In the LDAP environment, you can attach to a remote database server using the LDAP node name on the ATTACH command:
db2 attach to <ldap_node_name>
When a client application attaches to a node or connects to a database for the first time, since the node is not in the local node directory, DB2 searches the LDAP directory for the target node entry. If the entry is found in the LDAP directory, the protocol information of the remote server is retrieved. If you connect to the database and if the entry is found in the LDAP directory, then the database information is also retrieved. Using this information, DB2 automatically catalogs a database entry and a node entry on the local machine. The next time the client application attaches to the same node or database, the information in the local database directory is used without having to search the LDAP directory.
In more detail: A caching mechanism exists so that the client only searches the LDAP directory once in its local directory catalogs. Once the information is retrieved, it is stored or cached on the local machine. Subsequent access to the same information is based on the values of the dir_cache database manager configuration parameter and the DB2LDAPCACHE registry variable.
| Note: | The caching of LDAP information is not applicable to user-level CLI or DB2 profile registry variables. Also, there is an "in-memory" cache for the database, node, and DCS directories. However, there is no such cached for just the node directory. |