If you're searching on a filter that has been indexed, then the search reads the index and pulls exactly the entries that are referenced by the index. If the filter term has not been indexed, then the search must read every single entry in the target scope and test to see if each entry matches the filter. Obviously indexing can save a lot of work when it's used correctly.
You should create indices to match the actual filter terms used in search queries.
index cn,sn,givenname,mail eq
Each attribute index can be tuned further by selecting the set of index types to generate. For example, substring and approximate search for organizations (o) may make little sense (and isn't like done very often). And searching for userPassword likely makes no sense what so ever.
General rule: don't go overboard with indexes. Unused indexes must be maintained and hence can only slow things down.
See slapd.conf(8) and slapdindex(8) for more information
If your client application uses presence filters and if the target attribute exists on the majority of entries in your target scope, then all of those entries are going to be read anyway, because they are valid members of the result set. In a subtree where 100% of the entries are going to contain the same attributes, the presence index does absolutely NOTHING to benefit the search, because 100% of the entries match that presence filter.
So the resource cost of generating the index is a complete waste of CPU time, disk, and memory. Don't do it unless you know that it will be used, and that the attribute in question occurs very infrequently in the target data.
Almost no applications use presence filters in their search queries. Presence indexing is pointless when the target attribute exists on the majority of entries in the database. In most LDAP deployments, presence indexing should not be done, it's just wasted overhead.
See the Logging section below on what to watch our for if you have a frequently searched for attribute that is unindexed.
