1 .TH LDAP 3 "RELEASEDATE" "OpenLDAP LDVERSION"
3 .\" Copyright 1998-2004 The OpenLDAP Foundation All Rights Reserved.
4 .\" Copying restrictions apply. See COPYRIGHT/LICENSE.
6 ldap - OpenLDAP Lightweight Directory Access Protocol API
8 OpenLDAP LDAP (libldap, -lldap)
17 The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) (RFC 3377) provides
18 access to X.500 directory services. These services may be stand\-alone
19 or part of a distributed directory service. This client API supports
20 LDAP over TCP (RFC2251), LDAP over TLS/SSL, and LDAP over IPC (UNIX
21 domain sockets). This API supports SASL (RFC2829) and Start TLS
22 (RFC2830) as well as a number of protocol extensions. This API is
23 loosely based upon IETF/LDAPEXT C LDAP API draft specification, a (orphaned)
26 The OpenLDAP Software package includes a stand\-alone server in
28 various LDAP clients, and an LDAP client library used to provide
29 programmatic access to the LDAP protocol. This man page gives an
30 overview of the LDAP library routines.
32 Both synchronous and asynchronous APIs are provided. Also included are
33 various routines to parse the results returned from these routines.
34 These routines are found in the \-lldap library.
36 The basic interaction is as follows. A session handle is
38 .BR ldap_initialize (3)
39 and set the protocol version to 3 by calling
40 .BR ldap_set_option (3).
41 The underlying session is established first operation is
42 issued. This would generally be a Start TLS or Bind operation.
43 A Start TLS operation is performed by calling
44 .BR ldap_start_tls_s (3).
45 A LDAP bind operation is performed by calling
46 .BR ldap_sasl_bind (3)
47 or one of its friends. Subsequently, other operations are performed
48 by calling one of the synchronous or asynchronous routines (e.g.,
49 .BR ldap_search_ext_s (3)
51 .BR ldap_search_ext (3)
54 Results returned from these routines are interpreted by calling the
55 LDAP parsing routines such as
56 .BR ldap_parse_result (3).
57 The LDAP association and underlying connection is terminated by calling
58 .BR ldap_unbind_ext (3).
59 Errors can be interpreted by calling
60 .BR ldap_err2string (3).
62 This library supports version 3 of the Lightweight Directory Access
63 Protocol (LDAPv3) as defined in RFC 3377. It also supports a varient
64 of version 2 of LDAP as defined by U-Mich LDAP and, to some degree,
65 RFC 1777. Version 2 (all varients) should be viewed as obsolete.
66 Version 3 should be used instead.
68 For backwards compatibility reasons, the library defaults to version 2.
69 Hence, all new applications (and all actively maintained applications)
71 .BR ldap_set_option (3)
72 to select version 3. The library manual pages assume version 3
74 .SH INPUT and OUTPUT PARAMETERS
75 All character string input/output is expected to be/is UTF\-8
76 encoded Unicode (version 3.2).
78 Distinguished names (DN) (and relative distinguished names (RDN) to
79 be passed to the LDAP routines should conform to RFC 2253. The
80 .BR ldap_explode_dn (3)
81 routines can be used to work with DNs.
83 Search filters to be passed to the search routines are to be
84 constructed by hand and should conform to RFC 2254.
86 LDAP URL are to be passed to routines are expected to conform
90 routines can be used to work with LDAP URLs.
91 .SH DISPLAYING RESULTS
92 Results obtained from the search routines can be output by hand,
94 .BR ldap_first_entry (3)
96 .BR ldap_next_entry (3)
99 .BR ldap_first_attribute (3)
101 .BR ldap_next_attribute (3)
102 to step through an entry's attributes, and
103 .BR ldap_get_values (3)
104 to retrieve a given attribute's values. Attribute values
105 may or may not be displayable.
107 Also provided are various utility routines. The
109 routines are used to sort the entries and values returned via
110 the ldap search routines.
