Bingo. So the index is......... What? Its own value, typically an incrementing number, just like it is for most sane databases. Tying indexes to integral components of a database is one of the more hateful errors in large project integration that I've had to deal with several times lately.
Assuming LDAP then that's not really an issue for that point.
The instance should be properly indexing cname (or whichever value anyway).
The real question is the value used for login... and I would suggest a simple username as opposed to email to make email changing easier and would not cause/require a reindex.