OS X Server: Speeding up directory searches

One of the major complaints about OSX Server is that once they are bound, searching for users/groups from the AD can take a long time (and sometimes times out before completion).

The problem, according to Apple, is that AD doesn’t index any attributes for a substring search and therefore all records have to be searched. The Workgroup Manager plug-in times out after 60 seconds and even an ldapsearch from the command line will only search for 120 seconds and then give up.

Apple has two suggestions to speed up searches:

• In Workgroup Manager, click on the little magnifying glass in the search window and select "Name is" and enter the last, first of the user you are searching for
  

• In Workgroup Manager, click on the little magnifying glass in the search window, go to “advanced” and search for “Real Name” This will search the cn attribute and is much faster than a normal search- this works for groups too

I have tested both of the above work-arounds and found that they work very well. The Real Name search is particularly fast.