112 Also included in the distribution is a set of lightweight Basic
113 Encoding Rules routines. These routines are used by the LDAP library
114 routines to encode and decode LDAP protocol elements using the
115 (slightly simplified) Basic Encoding Rules defined by LDAP. They are
116 not normally used directly by an LDAP application program except
117 in the handling of controls and extended operations. The
118 routines provide a printf and scanf\-like interface, as well as
119 lower\-level access. These routines are discussed in
120 .BR lber\-decode (3),
121 .BR lber\-encode (3),
122 .BR lber\-memory (3),
127 .SM ldap_initialize(3)
128 initialize the LDAP library without opening a connection to a server
131 wait for the result from an asynchronous operation
133 .SM ldap_abandon_ext(3)
134 abandon (abort) an asynchronous operation
137 asynchronously add an entry
139 .SM ldap_add_ext_s(3)
140 synchronously add an entry
142 .SM ldap_sasl_bind(3)
143 asynchronously bind to the directory
145 .SM ldap_sasl_bind_s(3)
146 synchronously bind to the directory
148 .SM ldap_unbind_ext(3)
149 synchronously unbind from the LDAP server and close the connection
151 .SM ldap_unbind_ext_s(3)
153 .BR ldap_unbind_ext (3)
156 dispose of memory allocated by LDAP routines.
158 .SM ldap_compare_ext(3)
159 asynchronously compare to a directory entry
161 .SM ldap_compare_ext_s(3)
162 synchronously compare to a directory entry
164 .SM ldap_delete_ext(3)
165 asynchronously delete an entry
167 .SM ldap_delete_ext_s(3)
168 synchronously delete an entry
171 LDAP error indication
174 list of LDAP errors and their meanings
176 .SM ldap_err2string(3)
177 convert LDAP error indication to a string
179 .SM ldap_first_attribute(3)
180 return first attribute name in an entry
182 .SM ldap_next_attribute(3)
183 return next attribute name in an entry
185 .SM ldap_first_entry(3)
186 return first entry in a chain of search results
188 .SM ldap_next_entry(3)
189 return next entry in a chain of search results
191 .SM ldap_count_entries(3)
192 return number of entries in a search result
195 extract the DN from an entry
197 .SM ldap_explode_dn(3)
198 convert a DN into its component parts (deprecated)
200 .SM ldap_explode_rdn(3)
201 convert an RDN into its component parts (deprecated)
203 .SM ldap_get_values_len(3)
204 return an attribute's values with lengths
206 .SM ldap_value_free_len(3)
207 free memory allocated by ldap_get_values_len(3)
209 .SM ldap_count_values_len(3)
210 return number of values
212 .SM ldap_modify_ext(3)
213 asynchronously modify an entry
215 .SM ldap_modify_ext_s(3)
216 synchronously modify an entry
218 .SM ldap_mods_free(3)
219 free array of pointers to mod structures used by ldap_modify_ext(3)
222 asynchronously rename an entry
225 synchronously rename an entry
228 free results allocated by ldap_result(3)
231 return the message type of a message from ldap_result(3)
234 return the message id of a message from ldap_result(3)
236 .SM ldap_search_ext(3)
237 asynchronously search the directory
239 .SM ldap_search_ext_s(3)
240 synchronously search the directory
242 .SM ldap_is_ldap_url(3)
243 check a URL string to see if it is an LDAP URL
245 .SM ldap_url_parse(3)
246 break up an LDAP URL string into its components
248 .SM ldap_sort_entries(3)
249 sort a list of search results
251 .SM ldap_sort_values(3)
252 sort a list of attribute values
254 .SM ldap_sort_strcasecmp(3)
255 case insensitive string comparison
259 .BR draft-ietf-ldapext-ldap-c-api-xx.txt \ <http://www.ietf.org>
262 is developed and maintained by The OpenLDAP Project (http://www.openldap.org/).
264 is derived from University of Michigan LDAP 3.3 Release.
266 These API manual pages are loosely based upon descriptions provided
267 in the IETF/LDAPEXT C LDAP API Internet Draft, a (orphaned) work