Texas A&M University - Infrastructure Services

Common Name (cn)

Definition: Typically the account owner's formal full name, and variations of the name.

Common name is the only attribute universally used by LDAP applications for name lookup. While common name may contain variations on the name that a person is known by, it must contain the givenName and sn attribute values.
Attribute Name: 'cn' 'commonName'
OID: 2.5.4.3
URN: urn:oid:2.5.4.3
Object Class: person
Required: yes
Multiple Values: Multi-valued
Format: Directory String {32768}
Controlled Vocabulary: not applicable
Source: This attribute will always have the tamuOfficialName and displayName attribute values included. Additional values are defined by the account owner in the Directory Edit application.
Indexing: Presence (pres): Improves searches for entries that contain the indexed attribute.
Equality (eq): Improves searches for entries that contain an attribute that is set to a specific value.
Substring (sub): Improves searches for entries that contain a specified substring.
Search Syntax: EQUALITY caseIgnoreMatch SUBSTR caseIgnoreSubstringsMatch
Access: If tamuEduSuppress is set to administrative or name, account owner has read access, and everyone else has no access.
Otherwise, account owner, authenticated users, and nonauthenticated (anonymous) users have read access.
Usage: directory search
Example(s): College, Joe Aggie
College Joe Aggie
College, Joe A
Joe College