The Directory Server provides an audit log, a specialized version of the access log, for troubleshooting problems that may occur in the course of processing. The log records all changes to the data in LDIF format so that administrators can quickly diagnose the changes an application made to the data or replay the changes to another server for testing purposes.

The audit log does not record authentication attempts but can be used in conjunction with the access log to troubleshoot security-related issues. The audit log is disabled by default because it does adversely impact the server’s write performance.