I really appreciate the responses. I'm reasonably familiar with Linux, but fairly new to Fedora, IPA, 389DS, so expect something basic that I missed or messed up.

$ ls /etc/dirsrv
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root   root     55 Jan 23 16:27 config
-rw-------. 1 dirsrv dirsrv  662 Jan  3 20:38 ds.keytab
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root   root     25 Jan 23 16:27 schema
drwxr-x---. 3 dirsrv dirsrv 4h96 Feb 10 16:04 slapd-IDENTITY-DEMARCOHOME-COM
drwxrwx---. 2 root   root    156 Jan  3 20:38 ssca

$ dsconf IDENTITY-DEMARCOHOME-COM config get nsslapd-rootdn nsslapdn cn=Directory Manager
Error: Could not find configuration for instance: IDENTITY-DEMARCOHOME-COM

$ kinit nick
Password for nick@IDENTITY.DEMARCOHOME.COM:
[nick@ipa1 ~]$

$ ipa --version
VERSION: 4.8.4, API_VERSION: 2.235

$ cat /etc/fedora-release
Fedora release 31 (Thirty One)

It's a pretty clean FreeIPA instance. I haven't done much to it since installation.

On Tue, Feb 11, 2020 at 2:59 AM Alexander Bokovoy <abokovoy@redhat.com> wrote:
On ma, 10 helmi 2020, Nicholas DeMarco wrote:
>I'm not having success with that truncated instance string, either:
>$ dsconf -D "cn=Directory Manager" IDENTITY-DEMARCOHOME-COM
>directory_manager password_change
>Error: Could not find configuration for instance: IDENTITY-DEMARCOHOME-COM
>
>The instance is present. I can also see it on Cockpit's 389DS add in.
>$ ls /etc/dirsrv
>config  ds.keytab  schema  slapd-IDENTITY-DEMARCOHOME-COM  ssca

weird. Do you have /etc/dirsrv/slapd-IDENTITY-DEMARCOHOME-COM/dse.ldif?
If not, at least any other files named dse.ldif.*?

It works for me:

# dsconf EXAMPLE-COM config get nsslapd-rootdn
nsslapd-rootdn: cn=Directory Manager

# dsconf EXAMPLE-COM config get nsslapd-rootpw
nsslapd-rootpw: {PBKDF2_SHA256}some-long-base64-encoded-data

# dsconf EXAMPLE-COM directory_manager password_change
Enter new directory manager password : ^C

Exiting...

>
>What is a simple way to verify I do have the correct password for directory
>manager?
just try to bind with it.

ldapsearch -D 'cn=Directory Manager' -W -h `hostname` -b dc=identity,dc=demarcohome,dc=com -s base

>
>
>On Mon, Feb 10, 2020 at 2:24 AM Alexander Bokovoy <abokovoy@redhat.com>
>wrote:
>
>> On su, 09 helmi 2020, Nicholas DeMarco via FreeIPA-users wrote:
>> >After successfully promoting an IPA server to a replica, ipa-ca-install
>> >fails with "Directory Manager password is invalid"
>> >
>> >This noob would appreciate a command and example to verify I have the
>> >correct directory manager password. I've looked through this page:
>> >
>> https://directory.fedoraproject.org/docs/389ds/howto/howto-resetdirmgrpassword.html
>> >
>> >
>> >but haven't been successful in getting dsconf or ldapmodify to work.
>> >
>> >server: ipa1.identity.demarcohome.com.
>> >instance: slapd-IDENTITY-DEMARCOHOME-COM
>> >
>> ># dsconf -D "cn=Directory Manager" slapd-IDENTITY-DEMARCOHOME-COM
>> >directory_manager password_change
>> >
>> >Error: Could not find configuration for instance:
>> >slapd-IDENTITY-DEMARCOHOME-COM
>>
>> dsconf expects instance name, not the whole 'slapd-...' part. Your
>> instance name would be IDENTITY-DEMARCOHOME-COME.
>>
>>
>> --
>> / Alexander Bokovoy
>> Sr. Principal Software Engineer
>> Security / Identity Management Engineering
>> Red Hat Limited, Finland
>>
>>


--
/ Alexander Bokovoy
Sr. Principal Software Engineer
Security / Identity Management Engineering
Red Hat Limited, Finland