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NAME |LIBRARY |SYNOPSIS |DESCRIPTION |LDAP versions |INPUT and OUTPUT PARAMETERS |DISPLAYING RESULTS |UTILITY ROUTINES |DEPRECATED INTERFACES |BER LIBRARY |INDEX |SEE ALSO |ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS |COLOPHON | |
LDAP(3) Library Functions ManualLDAP(3)ldap - OpenLDAP Lightweight Directory Access Protocol API
OpenLDAP LDAP (libldap, -lldap)
#include <ldap.h>
The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) (RFC 4510) provides access to X.500 directory services. These services may be stand-alone or part of a distributed directory service. This client API supports LDAP over TCP (RFC 4511), LDAP over TLS/SSL, and LDAP over IPC (UNIX domain sockets). This API supports SASL (RFC 4513) and Start TLS (RFC 4513) as well as a number of protocol extensions. This API is loosely based upon IETF/LDAPEXT C LDAP API draft specification, a (orphaned) work in progress. The OpenLDAP Software package includes a stand-alone server inslapd(8), various LDAP clients, and an LDAP client library used to provide programmatic access to the LDAP protocol. This man page gives an overview of the LDAP library routines. Both synchronous and asynchronous APIs are provided. Also included are various routines to parse the results returned from these routines. These routines are found in the -lldap library. The basic interaction is as follows. A session handle is created usingldap_initialize(3) and set the protocol version to 3 by callingldap_set_option(3). The underlying session is established first operation is issued. This would generally be a Start TLS or Bind operation, or a Search operation to read attributes of the Root DSE. A Start TLS operation is performed by callingldap_start_tls_s(3). A LDAP bind operation is performed by callingldap_sasl_bind(3) or one of its friends. A Search operation is performed by calling ldap_search_ext_s(3) or one of its friends. Subsequently, additional operations are performed by calling one of the synchronous or asynchronous routines (e.g.,ldap_compare_ext_s(3) orldap_compare_ext(3) followed byldap_result(3)). Results returned from these routines are interpreted by calling the LDAP parsing routines such asldap_parse_result(3). The LDAP association and underlying connection is terminated by callingldap_unbind_ext(3). Errors can be interpreted by callingldap_err2string(3).
This library supports version 3 of the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAPv3) as defined in RFC 4510. It also supports a variant of version 2 of LDAP as defined by U-Mich LDAP and, to some degree, RFC 1777. Version 2 (all variants) are considered obsolete. Version 3 should be used instead. For backwards compatibility reasons, the library defaults to version 2. Hence, all new applications (and all actively maintained applications) should useldap_set_option(3) to select version 3. The library manual pages assume version 3 has been selected.
All character string input/output is expected to be/is UTF-8 encoded Unicode (version 3.2). Distinguished names (DN) (and relative distinguished names (RDN) to be passed to the LDAP routines should conform to RFC 4514 UTF-8 string representation. Search filters to be passed to the search routines are to be constructed by hand and should conform to RFC 4515 UTF-8 string representation. LDAP URLs to be passed to routines are expected to conform to RFC 4516 format. Theldap_url(3) routines can be used to work with LDAP URLs. LDAP controls to be passed to routines can be manipulated using theldap_controls(3) routines.
Results obtained from the search routines can be output by hand, by callingldap_first_entry(3) andldap_next_entry(3) to step through the entries returned,ldap_first_attribute(3) andldap_next_attribute(3) to step through an entry's attributes, andldap_get_values(3) to retrieve a given attribute's values. Attribute values may or may not be displayable.
Also provided are various utility routines. Theldap_sort(3) routines are used to sort the entries and values returned via the ldap search routines.
A number of interfaces are now considered deprecated. For instance, ldap_add(3) is deprecated in favor of ldap_add_ext(3). Deprecated interfaces generally remain in the library. The macro LDAP_DEPRECATED can be defined to a non-zero value (e.g., -DLDAP_DEPRECATED=1) when compiling program designed to use deprecated interfaces. It is recommended that developers writing new programs, or updating old programs, avoid use of deprecated interfaces. Over time, it is expected that documentation (and, eventually, support) for deprecated interfaces to be eliminated.
