1 .TH LDAP 3 "RELEASEDATE" "OpenLDAP LDVERSION"
3 .\" Copyright 1998-2005 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 variant
64 of version 2 of LDAP as defined by U-Mich LDAP and, to some degree,
65 RFC 1777. Version 2 (all variants) 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 UTF\-8
80 string representation.
82 Search filters to be passed to the search routines are to be
83 constructed by hand and should conform to RFC 2254 UTF\-8
84 string representation.
86 LDAP URL are to be passed to routines are expected to conform
87 to RFC 2255 syntax. The
89 routines can be used to work with LDAP URLs.
90 .SH DISPLAYING RESULTS
91 Results obtained from the search routines can be output by hand,
93 .BR ldap_first_entry (3)
95 .BR ldap_next_entry (3)
98 .BR ldap_first_attribute (3)
100 .BR ldap_next_attribute (3)
101 to step through an entry's attributes, and
102 .BR ldap_get_values (3)
103 to retrieve a given attribute's values. Attribute values
104 may or may not be displayable.
106 Also provided are various utility routines. The
108 routines are used to sort the entries and values returned via
109 the ldap search routines.
111 Also included in the distribution is a set of lightweight Basic
112 Encoding Rules routines. These routines are used by the LDAP library
113 routines to encode and decode LDAP protocol elements using the
114 (slightly simplified) Basic Encoding Rules defined by LDAP. They are
115 not normally used directly by an LDAP application program except
116 in the handling of controls and extended operations. The
117 routines provide a printf and scanf\-like interface, as well as
118 lower\-level access. These routines are discussed in
119 .BR lber\-decode (3),
120 .BR lber\-encode (3),
121 .BR lber\-memory (3),
126 .SM ldap_initialize(3)
127 initialize the LDAP library without opening a connection to a server
130 wait for the result from an asynchronous operation
132 .SM ldap_abandon_ext(3)
133 abandon (abort) an asynchronous operation
136 asynchronously add an entry
138 .SM ldap_add_ext_s(3)
139 synchronously add an entry
141 .SM ldap_sasl_bind(3)
142 asynchronously bind to the directory
144 .SM ldap_sasl_bind_s(3)
145 synchronously bind to the directory
147 .SM ldap_unbind_ext(3)
148 synchronously unbind from the LDAP server and close the connection
150 .SM ldap_unbind(3) and ldap_unbind_s(3) are
152 .BR ldap_unbind_ext (3)
155 dispose of memory allocated by LDAP routines.
157 .SM ldap_compare_ext(3)
158 asynchronously compare to a directory entry
160 .SM ldap_compare_ext_s(3)
161 synchronously compare to a directory entry
163 .SM ldap_delete_ext(3)
164 asynchronously delete an entry
166 .SM ldap_delete_ext_s(3)
167 synchronously delete an entry
170 LDAP error indication
173 list of LDAP errors and their meanings
175 .SM ldap_err2string(3)
176 convert LDAP error indication to a string
178 .SM ldap_first_attribute(3)
179 return first attribute name in an entry
181 .SM ldap_next_attribute(3)
182 return next attribute name in an entry
184 .SM ldap_first_entry(3)
185 return first entry in a chain of search results
187 .SM ldap_next_entry(3)
188 return next entry in a chain of search results
190 .SM ldap_count_entries(3)
191 return number of entries in a search result
194 extract the DN from an entry
196 .SM ldap_get_values_len(3)
197 return an attribute's values with lengths
199 .SM ldap_value_free_len(3)
200 free memory allocated by ldap_get_values_len(3)
202 .SM ldap_count_values_len(3)
203 return number of values
205 .SM ldap_modify_ext(3)
206 asynchronously modify an entry
208 .SM ldap_modify_ext_s(3)
209 synchronously modify an entry
211 .SM ldap_mods_free(3)
212 free array of pointers to mod structures used by ldap_modify_ext(3)
215 asynchronously rename an entry
218 synchronously rename an entry
221 free results allocated by ldap_result(3)
224 return the message type of a message from ldap_result(3)
227 return the message id of a message from ldap_result(3)
229 .SM ldap_search_ext(3)
230 asynchronously search the directory
232 .SM ldap_search_ext_s(3)
233 synchronously search the directory
235 .SM ldap_is_ldap_url(3)
236 check a URL string to see if it is an LDAP URL
238 .SM ldap_url_parse(3)
239 break up an LDAP URL string into its components
241 .SM ldap_sort_entries(3)
242 sort a list of search results
244 .SM ldap_sort_values(3)
245 sort a list of attribute values
247 .SM ldap_sort_strcasecmp(3)
248 case insensitive string comparison
252 .BR draft-ietf-ldapext-ldap-c-api-xx.txt \ <http://www.ietf.org>
255 is developed and maintained by The OpenLDAP Project (http://www.openldap.org/).
257 is derived from University of Michigan LDAP 3.3 Release.
259 These API manual pages are loosely based upon descriptions provided
260 in the IETF/LDAPEXT C LDAP API Internet Draft, a (orphaned) work