Description of problem:
Customer has been trying to implement sssd with LDAP trees.  Documentation for search, user, group bases has been a struggle since some options are poorly documented or hard to find both in doc.redhat.com and man pages.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
sssd-1.2.1-28.el6_0.4.x86_64

How reproducible:
always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. read the documentation.
2.
3.
  
Actual results:
hard to configure

Expected results:
easy to understand how to configure.

Additional info:

customer's notes & comments.

==================================================================
There is no man page for pam_ldap.conf at all.   I suspect it has its
own form but it appears pretty much like ldap.conf or nslcd.conf.  The file 
/etc/pam_ldap.conf is mentioned in several places, e.g.

http://rpmfind.net/linux/RPM/fedora/14/i386/pam_ldap-185-5.fc14.i686.html

* Fri Jan 08 2010 Nalin Dahyabhai <nalin> 185-1
  - split out pam_ldap as a separate source package, update URL, change
    %{version} to reflect pam_ldap's versioning rather than nss_ldap's
  - set config file to /etc/pam_ldap.conf, rootbindpw file 
/etc/pam_ldap.secret


and in our experiments we needed it to make pam-ldap work when using 
nonstandard ldap port.


It is particulary critical when using non-standard ldap ports (389,
636). It does not appear that pam_ldap.conf is auto configured by any
utility.  Therefore it must be correct with at a minimun, the URI value and 
they must match that of the sssd.conf or nslcd.conf URI values.   

We have found that if the sssd.conf or nslcd.conf files use a
non-standard ldap port and the pam_ldap.conf file uses the same ldap server ip 
address but uses a standard port, i.e. one that differs from either sssd.conf 
or nslcd.conf, then user authentication for ssh and telnet, and perhap other 
utilities will not authenticate.   The result is that pam_ldap sends it's data 
on the standard ldap port ( the one configured in the URI line of the 
pam_ldap.conf file) and each transmission to the ldap server is rejected with 
a RST.

If pam_ldap was modified to look for and use values in nslcd.conf or
sssd.conf, it would avoid this confusion. 



Specific to sssd.conf:

sssd-ldap:

ldap_user_search_base   
   Explain the use of this value when multiple values are declared and
the 
   most unusual syntax of seperating the keyword from the first value
with a comma.
   
   example:
   ldap_user_search_base, ou =
ldapusers3,dc=osn,dc=cxo,dc=cpqcorp,dc=net,   
ou=ldapusers2,dc=osn,dc=cxo,dc=cpqcorp,dc=net,
ou=ldapusers1,dc=osn,dc=cxo,dc=cpqcorp,dc=net


ldap_group_search_base
   If the syntax is similar to that of the ldap_user_search_base then a
similar
   modification needs to be made.


We have yet to determine the full extent of the anamoly of ldap
specific values that are ignored unless they are specifically placed in the
[domain/LDAP] section.

This is particularly important when sssd.conf is generated from the
output of authconfig in which new values are place in the [domain/default]
section.

Some ldap values are accepted in the default domain section and others
are ignored. 
The values for ldap_user_search_base is ignored in the default domain
section but accepted in the LDAP domain section.


There is little to no syntax checking by sssd on startup.   It would be
very helpful if syntax was checked and flagged if found to be unacceptable.