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Improving performance of LDAP directory netgroup-by-host searches

If your LDAP environment is configured to allow netgroup-by-host searches, you can configure ONTAP to take advantage of this and perform netgroup-by-host searches. This can significantly speed up netgroup searches and reduce possible NFS client access issues due to latency during netgroup searches.

Before you begin

Your LDAP directory must contain a netgroup.byhost map.

Your DNS servers should contain both forward (A) and reverse (PTR) lookup records for NFS clients.

When you specify IPv6 addresses in netgroups, you must always shorten and compress each address as specified in RFC 5952.

About this task

NIS servers store netgroup information in three separate maps called netgroup, netgroup.byuser, and netgroup.byhost. The purpose of the netgroup.byuser and netgroup.byhost maps is to speed up netgroup searches. ONTAP can perform netgroup-by-host searches on NIS servers for improved mount response times.

By default, LDAP directories do not have such a netgroup.byhost map like NIS servers. It is possible, though, with the help of third-party tools, to import a NIS netgroup.byhost map into LDAP directories to enable fast netgroup-by-host searches. If you have configured your LDAP environment to allow netgroup-by-host searches, you can configure the ONTAP LDAP client with the netgroup.byhost map name, DN, and search scope for faster netgroup-by-host searches.

Receiving the results for netgroup-by-host searches faster enables ONTAP to process export rules faster when NFS clients request access to exports. This reduces the chance of delayed access due to netgroup search latency issues.

  1. Obtain the exact full distinguished name of the NIS netgroup.byhost map you imported into your LDAP directory.

    The map DN can vary depending on the third-party tool you used for import. For best performance, you should specify the exact map DN.
  2. Set the privilege level to advanced: set -privilege advanced
  3. Enable netgroup-by-host searches in the LDAP client configuration of the storage virtual machine (SVM): vserver services name-service ldap client modify -vserver vserver_name -client-config config_name -is-netgroup-byhost-enabled true -netgroup-byhost-dn netgroup-by-host_map_distinguished_name -netgroup-byhost-scope netgroup-by-host_search_scope

    -is-netgroup-byhost-enabled {true|false} enables or disables netgroup-by-host search for LDAP directories. The default is false .

    -netgroup-byhost-dn netgroup-by-host_map_distinguished_name specifies the distinguished name of the netgroup.byhost map in the LDAP directory. It overrides the base DN for netgroup-by-host searches. If you do not specify this parameter, ONTAP uses the base DN instead.

    -netgroup-byhost-scope {base|onelevel|subtree} specifies the search scope for netgroup-by-host searches. If you do not specify this parameter, the default is subtree .

    If the LDAP client configuration does not exist yet, you can enable netgroup-by-host searches by specifying these parameters when creating a new LDAP client configuration using the vserver services name-service ldap client create command.

    Note
    Starting in ONTAP 9.4, the field -ldap-servers replaces the field -servers. This new field can take either a hostname or an IP address for the LDAP server.
  4. Return to the admin privilege level: set -privilege admin

Example​

The following command modifies the existing LDAP client configuration named ldap_corp to enable netgroup-by-host searches using the netgroup.byhost map named nisMapName="netgroup.byhost",dc=corp,dc=example,dc=com and the default search scope subtree :

cluster1::*> vserver services name-service ldap client modify -vserver vs1 -client-config ldap_corp -is-netgroup-byhost-enabled true -netgroup-byhost-dn nisMapName="netgroup.byhost",dc=corp,dc=example,dc=com

After you finish

The netgroup.byhost and netgroup maps in the directory must be kept in sync at all times to avoid client access issues.

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