[Fedora-directory-users] Virtual DIT views vs hierarchical DIT

[Jeff Clowser]

Pete Rowley wrote:

>A) they currently have no internet draft or RFC, and to my knowledge no
>other server impliments them - only you can tell if this matters
>  
>
Yep - if you are looking for portability, stay away from this.

>D) Entry DN's are not disguised, that is views does not try to make the
>entry DN of the returned entries look like they physically exist in the view
>hiearchy.  It is possible that this might fool some clients that do DN
>manipulation - most won't care however.
>  
>
I think this matters most for apps that modify the directory - esp those 
that try to create entries.  If they try to modify it using the virtual 
view, things could get ugly.  FWIW, chaining and/or referrals can run 
into similar issues - if you have one hierarchy and use referrals or 
chaining to split that across servers, you're generally ok, but if you 
use referrals/chaining to "remap" some branch/tree to some other 
structure or place in the tree (or another tree), you start getting into 
trouble.

I see virtual views as a tool to support "bad" applications that have a 
heavy dependency on finding things under a specific hierarchy that is 
hard coded into the application.  I call these "bad" applications 
because all you need are two that don't use the same hierarchy, and you 
are screwed (unless you have something like virtual views).  It's a nice 
feature of FDS to support these apps, but personally, I'd stay away from 
writing apps that depend on special views.

 - Jeff