Direct LDAP Access

The LDAP utilities package provides a program called ldapsearch that can be used to exectute direct queries to the database. Generally this is done by putting

HOST db.debian.org
BASE dc=debian,dc=org

in ~/.ldaprc. Then queries can be performed, for instance

samosa{jgg}~#ldapsearch uid=wakkerma keyfingerprint
uid=wakkerma,ou=users,dc=debian,dc=org
keyfingerprint=38444C2CA6AD756EB4A2E5FA612AFF59
keyfingerprint=576E100B518D2F1636B028053CB892502FA3BC2D

Shows the PGP key finger prints for the wakkerma user. The first word in the command is the query to perform, the rest of command line are the attributes to return, if omitted then all readable attributes are returned. More complicated queries are possible, for instance:

samosa{jgg}~#ldapsearch '(&(!(loginshell=/bin/bash))(uid=*))' loginshell
uid=admin,ou=users,dc=debian,dc=org

uid=mryan,ou=users,dc=debian,dc=org
loginshell=/usr/bin/tcsh

uid=jkominek,ou=users,dc=debian,dc=org
loginshell=/usr/bin/zsh

uid=caelum,ou=users,dc=debian,dc=org
loginshell=/usr/bin/zsh
[..]

Shows users that do not use bash as their shell. Some other interesting queries are:

Count the number of developers (&(keyfingerprint=*)(gidnumber=800))
Show people in a certain group gidmembership=adm
People named james cn=james
Someone whos last name phonetically sounds like 'Ackerma' sn~=ackerm
All the sparcs host=sparc

RFC 2254 has more information about the filter expressions.

Other LDAP Browsers

The GQ package has a graphical LDAP browser that can browse the debian.org tree. It is somewhat ungainly with the large number of entries in our directory, but it does work nonetheless. Configuration is similar, use the preferences dialog to add a new host with the information given above.

Netscape has a browser for their mailer, but I have never been able to get it to work, please email if you have any luck.

To my knowledge there are no interfaces for popular mailers like mutt and gnus. Such an interface would allow using the directory as an enhanced address book.

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You can contact us at admin@db.debian.org.