CN
= Common NameOU
= Organizational UnitDC
= Domain ComponentThese are all parts of the X.500 Directory Specification, which defines nodes in a LDAP directory.
You can also read up on LDAP data Interchange Format (LDIF
), which is an alternate format.
You read it from right to left, the right-most component is the root of the tree, and the left most component is the node (or leaf) you want to reach.
Each =
pair is a search criteria.
With your example query
("CN=Dev-India,OU=Distribution Groups,DC=gp,DC=gl,DC=google,DC=com");
In effect the query is:
From the com
Domain Component, find the google
Domain Component, and then inside it the gl
Domain Component and then inside it the gp
Domain Component.
In the gp
Domain Component, find the Organizational Unit called Distribution Groups
and then find the the object that has a common name of Dev-India
.