OK, I'm mostly through everything up to and including Chapter 5 in http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/dir-server/8.1/install/Installation_Guide-Advanced_Configuration-Making-DS.html And looking through the ToC for the rest, I do not see that my questions will be answered by this doc. So please feel free to point me to other docs. This manual seems to assuming I already know what it is I want to do, and what "Directory Services" are all about. Invalid assumption. For example, right now I am reading about how to set up different instances of this-or-that (Admin Server, Directory Server, yadda, yadda). What it does not tell me is why I would want to do that. It does not even tell me "what is an 'instance'" . I've never done any sort of DS, so this is all new stuff to me. Suggested reading is very welcomed. What is even more welcome is pointers to case studies or template examples. We are a very small company with only about 30 people right now. Though we do have a convoluted network with 3 distinct network areas separated by VPNs. I'm new here (and put in charge), and we are not even running DNS yet (eeep! for REALZ!!!). To me it makes sense to have 3 different DNS subdomains because of some quirks they have in their product architecture here. I'm thinking "office.example.dom", "production.example.com" and "rc.example.com". And from the bit I've read so far on DS, it seems to be recommended to have your DS mirror your DNS. So we are small enough where I do not think we need more than 1 server to run it all. And I can make all the machines talk to that server through the firewalls separating the 3 zones. That is not an issue at all. I'm not sure how this affects my DS. Would these be "instances"? So many questions ... please suggest reading material. thanks, -Alan -- “Don't eat anything you've ever seen advertised on TV” - Michael Pollan, author of "In Defense of Food"