LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol)

LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) is a protocol for reading and modifying entries in a directory service, a hierarchical database optimized for lookups of people, groups, computers and other objects. It listens on TCP port 389, or 636 for LDAPS (TLS).

Why it matters

Organizations keep accounts in a central directory such as Microsoft Active Directory or OpenLDAP, and applications, VPNs, Wi-Fi systems and mail servers ask it who a user is and which groups they belong to. One place to disable an account then cuts access everywhere. LDAP often sits behind RADIUS or SSO systems.

Entries are named by a distinguished name (DN) that describes their position in the tree.

Example

ldapsearch -H ldaps://ldap.example.com \
  -b "dc=example,dc=com" "(uid=asha)" cn mail

This searches under dc=example,dc=com for the user asha and returns the cn and mail attributes. A typical DN is uid=asha,ou=People,dc=example,dc=com.

Common mistakes

Sending bind passwords over plain LDAP on port 389 without StartTLS.
Building filters from unescaped user input, which allows LDAP injection.
Confusing LDAP with Active Directory; LDAP is the protocol, AD is one product that supports it.

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