---
name: "lloadd"
section: "8"
platform: "linux"
package: "openldap"
version: "2.7.2-2"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/lloadd"
---

# lloadd(8)

LDAP Load Balancer Daemon

## NAME

lloadd - LDAP Load Balancer Daemon

## SYNOPSIS

**/usr/lib/lloadd** \[**-4**\|**-6**\] \[**-d** *debug-level\]* \[**-f** *lloadd-config-file\]* \[**-h** *URLs\]* \[**-n** *service-name\]* \[**-s** *syslog-level\]* \[**-l** *syslog-local-user\]* \[**-o** *option\[***=***value\]\]* \[**-r** *directory\]* \[**-u** *user\]* \[**-g** *group\]*

## DESCRIPTION

**Lloadd** is the stand-alone LDAP daemon. It listens for LDAP connections on any number of ports (default **389**), forwarding the LDAP operations it receives over these connections to be handled by the configured backends. **lloadd** is typically invoked at boot time, usually out of **/etc/rc.local**. Upon startup, **lloadd** normally forks and disassociates itself from the invoking tty. If configured in the config file, the **lloadd** process will print its process ID (see [**getpid**(2)](/getpid/2.md)) to a **.pid** file, as well as the command line options during invocation to an **.args** file (see [**lloadd.conf**(5)](/lloadd.conf/5.md)). If the **-d** flag is given, even with a zero argument, **lloadd** will not fork and disassociate from the invoking tty.

See the "OpenLDAP Administrator's Guide" for more details on **lloadd**.

## OPTIONS

- **-4**

  Listen on IPv4 addresses only.

- **-6**

  Listen on IPv6 addresses only.

- **-d** *debug-level*

  Turn on debugging as defined by *debug-level*. If this option is specified, even with a zero argument, **lloadd** will not fork or disassociate from the invoking terminal.  Some general operation and status messages are printed for any value of *debug-level*. *debug-level* is taken as a bit string, with each bit corresponding to a different kind of debugging information.  See \<ldap\_log.h\> for details. Comma-separated arrays of friendly names can be specified to select debugging output of the corresponding debugging information. All the names recognized by the *loglevel* directive described in [**lloadd.conf**(5)](/lloadd.conf/5.md) are supported. If *debug-level* is **?**, a list of installed debug-levels is printed, and lloadd exits.

  Remember that if you turn on packet logging, packets containing bind passwords will be output, so if you redirect the log to a logfile, that file should be read-protected.

- **-s** *syslog-level*

  This option tells **lloadd** at what debug-level debugging statements should be logged to the **syslog**(8) facility. The value *syslog-level* can be set to any value or combination allowed by the **-d** switch. Lloadd logs all messages selected by *syslog-level* at the [**syslog**(3)](/syslog/3.md) severity debug-level **DEBUG**, on the unit specified with **-l**.

- **-n** *service-name*

  Specifies the service name for logging and other purposes.  Defaults to basename of argv\[0\], i.e.: "lloadd".

- **-l** *syslog-local-user*

  Selects the local user of the **syslog**(8) facility. Value can be **LOCAL0**, through **LOCAL7**, as well as **USER** and **DAEMON**. The default is **LOCAL4**. However, this option is only permitted on systems that support local users with the **syslog**(8) facility. Logging to syslog(8) occurs at the "DEBUG" severity debug-level.

- **-f** *lloadd-config-file*

  Specifies the lloadd configuration file. The default is **/etc/openldap/lloadd.conf**.

- **-h** *URLlist*

  **lloadd** will by default serve **ldap:///** (LDAP over TCP on all interfaces on default LDAP port).  That is, it will bind using INADDR\_ANY and port **389**. The **-h** option may be used to specify LDAP (and other scheme) URLs to serve. For example, if lloadd is given **-h "ldap://127.0.0.1:9009/ ldaps:/// ldapi:///"**, it will listen on 127.0.0.1:9009 for LDAP, 0.0.0.0:636 for LDAP over TLS, and LDAP over IPC (Unix domain sockets).  Host 0.0.0.0 represents INADDR\_ANY (any interface). A space separated list of URLs is expected.  The URLs should be of the LDAP, PLDAP, LDAPS, PLDAPS, or LDAPI schemes, and generally without a DN or other optional parameters (excepting as discussed below).  Support for the latter three schemes depends on selected configuration options. Hosts may be specified by name or IPv4 and IPv6 address formats.  Ports, if specified, must be numeric.  The default ldap:// port is **389** and the default ldaps:// port is **636**, same for the proxy enabled variants.

  The PLDAP and PLDAPS URL schemes provide support for the HAProxy proxy protocol version 2, which allows a load balancer or proxy server to provide the remote client IP address to slapd to be used for access control or logging. Ports configured for PLDAP or PLDAPS will only accept connections that include the necessary proxy protocol header. Connections to these ports should be restricted at the network level to only trusted load balancers or proxies to avoid spoofing of client IP addresses by third parties.

