The Directory Server stores recently generated admin alerts in an Alerts Backend under the cn=alerts branch. The backend makes it possible to obtain admin alert information over LDAP for use with remote monitoring. The backend's primary job is to process search operations for alerts. It does not support add, modify, or modify DN operations of entries in the cn=alerts backend.

The alerts persist on disk in the config/alerts.ldif file so that they can survive server restarts. By default, the alerts remain on disk for seven days before being removed. However, administrators can configure the number of days for alert retention using the dsconfig tool. The administrative alerts of Warning level or worse that have occurred in the last 48 hours are viewable from the output of the status command-line tool and in the Administrative Console.