---
id: KEY-WP-0023
type: workplan
title: "Prove the migration against live directories and fix what that surfaced"
domain: infotech
repo: key-cape
status: finished
owner: claude
topic_slug: live-migration-proof
created: "2026-09-08"
updated: "2026-09-08"
state_hub_workstream_id: "9f19bfa0-78d1-5b5c-9b64-e251fa4838d6"
---

Finishes the unproven half of gap G04. KEY-WP-0022 made the harness runnable and
targeted conformance at a live issuer; what remained was directory migration
against a real directory, both sides of the swap measured, and the explicit
limits recorded.

Running it found four defects that no amount of reading would have. That is the
result worth keeping: every one of them passed the full unit suite.

## Run the export against a live LLDAP

```task
id: KEY-WP-0023-T01
status: done
priority: high
state_hub_task_id: "b7b2ea88-8457-5fae-a500-a2d0f75754de"
```

**Defect: every LLDAP user search pointed at a branch that does not exist.**
`Config.userOU()` defaulted to `ou=users`; LLDAP stores users under `ou=people`,
and nothing in this repository set `UserOU` to correct it. `LookupUser`,
`ListUsers` and `ValidatePassword` all derive their search base from it, so all
three silently found nothing against a stock LLDAP — human login included, not
just the export.

Symptom that exposed it: exporting from a live LLDAP returned **zero users while
still emitting a membership referencing `uid=admin`**, a snapshot the repository's
own validator rejects with `referenced_users_exist`. Default corrected to
`ou=people` and pinned by a test; the re-run exports one user and validates
clean.

## Correct the rule I broke in KEY-WP-0021

```task
id: KEY-WP-0023-T02
status: done
priority: high
state_hub_task_id: "2f988626-ed08-52ce-919a-cd45d48e712d"
```

**Defect of my own making.** The LLDAP adapter records `_validation_warning`
inside `LDAPAttributes`. The `raw_attributes_well_formed` rule added in
KEY-WP-0021 rejects underscores as invalid attribute descriptors, so the
exporter's own annotation made its own output fail validation — a false positive
shipped one workplan earlier and caught only by validating a real export.

Keys prefixed with `_` are now recognised as tooling annotations and skipped,
documented as such. A test proves the exemption does not weaken the rule: a
malformed real attribute alongside an annotation still fails.

## Prove the LDIF loads into a real OpenLDAP

```task
id: KEY-WP-0023-T03
status: done
priority: high
state_hub_task_id: "0f503342-0ca8-55ad-b7e4-e2316d4d7bad"
```

**Defect: migrated group memberships were dangling.** `resolveMemberDN` returned
a member that already looked like a DN unchanged, so members kept their *source*
DNs (`uid=admin,ou=people,…`) while `writeUser` wrote entries to the *target*
branch (`ou=users`). Groups named entries the migrated directory does not
contain. Only the naming value is carried across now; branch and naming
attribute come from the target.

**Defect: empty groups could not be loaded at all.** `groupOfNames` makes
`member` a MUST, so OpenLDAP rejected every memberless group with an object class
violation and aborted the load. Since KEY-WP-0018 the export deliberately
preserves empty groups, so this was reachable by any real migration. Empty groups
now reference a placeholder entry the same LDIF creates — an `organizationalRole`,
not a person, so it cannot be mistaken for a migrated user — emitted only when
some group needs it.

**Defect: the compose file could not start.** `bitnami/openldap:2.6` does not
exist in the registry. It passed `docker compose config` in KEY-WP-0022, which is
exactly the gap between a file that parses and a stack that runs. Pinned to
`osixia/openldap:1.5.0`, the image the scenario was actually proved against.

Proof: LLDAP → export → validate → LDIF → `ldapadd` into OpenLDAP 1.5.0, all
seven entries added with no errors, and every `member` value in the loaded
directory resolves to an entry that exists.

## Measure both sides of the swap

```task
id: KEY-WP-0023-T04
status: done
priority: high
state_hub_task_id: "8a7fe95e-d463-5e74-81fa-5fa60a879774"
```

KeyCape was run locally against a generated key and targeted with the
conformance suite: all five checks pass, including the excluded-grant check
Keycloak fails. The Keycloak side was exercised twice — the stock realm in
KEY-WP-0022, and here the *migrated* realm produced from the live export, which
imported cleanly and served discovery. The migrated user arrived carrying
`keycape.canonicalId`.

The divergence is now measured rather than asserted: KeyCape passes 5/5, a
migrated Keycloak passes 4/5 and fails on advertising the excluded `implicit` and
`password` grants.

## Record what is proved and what is not

```task
id: KEY-WP-0023-T05
status: done
priority: medium
state_hub_task_id: "acef6ceb-6dea-56e1-94bc-e5d589ef3b6f"
```

G04 is substantially closed: stacks are reproducible and were run, conformance is
externally targeted and was run against three issuers, and directory migration is
proved end to end into a real directory.

Not closed, and stated as such: no browser login was performed against the
migrated realm, so unchanged relying-party behaviour is not established, and MFA
was not exercised. Credential and MFA migration is a **scope exclusion** rather
than a test gap — SCOPE says it is not supplied, so no harness can demonstrate
it. `keycape-to-keycloak` already reports that subject continuity is not
preserved: the canonical ID survives as an attribute while Keycloak mints its own
`sub`, so relying parties keyed on `sub` will not recognise migrated users.