The two types of searching you can perform are:
The Find: field
The Find: field defines the types of entries for which you are searching. Your options are:
People
Find entries within the directory that describe a person.
Groups
Find entries within the directory that describe a group. Groups are comprised of a
collection of one or more directory entries. For example, groups may be defined at your
site that include the System Administrators, or the Technical Writers, or all the people
interested in fishing. Note that a group does not always have to identify a collection of
people. For example, a group could be defined that identifies all the color printers
at your site. Groups can also contain other groups.
Organizations
Find entries within the directory that describe an organization. An organization is usually
an entry for a single, very large organization such as a corporation or a
university.
Note that an organization differs from a group in that a group is typically an arbitrary
collection of people or objects that is subject to change as entities are added to or
removed from the directory. Organizations, however, represent a major,
relatively static, subdivision or branching of the directory. As such, organizations tend not to be as heavily impacted by additions and subtractions of
entities within the directory.
Org_Units
Find entries within the directory that describe an organizational unit. Organizational
units usually identify major subdivisions within a larger organization. In contrast to
entries from a single, very large organization such as a corporation or
university, organizational units describe smaller organizations such as
accounting, marketing, the humanities, or the sciences.
Anything
Find any type of entry within the directory that matches the search criteria. You should
use Anything if you are unsure of how the directory manager represented an entry
within the directory. Anything is also useful if the type of entry for which you are
searching is not a person, group, or organization.
Searching for names
If the string you specify on the search:
soncould return results such as:
Gary Stevenson Mary Sun Alison Barker
Searching for names with initials
If you specify a value that includes the following items in the following order:
S. Andersoncould return results such as:
Sally Anderson Steve Anderson Sue AndersonSimilarly, if you specify a value that has the following items in the following order:
Mark .Pcould return entries such as:
Mark Payne Mark Peck Mark Polk
Note
Smart Search only looks for exact matches when you use initials. That is, it returns entries with names that use the exact same initial and name as you specify on the search. Approximate (or "sounds-like") and substring searches are not performed.
cn=*eve*
is an LDAP search filter that performs a substring search for any common name containing the string eve
.
Searching for phone numbers
Smart Search automatically searches for a phone number if the value you enter consists only of numerical digits. A single hyphen (-) is also allowed so long as at least one digit precedes it.
This type of search is actually an "ends with" search. That is, the Directory Server searches for any phone numbers that end with the specified value. For example, if you enter a value such as:
123
the Directory Server will search for all phone numbers that end with 123.
Searching for e-mail addresses
Smart Search automatically searches for matching e-mail addresses if you provide a value that contains an at (@) symbol. Smart Search uses several search methods in the following order:
son@ait will first search for an entry with an e-mail address exactly equal to
son@a
son@aan entry such as:
son@aardvark.orgwill be returned, if the entry is in the directory.
These sentences are very easy to construct because the options for the first three of these fields is provided through pull-down menus. The last field contains the actual search string, which is a value that you type into the form. For example, you can construct a search to: Find: [People] where the: [Last Name] [is] [Bowker] Or you can construct a search to: Find: [People] where the: [Full Name] [sounds like] [tree] The following section defines each of these fields and the default options available to you in each field. Additional examples are listed at the end of this section.
The Find: field
The Find: field defines the types of entries for which you are searching. Your options are:
People
Find entries within the directory that describe a person.
Groups
Find entries within the directory that describe a group. Groups are comprised
of a collection of one or more directory entries. For example, groups may be
defined at your site that include the System Administrators, or the Technical
Writers, or all the people interested in fishing. Note that a group does not
always have to identify a collection of people. For example, a group could be
defined that identifies all the color printers at your site.
Organizations
Find entries within the directory that describe an organization. An organization
is usually an entry for a single, very large organization such as a corporation or
a university.
Note that an organization differs from a group in that a group is typically an
arbitrary collection of people or objects that is subject to change as entities are
added to or removed from the directory. Organizations, however, represent a
major, relatively static, subdivision or branching of the directory. As such,
organizations tend not to be as heavily impacted by additions and subtractions
of entities within the directory.
Org_Units
Find entries within the directory that describe an organizational unit. Organizational units usually identify major subdivisions within a larger organization.
Organizational units describe smaller organizations such as accounting,
marketing, the humanities, or the sciences.
Anything
Find any type of entry within the directory that matches the search criteria. You
should use Anything if you are unsure of how the directory administrator
represented an entry within the directory. Anything is also useful if the type of
entry for which you are searching is not a person, group, organizational unit, or
organization.
