Prior to importing data, you can validate an import file using the Directory Server's validate-ldif tool. When run, the tool binds to the Directory Server, locally or remotely, and validates the LDIF file to determine whether it violates the server's schema. Those elements that do not conform to the schema will be rejected and written to standard output. You can specify the path to the output file to which the rejected entries are written and the reasons for their rejection. The validate-ldif tool works with regular non-compressed LDIF files or gzip-compressed LDIF files.

To process large files faster, you can also set the number of threads for validation. The tool also provides options to skip specified schema elements if you are only validating certain items, such as attributes only. Use the --help option to view the arguments.