Searching the Directory Tree

The Directory Server contains information about the people and resources in your organization. Using the Directory Server interface, you can easily find the information you need. To simplify the search process, the Directory Server interface provides two types of searches:

Both types of searches allow you select the type of entry to search for. You can search for any of the following types of entries:

Type of Entry Description
People Entries that describe a person.
NT people Entries that describe an NT user.
Groups Entries that describe a group. Groups are collections of one or more directory entries. For example, groups may be defined at your site that include the System Administrators, 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 or fax machines at your site. Groups can also contain other groups.
NT Groups Entries that describe a group of NT users.
Organizations Entries that describe an organization. An organization is usually a single, very large organization such as a corporation or a university. An organization differs from a group in that a group is typically an arbitrary collection of people or devices 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. Additions and subtractions of entities within the directory do not usually affect organization entries.
Domain Components Entries that describe your domain. The Domain Component represents your directory suffix by breaking your domain name into its component parts. In a single enterprise environment, a directory suffix typically aligns with a DNS name or Internet domain name of your enterprise. For example, if your enterprise owns the domain name of example.com, then your directory suffix would be of the form dc=example,dc=com.
Org-Units Entries 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 Biology.
Anything Any type of entry within the directory that matches the search criteria. 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.

After the Directory Server completes the search, the Directory Server interface displays the search results, which provide links to all matching entries. When you click an entry displayed on the search results list, the Directory Server displays detailed information about the entry. If the entry is a person, you can also choose to view the person's digital business card, or vCard. Using the vCard, you can add the person to your Communicator address book with a click of a button.

Standard Search

Standard search performs different types of searches according to the nature of the data that you specify. Depending on what you type in the search field, Standard Search attempts to find matching names, telephone numbers, or email addresses.

Depending on what you enter, Standard Search determines whether to find entries that exactly match your criteria, entries that contain your criteria, or entries that contain words or syllables that sound like your criteria. You can also use an LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) search filter in the Standard Search field.

Performing a Standard Search

  1. Click the Standard Search tab.
  2. Select the type of entry you want to search for from the Find drop-down list.
  3. Enter the value you want to find in the "Search for" field. The "Search for" field is not case sensitive. You can enter any of the following:
  4. Click Submit.
    Once the form data has been submitted to the Directory Server, the server searches for any entries that exactly match, partially match, or sound like the value you supplied. The resulting matches are displayed as a search results table.

Searching for Names

If the string you specify:

Standard Search attempts to find full names, first names, or last names that exactly match, partially match, or sound like the supplied value.

For example, specifying the string son could return results such as:

Searching for Names with Initials

If you specify a value that includes the following items in the following order:

  1. a single letter
  2. a space ( ), period (.), or period and space in any order
  3. one or more characters

then Standard Search executes the search as if you requested a first initial followed by a last name. For example, specifying the string "S.Anderson" could return results such as:

Similarly, if you specify a value that has the following items in the following order:

  1. more than one character
  2. a space ( ), period (.), or period and space in any order
  3. a single character

then Standard Search executes the search as if you requested a first name followed by a last initial. For example, specifying the string "Mark .P" could return search results such as:

Note:

When you use initials Standard Search looks only for exact matches. It returns entries with names that use the same initial and name as you specify on the search. Approximate (or "sounds-like") and substring searches are not performed.

Searching for Phone Numbers

Standard Search automatically searches for a phone number if the value you enter consists only of numerical digits. A single hyphen (-) is also allowed if at least one digit precedes it.

This type of search is 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 searches for all phone numbers that end with 123.

Searching for Email Addresses

Standard Search automatically searches for matching email addresses if you provide a value that contains an at (@) symbol. Standard Search first searches for any email addresses that exactly match the value you entered. If Standard Search doesn't find any matching entries, it then searches for any entries that start with the value you entered.

For example, specifying the string son@ could return:

or, if no exact match exists in the directory:

Using Search Filters

Rather than allowing Standard Search to determine the correct type of search, you can explicitly specify an LDAP search filter. An LDAP search filter allows you to search for entries with a specific attribute value. Standard Search assumes that any string containing an equal sign (=) is an LDAP search filter. For example,

cn=*eve*

is an LDAP search filter that performs a substring search for any common name (CN) containing the string eve. When specifying attributes within an LDAP search filter, you must use the attribute label used by the Directory Server internally, the internal ID, rather than the attribute field name as displayed in the Directory Server interface. For example, the internal ID for the Full Name attribute field is cn. When you enter a search filter in Standard Search, use the internal ID (commonName) rather than the attribute field name (Full Name) as follows:

commonName=Smith Fukuda

Some attribute fields also have a second, abbreviated internal ID. For example, the Full Name field has two internal IDs: commonName and cn. You can use either name in the search filter.