The where the: field
The where the: field defines the actual entry attribute for which you are searching. For example, where the: allows you to select options such as Name, Phone Number, or Description.
The actual options available to you in the where the: field is determined by what you selected in the Find: field.
The type of: search field
This field describes the type of search to be performed. In general, this field indicates if the search is to be an equality search, substring search, or approximate ("sounds like") search.
The following defines each of the available keywords and the type of search that they represent. Note that not all of these keywords are available for every search; the actual keywords you can use are dependent upon the values you select for the Find: and where the: fields.
is
Causes an exact match to be found. That is, this option specifies an equality
search. Use this option when you know the exact value of an entry's attribute.
For example, if you know the exact spelling of a person's last name, use this
option.
is not
Returns all the entries whose attribute value does not exactly match the search
string. That is, if you want to find all the people in the directory whose last
name is not "Smith", use this option. Be aware, however, that use of this option
can cause an extremely large number of entries to be returned to you.
sounds like
Causes an approximate, or phonetic, search to be performed. Use this option if
you know an attribute's value, but you are unsure of the spelling. For example,
if you are not sure if a person's last name is spelled "Sarret", "Sarette", or
"Sarett", use this option.
starts with
Causes a substring search to be performed. Attributes with values starting with
the specified search string are returned. For example, if you know a person's
first name is "Steve", but you do not know the last name, use this option on a
full name search.
ends with
Causes a substring search to be performed. Attributes with values ending with
the specified search string are returned. For example, if you know the last four
digits of a person's telephone number are "9876", use this option to locate the
person's entry.
contains
Causes a substring search to be performed. Attributes with values containing
the specified search string are returned. For example, if you know an organization's description probably contains the word "support", use this option with
the search string "support" to find the organization's entry.
Examples
The following examples show a few possible uses of the Advanced Search form. The vertical bars (|) delimit the various fields in the form.
To find all the people whose first name is Darlene:
Find: People | where the: full name | starts with | Darlene
To find all the people whose last name is Sweeny:
Find: People | where the: last name | is | Sweeny
To find all the people who are Vice Presidents:
Find: People | where the: title | contains | Vice President
To find the organization named Accounting:
Find: Organization | where the: Name | is | Accounting
To find the groups interested in Scuba Diving:
Find: Groups | where the: description | contains | scuba
To find any entry whose name contains the word "printer":
Find: Anything | where the: Name | contains | printer
Search Results
As a result of any search that you run, you can get no matches, a single match, or multiple matches.
No Matches
A search result that returns no matches can mean one of two things. The first is
that, simply, no entries exist in the directory that match your search criteria. If
you believe that this is the problem, try another search using similar but
different parameters to see if you can get any other results.
Another cause of a no match situation is if you are required to authenticate
before performing the search. Authentication requirements are determined by
the directory administrator. Your directory administrator can set the access
control on the directory in such a way that you are required to authenticate
before you can search the tree. This access control can be set for the entire
directory tree or for just a part of the tree. If you are required to authenticate
before you can search the directory tree, and you do not authenticate before
running the search, the Directory Server will simply act as if no matching
entries were found in the directory. Contact your directory administrator to find
out if you must authenticate to the Directory Server before running a search.
Finally, you can get no matching results if you have authenticated properly, but
the access control for the tree explicitly disallows you from viewing the entry or
entries.
Refer to Chapter 6, "Authentication" for more information on authentication.
A single match
If one and only one match can be found in response to an "is" search, you are
shown that entry's information immediately. If the single result was found using
any other search method, it will be displayed in a table and you must click on
the entry to see the entry's detailed information. Note that this form contains an
edit entry button. The directory administrator most likely has set up the
directory such that you must have special authority to edit an entry. You will be
required to authenticate before you can edit the entry. Refer to:
Multiple matches
If multiple matches are found in response to your search, you will see a table that presents each of the matching entries and certain relevant information for each entry, such as the entry's phone number and e-mail address. The actual information displayed is determined by the type of entry for which you are searching. To view more information on a specific entry, click on the entry's name in the first column of the table.
Other problems
You may see odd results if you are searching for numerical values. This is because the Directory Server stores all values as strings, regardless of whether they are actually numerical values (such as telephone or room numbers). Consequently, be careful when you search for numerical values to include all spaces and leading zeros, if any.
Also note that the Directory Server interface strips all leading and trailing blank spaces from your search criteria. While it is unlikely that directory entries actually have leading and trailing blank spaces in their values, the possibility still exists. Because of this, exact matches against values that have leading and trailing blank spaces will fail. If you encounter this problem, you might want to use a substring search (a "contains" search) instead of an exact search.