How to extend Active Directory's schema through LDAP protocol?

Currently I can onl开发者_开发百科y extend AD's schema manually using AD schema snap-in. Is it possible to do it through LDAP protocol?

I've done quite a few schema extensions. I wouldn't consider doing it through LDAP, before looking at the other alternatives: the most common ways I've come across are

• in code (Microsoft .Net has some schema management stuff)
• the LDIFDE command line tool.

I've always used the latter. One useful bit about it is that you can export the current schema (or parts of it) to see how it's done. You can also easily export just your changes from your test forest and import them into your live forest.

Forgive me if I'm teaching you to suck eggs but I strongly suggest you do all of your development on a virtual machine that you can snapshot before you start - you can't undo mistakes in the schema. Developing changes with a snapshotted VM is great: build your test system, snapshot, make your schema change, export using LDIFDE, revert to snapshot, import your LDIFDE and make sure it worked as expected. Repeat until it does.