nslcd(8)

💖 nslcd — local LDAP name service daemon 💖

okay bestie, sit down, hydrate, and let me tell you about nslcd(8) from the System Manager's Manual — she's the daemon that goes and asks LDAP all your naming questions so your local processes don't have to 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

nslcd — local LDAP name service daemon 💅

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

nslcd [options]

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So nslcd is a daemon that does LDAP queries on behalf of local processes that want to do user, group and other naming lookups — that's NSS — or that want to do user authentication, authorisation or password modification — that's PAM. she's basically the middle bestie between your machine and the directory server, no cap ✨

nslcd gets configured through a configuration file (peep nslcd.conf(5) if you wanna see her settings, iykyk).

Also, lowkey important: see the included README for the deets on configuring the LDAP server itself. that part is not in this page, bestie, go read the README 💖

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🌸 OPTIONS 🌸

nslcd accepts the following options:

• -c, --check — checks if the daemon is running. this makes nslcd return 0 if the daemon is already running and 1 if it is not. vibe check for the daemon itself, fr fr ✨
• -d, --debug — turns on debugging mode. nslcd will not put itself in the background, and it sends verbose debugging info to stderr. nslcd will handle connections as usual though. this option is for debugging purposes only — specify this option multiple times to also include more detailed logging from the LDAP library 🔥
• -n, --nofork — do not fork or daemonise, and run nslcd in the foreground. main character stays visible 💅
• -f, --config FILE — parse the supplied configuration file in place of the default /etc/nslcd.conf file.
• -t, --test — validate the configuration and exit. this performs syntax checking of the configuration, checks for presence of files referred in the configuration and does some minimal other sanity checking. this makes nslcd return 0 if the configuration appears valid and 1 if it is not. it's giving "read the receipt before you buy" 🧾✨
• --help — display short help and exit. 🫶
• -V, --version — output version information and exit.

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💜 SIGNALS 💜

• SIGTERM/SIGINT — cancel any running queries and exit. she's done, she's leaving, periodt ✌️
• SIGUSR1 — cause nslcd to retry any failing connections to the LDAP server, regardless of the reconnect_sleeptime and reconnect_retrytime options. like, she does not care what the config says about waiting, she's trying again rn 🔥

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🍓 FILES 🍓

• /etc/nslcd.conf — the configuration file (see nslcd.conf(5))

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• nslcd.conf(5)

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

This manual was written by Arthur de Jong <arthur@arthurdejong.org>.

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and that's the whole page, bestie!! 🎀 she's Version 0.9.13, dated Feb 2025, and this whole glow-up was nslcd(8) — go forth and LDAP responsibly, you ate 💅✨💖