LDBEDIT(1)

💖 ldbedit — bestie edition 💖

okay so this is the ldbedit manual page, from the System Administration tools corner of the universe, and I'm gonna hold your hand through the whole thing, no cap. 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

ldbedit — edit LDB databases using your preferred editor 🌸

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

ldbedit [-?] [--usage] [-s base|one|sub] [-b basedn] [-a] [-e editor]
        [-H LDB-URL] [expression] [attributes...]

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so ldbedit is literally a utility that lets you edit LDB entries — whether they're chillin' in database files or vibing on LDAP servers — using your preferred editor. 💅

here's the whole glow-up pipeline: ldbedit generates an LDIF file based on your query, hands it to you to edit however you want, and then merges that LDIF right back into the LDB backend. it's giving round-trip. it's giving main character energy. 👑

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✨ OPTIONS ✨

• -?, --help — shows you the list of available options plus a little phrase describing what each one does. your classic "help me help you" moment 🎀
• --usage — shows the list of available options too, but like... no descriptions. it's the short version. similar to the help option, just speedier, iykyk. ⚡
• -H <ldb-url> — the LDB URL to connect to. for tdb and lmdb databases it looks like tdb://filename or mdb://filename respectively. if you use ldb://filename, it'll try to detect the file format automatically (so smart 💅). for an LDAP connection over unix domain sockets, the form is ldapi://socket. for a (potentially remote) LDAP connection over TCP, it's ldap://hostname, or ldaps://hostname if you want that TLS-protected connection, periodt. 🔒
• -s one|sub|base — the search scope to use. one-level, subtree, or base. pick your fighter 🦋
• -a, -all — edit all the records. this lets you apply the same change to a whole bunch of records at once. you probably wanna combine this with an expression of the form "objectclass=*". lowkey powerful, highkey dangerous, be careful bestie 😭
• -e editor, --editor editor — pick which editor should be used. this overrides the VISUAL and EDITOR environment variables. if you don't use this option and neither VISUAL nor EDITOR is set, then the vi editor gets used. default behavior, iconic. 🌈
• -b basedn — specify the Base Distinguished Name to use. 🎀
• -v, --verbose — makes ldbedit more verbose about the operations being performed. without this option, ldbedit will only provide a summary change line. so if you want the tea, you gotta ask for it ☕

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✨ ENVIRONMENT ✨

• LDB_URL — the LDB URL to connect to. heads up: this can be overridden by using the -H command-line option. 👀
• VISUAL and EDITOR — environment variables used to figure out what editor to use. VISUAL takes precedence over EDITOR, and both of them are overridden by the -e command-line option. hierarchy, bestie. it's a whole pecking order 💅

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✨ VERSION ✨

this man page is correct for version 1.1 of LDB. ⭐

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✨ SEE ALSO ✨

ldb(3), ldbmodify(1), ldbdel(1), ldif(5), vi(1)

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✨ AUTHOR ✨

ldb was written by Andrew Tridgell[1]. 🫶

if you wish to report a problem or make a suggestion, then please see the http://ldb.samba.org/ web site for current contact and maintainer information. ✨

this manpage was written by Jelmer Vernooij and updated by Brad Hards. 🌸

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✨ NOTES ✨

1. Andrew Tridgell https://www.samba.org/~tridge/

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so yeah, that's the whole page — brought to you by LDB 1.1, dated 09/09/2026, and yeah I know, the file header said LDBEDIT(1) up top, but you already knew that bestie. go forth, edit some LDIFs, slay 💖🎀🦋✨