, and as very few viable alternatives exist, have been forced to continue with the installation. I have however almost lost confidence in the product, and am concerned that if there are any problems with it in the future, or I want to enable another feature, I will be almost helpless in getting it to work.

The main problem is the Quick-Start Guide. This is anything but quick, and forces the user to consult the less-than-succinct Admin guide. The two together are inconsistent, difficult to follow and do a poor job of explaining what each feature does. The accessibility of information is less than optimal, which means that the user has to look elsewhere, consuming even more time. Unfortunately, there is not much relevant information on the Internet, forcing the user to get stuck in an almost endless loop of checking documentation, testing, reading manuals, and searching on the Internet, in order to get some kind of idea how the software works and what needs to be done to get it working.

I would offer to contribute to the documentation, but due to its lack of usefulness, do not have an understanding of the basic concepts myself. The best I would be able to do is describe my experience and provide the steps that I followed to get a basic installation working.

Hopefully someone can volunteer the time to test the documentation, in the same way a new user would!

It seems there are two problems, first you complain about adding a uid object, second your complains about documentation. As you don't describe your problems adding a uid object there wouldn't be much support. With regard to documentation, the OpenLDAP Project provides sufficient unix style documention. That is any client operation, like ldapsearch etc. is documented in manual page section 1, any library function, like ldap_bind() is fully documented in manual page section 3, any configuration parameter is documented in manual page section 5, i.e. ldap.conf(5), slapd.conf(5), slapd-config(5), ldif(5). Any server operation is documented in manual page section 8, like slapd(8), slapdadd(8) etc. With regard to general LDAP documentation read RFC 4510 - RFC 4533 and ITU-T X.500 etc.. Manual Pages and appropriate RFC's are supplied with any sourcecode archive. ITU-T X.500 documentation can be found here http://www.x500standard.com/

-Dieter