To provide compatibility with bindery-based versions of NetWare that may co-exist with NetWare Directory Services on the network, NetWare 4 provides bindery services.
Objects in a bindery exist in a flat database instead of a hierarchical database like a Directory tree. Bindery services occur when NetWare Directory Services provides a flat structure for the objects within an Organization or Organizational Unit container object.
All objects within that container object can then be accessed both by NetWare Directory Services objects and by bindery-based clients and servers. Bindery services apply only to leaf objects in that Organizational Unit.
The Organizational Unit where bindery services are set is called the bindery context. You can change the bindery context by using either the scoadmin(1M) NetWare Setup (graphical) or nwcm(1Mipx) (command line) utility.