Symantec Directory : Is it possible to avoid updating the modifyTimestamp operational attribute?

Products

• CA Directory

Issue/Introduction

You may have a business requirement to bulk update only one attribute for the entire user population in your Directory DSA but do not want the DSA to update the modifyTimestamp operational attribute for some reason.

You may also be wondering if this modifyTimestamp operational attribute can be manually updated/manipulated for your use case.

Environment

Release : 14.1

Resolution

Updating operational attribute(s) such as createTimestamp and modifyTimestamp cannot be avoided. There is no setting that one can use to over come this. This is an x500 LDAP standard and for auditing purpose, the DXserver (aka DSA) process is designed to update these operational attributes whenever a change is made to the data that it holds.

Also to note, one cannot manually change/modify the operational attribute modifyTimestamp as this attribute is marked with 'no-user-modification' in it's syntax definition.

For security and auditing purpose, it is strictly prohibited and let the the DXserver process (aka DSA) keep track of it as part of the product design and functionality.