Symantec Directory : Not able to load the DSA from LDIF file using dxloaddb command line tool.

Products

• CA Directory

Issue/Introduction

You are attempting to load an LDIF file to an existing DSA which results in to failure reporting something similar to what is outlined below.

dxloaddb -s -v -O dsaname dsaname.ldif

Error:

Error in call SchemaFlatten
Error writing Attribute to file
Unable to write entry 253
Error while writing db

Environment

Release : 14.1

Component : CA Directory

Resolution

The problem is related to manually making modification to the LDIF file. Editing the file is OK (as it is text file) but make sure there is no 'TAB' or 'SPACES' characters at the beginning of each attribute name.

e.g. If you have accidently introduced a space or tab by your script while making mass modification to file (in this case adding a temporary userPassword, see highlight below in example) that may have resulted into what is shown below:

dn: cn=<Username1>,ou=Administration,ou=Corporate,o=DEMOCORP,c=AU
objectClass: inetOrgPerson
cn: <Username1>
sn: <Lastname>
title: <title>
telephoneNumber: (XXX)XXX-XXXX
description: <Description>
mail: <Username1>@example.com
postalAddress: <Postal Address>
postalCode: <Zip Code>
      userPassword: <Password>
createTimestamp: 20100809124428.359Z

dn: cn=<Username2>,ou=Administration,ou=Corporate,o=DEMOCORP,c=AU
objectClass: inetOrgPerson
cn: <Username2>
sn: <Lastname>
title: <title>
telephoneNumber: (XXX)XXX-XXXX
description: <Description>
mail: <Username2>@example.com
postalAddress: <Postal Address>
postalCode: <Zip Code>
      userPassword: <Password>
createTimestamp: 20100809124428.359Z

Resolution is to remove those leading spaces (or tab) from the lines where 'userPassword' (or whatever the attribute) was added manually. After that the dxloaddb command should work as normal.