Also included in the distribution is a set of lightweight Basic Encoding Rules routines. These routines are used by the LDAP library routines to encode and decode LDAP protocol elements using the (slightly simplified) Basic Encoding Rules defined by LDAP. They are not normally used directly by an LDAP application program except in the handling of controls and extended operations. The routines provide a printf and scanf-like interface, as well as lower-level access. These routines are discussed inlber-decode(3),lber-encode(3),lber-memory(3), andlber-types(3).
ldap_initialize(3) initialize the LDAP library without opening a connection to a server ldap_result(3) wait for the result from an asynchronous operation ldap_abandon_ext(3) abandon (abort) an asynchronous operation ldap_add_ext(3) asynchronously add an entry ldap_add_ext_s(3) synchronously add an entry ldap_sasl_bind(3) asynchronously bind to the directory ldap_sasl_bind_s(3) synchronously bind to the directory ldap_unbind_ext(3) synchronously unbind from the LDAP server and close the connection ldap_unbind(3) and ldap_unbind_s(3) are equivalent toldap_unbind_ext(3) ldap_memfree(3) dispose of memory allocated by LDAP routines. ldap_compare_ext(3) asynchronously compare to a directory entry ldap_compare_ext_s(3) synchronously compare to a directory entry ldap_delete_ext(3) asynchronously delete an entry ldap_delete_ext_s(3) synchronously delete an entry ld_errno(3) LDAP error indication ldap_errlist(3) list of LDAP errors and their meanings ldap_err2string(3) convert LDAP error indication to a string ldap_extended_operation(3) asynchronously perform an arbitrary extended operation ldap_extended_operation_s(3) synchronously perform an arbitrary extended operation ldap_first_attribute(3) return first attribute name in an entry ldap_next_attribute(3) return next attribute name in an entry ldap_first_entry(3) return first entry in a chain of search results ldap_next_entry(3) return next entry in a chain of search results ldap_count_entries(3) return number of entries in a search result ldap_get_dn(3) extract the DN from an entry ldap_get_values_len(3) return an attribute's values with lengths ldap_value_free_len(3) free memory allocated by ldap_get_values_len(3) ldap_count_values_len(3) return number of values ldap_modify_ext(3) asynchronously modify an entry ldap_modify_ext_s(3) synchronously modify an entry ldap_mods_free(3) free array of pointers to mod structures used by ldap_modify_ext(3) ldap_rename(3) asynchronously rename an entry ldap_rename_s(3) synchronously rename an entry ldap_msgfree(3) free results allocated by ldap_result(3) ldap_msgtype(3) return the message type of a message from ldap_result(3) ldap_msgid(3) return the message id of a message from ldap_result(3) ldap_search_ext(3) asynchronously search the directory ldap_search_ext_s(3) synchronously search the directory ldap_is_ldap_url(3) check a URL string to see if it is an LDAP URL ldap_url_parse(3) break up an LDAP URL string into its components ldap_sort_entries(3) sort a list of search results ldap_sort_values(3) sort a list of attribute values ldap_sort_strcasecmp(3) case insensitive string comparison
ldap.conf(5),slapd(8),draft-ietf-ldapext-ldap-c-api-xx.txt<http://www.ietf.org>
OpenLDAP Softwareis developed and maintained by The OpenLDAP Project <http://www.openldap.org/>.OpenLDAP Softwareis derived from the University of Michigan LDAP 3.3 Release. These API manual pages are loosely based upon descriptions provided in the IETF/LDAPEXT C LDAP API Internet Draft, a (orphaned) work in progress.
This page is part of theOpenLDAP (an open source implementation of the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) project. Information about the project can be found at ⟨http://www.openldap.org/⟩. If you have a bug report for this manual page, see ⟨http://www.openldap.org/its/⟩. This page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository ⟨https://git.openldap.org/openldap/openldap.git⟩ on 2025-08-11. (At that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in the repository was 2025-08-05.) If you discover any rendering problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON (which isnot part of the original manual page), send a mail to man-pages@man7.orgOpenLDAP LDVERSION RELEASEDATELDAP(3)Pages that refer to this page:ldapcompare(1), ldapdelete(1), ldapmodify(1), ldapmodrdn(1), ldapsearch(1), ldapurl(1), ldapvc(1), ldapwhoami(1), ldap_abandon(3), ldap_add(3), ldap_bind(3), ldap_compare(3), ldap_controls(3), ldap_delete(3), ldap_error(3), ldap_first_attribute(3), ldap_first_entry(3), ldap_first_message(3), ldap_first_reference(3), ldap_get_dn(3), ldap_get_option(3), ldap_get_values(3), ldap_memory(3), ldap_modify(3), ldap_modrdn(3), ldap_open(3), ldap_parse_reference(3), ldap_parse_result(3), ldap_rename(3), ldap_result(3), ldap_schema(3), ldap_search(3), ldap_sort(3), ldap_sync(3), ldap_tls(3), ldap_url(3), ldap.conf(5), ldif(5), lloadd.conf(5), slapd.backends(5), slapd.conf(5), slapd-config(5), slapd-ldap(5), slapd-monitor(5), slapd.overlays(5), slapo-ppolicy(5), slappw-argon2(5), lloadd(8), slapacl(8), slapadd(8), slapauth(8), slapcat(8), slapd(8), slapdn(8), slapindex(8), slapmodify(8), slapschema(8), slaptest(8)
HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 byMichael Kerrisk, author ofThe Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depthLinux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, lookhere. Hosting byjambit GmbH. | |