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LDAP Beans

LDAP beans provide read and write access to any LDAP Directory as well as authentication and rights assignments. All of this can be done over an encrypted channel using SSL. The following table lists several commonly used LDAP command beans and their functions.

Develop with LDAP Beans

The following six steps will be the basic form for an application using LDAP beans.

1. Instantiate an LdapConnection object if you are going to perform any operation on the Directory.
   
   
2. Instantiate an AuthenticateLdap bean and set its required properties. Naturally, you must authenticate into eDirectory before you can perform any operations on it. If you authenticate without specifying a user, you will be authenticated as a member of the [Public] group, which only has sufficient rights to view the objects in the Directory tree. Any operation attempted will fail because of insufficient rights.
   
   
3. Execute the AuthenticateLdap bean and catch any exceptions that may occur.
   
   
4. Grab the connection you created by assigning the connection to the LdapConnection bean you instantiated. This is done by the statement by calling the AuthenticateLdap bean's getLdapConnection() method and assigning it to the LdapConnection bean you created earlier.
   
   
5. Now that you have the LdapConnection object, you can use this object as an input property to any other LDAP bean you want to instantiate.
   
   
6. Unauthenicate from eDirectory using the UnauthenticateLdap bean with the LdapConnection object as a parameter.
   
   

Simple Authentication Example

Here is a basic servlet demonstrating standard authentication into eDirectory:

import javax.servlet.*;
import javax.servlet.http.*;
import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;
import com.novell.ecb.*;
import com.novell.ecb.ldap.*;
   
public class BasicAuth extends HttpServlet
{
   private static final String CONTENT_TYPE = "text/html";
   //Initialize global variables
   public void init() throws ServletException
   {
   }
   public void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
throws ServletException, IOException
   {
      response.setContentType(CONTENT_TYPE);
      PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();
      out.println("<font color=\"green\">");
      LdapConnection lc = new LdapConnection();
      try
      {
         AuthenticateLdap auth = new AuthenticateLdap();
         auth.setURL("ldap://edu-qc.provo.novell.com");
         auth.setDN("cn=jnovell, o=novell");
         auth.setPassword("novell");
         auth.execute();
         lc = auth.getLdapConnection();
         out.println("<h1>Welcome to this Basic Authentication Site</h1>");
      }
      catch(CommandException e)
      {
         e.printStackTrace(out);
      }
      out.println("</font>");
   }
   public void destroy()
   {
   }
}

Notice I followed the steps outlined previously. Now, if I want to perform any other operations in eDirectory, I have an LdapConnection object with which I can do that. I simply use that as my parameter to another LDAP bean.

Common Exceptions You Should Handle

The following table lists the common exceptions you should consider handling in your application and the cause of the exception.