### Sharing connections

There are two ways to export and import connections. This may be useful if you want to copy your connections from one computer to another or if you want to share connection parameters with other users. You could also use this features to backup your defined connections.

#### Import/Export connections

You could use the Export Connection wizard and Import Connection wizard to export and import connections.

#### Copy/Paste connections as LDAP URL

A more simple way is to copy/paste connections as LDAP URL.

RFC 2255 specifies the LDAP URL format. Apache Directory Studio uses the host and port field and uses X- extensions for all other connection paramter.

Parameter | Description | Possible values | Default
--- | --- | --- | ---
X-CONNECTION-NAME | The connection name. | Any name, must be URL encoded | Current date
X-ENCRYPTION | The encryption to use. | none, ldaps, StartTLS | none
X-AUTH-METHOD | The authentication to use. | Anonymous, Simple, DIGEST-MD5, CRAM-MD5 | Simple imf X-BIND-USER is present, else Anonymous
X-BIND-USER | The bind DN or user. | Any DN, must be URL encoded | none
X-BIND-PASSWORD | The bind password. |  | none
X-SASL-REALM | The SASL realm. |  | none
X-BASE-DN | The base DN. | A valid base DN, none to get base DNs from the Root DSE | none
X-COUNT-LIMIT | The count limit. | A positive integer, 0 for no count limit | 0
X-TIME-LIMIT | The time limit in seconds. | A positive integer, 0 for no time limit | 0
X-ALIAS-HANDLING | The alias handling method. | NEVER, SEARCHING, FINDING, ALWAYS | ALWAYS
X-REFERRAL-HANDLING | The referral handling method. | FOLLOW, IGNORE, MANAGE | FOLLOW
X-FETCH-SUBENTRIES | If present the subentries control is activated. | no value | -
X-PAGED-SEARCH | If present the paged control is activated. | no value | -
X-PAGED-SEARCH-SIZE | The paged search size. | Any positive integer | 100
X-PAGED-SEARCH-SCROLL-MODE | If present the scroll mode is activated. | No value | -

Here's an example how such an URL looks like: ldap://localhost:10389/????X-CONNECTION-NAME=ApacheDS,X-BIND-USER=uid=admin%2cou=system,X-BIND-PASSWORD=secret,X-COUNT-LIMIT=1000

When you copy a connection within the Connections view it is copied in the described format to your clipboard. You could then paste this LDAP URL into a text editor or to an email.

The same way you could copy an LDAP URL from somewhere and paste it into the Connections view.