Manual initialization

Manual initialization is not always required. Replication can proceed automatically over the network when replicas start from the same initial data.

If this is not the case, manually initialize replication.

Test the initialization process to make sure you understand the duration and ramifications of the chosen initialization method.

Use the results to make an evidence-based decision on whether to use backup/restore or export/import instead of online initialization.

How you initialize replication depends on your situation:

Initialization options
Use cases	Recommendations
Replicas installed with same data	Nothing to do (no manual initialization required)
Evaluating DS software Developing a directory solution Plenty of bandwidth to replicate data	Initialize over the network Limitations: Transmits all data over the network, so requires ample bandwidth; can be a problem for slow links. Rebuilds indexes and consumes significant system resources; can impact service performance.
New directory service, medium to large data set (> 1 million entries; limited bandwidth)	Initialize from LDIF Limitations: Rebuilds indexes and consumes significant system resources; can impact service performance.
Existing directory service, medium to large data set (> 1 million entries; limited bandwidth)	Initialize from backup Limitations: All DS servers must be the same version. Backups are not guaranteed to be compatible across major and minor server releases.
New backend	Create a backend, then one of: Initialize over the network Initialize from LDIF Back up the new backend, then Initialize from backup Limitations: The limitations depend on how you initialize the new backend, and are described above.
Broken data set	Disaster recovery Limitations: This method permanently loses recent changes. Applications using the changelog must be reinitialized after you restore the data.

Initialize over the network

Review Initialization options before following these steps:

Manually initialize replication using the replication protocol’s total update capability in one of these ways:

Overwrite the data in all replicas with the data from the replica where the command runs:

$ dsrepl \
 initialize \
 --baseDN dc=example,dc=com \
 --toAllServers \
 --hostname localhost \
 --port 4444 \
 --bindDN uid=admin \
 --bindPassword password \
 --trustStorePath /path/to/opendj/config/keystore \
 --trustStorePassword:file /path/to/opendj/config/keystore.pin \
 --no-prompt

Initialize a single other replica, identified by its server ID, from the replica where the command runs:

$ dsrepl \
 initialize \
 --baseDN dc=example,dc=com \
 --toServer ds-1 \
 --hostname localhost \
 --port 4444 \
 --bindDN uid=admin \
 --bindPassword password \
 --trustStorePath /path/to/opendj/config/keystore \
 --trustStorePassword:file /path/to/opendj/config/keystore.pin \
 --no-prompt

Initialize from LDIF

If you aim to return to a previous state of the data, or to initialize replicas with LDIF from a non-replicated environment, refer to Disaster recovery.

Review Initialization options before following these steps:

Initialize each replica with the same LDIF:

Stop the server.
If desired, enable data confidentiality.

For details, refer to Data encryption and Encrypt External Changelog Data.
Import the LDIF.

For details, refer to Import LDIF.
Start the server.

Initialize from backup

Review Initialization options before following these steps:

Stop the replica.
Restore the backend from backup.

For details, refer to Restore.
Start the replica.

Replication replays changes from other replicas that have happened since the backup was created.

Directory Services 7.3.5

Manual initialization

Initialize over the network

Initialize from LDIF

Initialize from backup