For more information on search filters, refer to the Directory Server Administrator's Guide.

Advanced Search

With Advanced Search, you can search for entries that have specific values for certain attributes. For example, Advanced Search allows you to look for a person whose email address is a specified value. Advanced Search also allows you to look up entries that do not include a specified attribute value. For example, you can find all the people whose last name is not "Smith" (such a search is likely to return a large number of results, so you may want to avoid these kinds of searches).

Advanced Search performs an exact search, returning entries that exactly match the words you enter. There are four fields in the Advanced Search form that you use to construct your search. Together these four fields represent a sentence specifying the search. In general, the sentence is constructed as follows:

Find: [a type of entry] where the: [attribute] [type of search] [search string]

The options for the first three of these fields are provided in pull-down menus. The last field contains the actual search string. 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]

Performing an Advanced Search

  1. Click the Advanced Search tab.
  2. Select the type of entry you want to search for from the Find drop-down list.
  3. Select the attribute you want to search for from the "where the" field drop-down list. The choices vary depending on the type of entry you selected in the Find field. The options are explained in the following table.

    If the Find field is . . . You can choose . . .
    People full name, last name, phone number, email address, user ID, or title
    Groups name, description, owner, or member
    Organizations name, location, phone number, or description
    Domaincomponent name, location, phone number, or description
    Org-Units name, location, phone number, or description
    Anything name or description
  4. Select the type of search you want to perform.

    In general, this field indicates if the search is to be an equality search, substring search, or approximate ("sounds like") search. The following defines all of the available keywords and the type of search that each represents. Not all of these keywords are available for every search; the actual keywords you can use depends on the values you select for the 'Find' and "where the" fields. You can choose one of the following:

    Type of search Description
    is Finds an exact match. 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 having an attribute value that 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 return an extremely large number of entries.
    sounds like Finds phonetic matches. 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 Performs a substring search. Entries having 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 Performs a substring search. Entries having 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 Performs a substring search. Entries having attributes with values containing the specified search string are returned. For example, if you know an organization's description contains the word "support," use this option with the search string "support" to find the organization's entry.
  5. Enter the string you want to search against in the text box and click Search.
    Once the form data has been submitted to the directory server, the Directory Server searches for any entries that exactly match the value you supplied. The resulting matches are displayed as a search results list.

Advanced Search 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 . . . Enter . . .
All people named Darlene Find: People | where the: full name | starts with | Darlene
All people with the last name Sweeney Find: People | where the: last name | is | Sweeny
All the people who are vice presidents Find: People | where the: title | contains | Vice President
The organization named Accounting Find: Organization | where the: name | is | Accounting
Groups interested in scuba diving Find: Groups | where the: description | contains | scuba
Any entry with a name that contains the word "printer" Find: Anything | where the: name | contains | printer

Viewing Search Results

When you perform a search using either a Standard Search or an Advanced Search, the Directory Server interface sends the search data to the Directory Server. The Directory Server performs the search and then returns any matching entries to the directory server interface. The resulting display depends on whether there were:

This section also discusses some of the other problems you may run into when attempting to search the directory tree.

No Matches

A search result that returns no matches means one of the following.

A Single Match

If one and only one match is returned in response to an "is" search, the Directory Server interface displays information about that entry as a result of the search. If the single result was found using any other search method, it is displayed in a table, and you must click the link to view detailed information about the entry. This form contains a button that allows you to edit the entry. You must have the appropriate permissions to edit an entry, and you need to authenticate before doing so.

Multiple Matches

If multiple matches are found in response to your search, the directory interface displays a table listing each of the matching entries and certain relevant information for each entry, such as the entry's phone number and email address. The type of entry for which you are searching determines this information. To view more information on a specific entry, click 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 because the Directory Server stores all values as strings, regardless of whether they are actually numerical values (such as telephone or room numbers). Consequently, when you search for numerical values, be sure 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 fail. If you encounter this problem, try using a substring search (a "contains" search) instead of an exact search.

Viewing a vCard

A vCard is a digital business card. Like a regular business card, a vCard contains contact information about a person such as name, title, telephone and fax numbers, and email address. Unlike a regular business card, however, the vCard can also contain multimedia elements such as graphics, sound, and video. To view a vCard, do the following:

  1. Use the Standard Search or Advanced Search mechanism to locate the person whose vCard you want to view.
  2. Click the View Card button.
    The Directory Server interface displays a condensed version of the vCard.
  3. If you want to see more details, click View Complete Card.
  4. If you want to add the person to your Communicator address book, click "Add to Address Book" and then click OK.