  At the moment, the load balancer does not act on the recorded address in any way.

  For LDAP over IPC, **name** is the name of the socket, and no **port** is required, nor allowed; note that directory separators must be URL-encoded, like any other characters that are special to URLs; so the socket

          /usr/local/var/ldapi

  must be specified as

          ldapi://%2Fusr%2Flocal%2Fvar%2Fldapi

  The default location for the IPC socket is /var/lib/openldap/run/ldapi

- **-r** *directory*

  Specifies a directory to become the root directory.  lloadd will change the current working directory to this directory and then [**chroot**(2)](/chroot/2.md) to this directory.  This is done after opening listeners but before reading any configuration file or initializing any backend.  When used as a security mechanism, it should be used in conjunction with **-u** and **-g** options.

- **-u** *user*

  **lloadd** will run lloadd with the specified user name or id, and that user's supplementary group access list as set with [initgroups(3)](/initgroups/3.md).  The group ID is also changed to this user's gid, unless the **-g** option is used to override.  Note when used with **-r**, lloadd will use the user database in the change root environment.

- **-g** *group*

  **lloadd** will run with the specified group name or id.  Note when used with **-r**, lloadd will use the group database in the change root environment.

- **-o** *option\[***=***value\]*

  This option provides a generic means to specify options without the need to reserve a separate letter for them.

  It supports the following options:

  - **slp=**{**on**\|**off**\|***slp-attrs***}

    When SLP support is compiled into lloadd, disable it (**off**),\
      enable it by registering at SLP DAs without specific SLP attributes (**on**), or with specific SLP attributes *slp-attrs* that must be an SLP attribute list definition according to the SLP standard.

    For example, **"slp=(tree=production),(server-type=OpenLDAP),(server-version=2.4.15)"** registers at SLP DAs with the three SLP attributes tree, server-type and server-version that have the values given above. This allows one to specifically query the SLP DAs for LDAP servers holding the *production* tree in case multiple trees are available.

## RELATION TO SLAPD(8)

**Lloadd** can be compiled as a **slapd** loadable module. In that case, it can be loaded as such:

```
    moduleload path/to/lloadd.la
    backend lload
    listen "listening URLs"
```

This enables **lloadd** to provide additional features through the host slapd process like access to run-time statistics in **cn=monitor** and dynamic configuration from **cn=config**.

The listening sockets specified will be under direct control of **lloadd** and need to be different from the sockets slapd is configured to listen on. Clients connecting to these are completely separate from regular LDAP clients connecting to the usual **slapd** sockets - **lloadd** clients have no access to slapd databases, similarly, **slapd** client traffic does not propagate to the **lloadd** backend servers in any way.

## CN=MONITOR INTERFACE

As part of **lloadd**'s **cn=monitor** interface it is possible to close a client connection it manages by writing to the corresponding entry, **replacing** the **olmConnectionState** attribute with the value **closing**. This is subject to ACLs configured on the monitor database. The server will send a **Notice of Disconnection** to the client, refuse any new operations and once all pending operations have finished, close the connection.

For example, to close connection number 42:

```
    dn: cn=connection 42,cn=incoming connections,cn=load balancer,cn=backends,cn=monitor
    changetype: modify
    replace: olmConnectionState
    olmConnectionState: closing
```

## EXAMPLES

To start *lloadd* and have it fork and detach from the terminal and start load-balancing the LDAP servers defined in the default config file, just type:

```
	/usr/lib/lloadd
```

To start **lloadd** with an alternate configuration file, and turn on voluminous debugging which will be printed on standard error, type:

```
	/usr/lib/lloadd -f /var/tmp/lloadd.conf -d 255
```

To start **lloadd** as a module inside a slapd process listening on ldap://:1389 and ldaps://, put the following in your slapd.conf (or its equivalent in cn=config):

```
    moduleload lloadd.la
    backend lload
    listen "ldap://:1389 ldaps://"
```

## SEE ALSO

[**ldap**(3)](/ldap/3.md), [**lloadd.conf**(5)](/lloadd.conf/5.md), [**slapd-config**(5)](/slapd-config/5.md), [**slapd-monitor**(5)](/slapd-monitor/5.md), [**slapd**(8)](/slapd/8.md).

"OpenLDAP Administrator's Guide" (http://www.OpenLDAP.org/doc/admin/)

## BUGS

See http://www.openldap.org/its/

## ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

**OpenLDAP Software** is developed and maintained by The OpenLDAP Project \<http://www.openldap.org/\>. **OpenLDAP Software** is derived from the University of Michigan LDAP 3.3 Release.