Overview

This document covers the ldapjs client API and assumes that you are familiar with LDAP. If you're not, read the guide first.

Create a client

The code to create a new client looks like:

var client = ldap.createClient({
  url: 'ldap://127.0.0.1:1389'
});

You can use ldap:// or ldaps://; the latter would connect over SSL (note that this will not use the LDAP TLS extended operation, but literally an SSL connection to port 636, as in LDAP v2). The full set of options to create a client is:

url	a valid LDAP url.
socketPath	If you're running an LDAP server over a Unix Domain Socket, use this.
log4js	You can optionally pass in a log4js instance the client will use to acquire a logger. The client logs all messages at the `Trace` level.
numConnections	The size of the connection pool. Default is 1.

Connection management

If you'll recall, the LDAP protocol is connection-oriented, and completely asynchronous on a connection (meaning you can send as many requests as you want without waiting for responses). However, our friend bind is a little different in that you generally want to wait for binds to be completed since subsequent operations assume that level of privilege.

The ldapjs client deals with this by maintaing a connection pool, and splaying requests across that connection pool, with the exception of bind and unbind, which it will apply to all connections in the pool. By default, a client will have one connection in the pool (since it's async already, you don't always need the complexity of a pool). And after that, the operations in the client are pretty much a mapping of the LDAP C API, but made higher-level, so they make sense in JS.

Common patterns

The last two parameters in every API are controls and callback. controls can be either a single instance of a Control or an array of Control objects. You can, and probably will, omit this option.

Almost every operation has the callback form of function(err, res) where err will be an instance of an LDAPError (you can use instanceof to switch). You probably won't need to check the res parameter, but it's there if you do.

bind

bind(dn, password, controls,callback)

Performs a bind operation against the LDAP server.

The bind API only allows LDAP 'simple' binds (equivalent to HTTP Basic Authentication) for now. Note that all client APIs can optionally take an array of Control objects. You probably don't need them though...

If you have more than 1 connection in the connection pool, you will be called back after all of the connections are bound, not just the first one.

Example:

client.bind('cn=root', 'secret', function(err) {
  assert.ifError(err);
});

add

add(dn, entry, controls, callback)

Performs an add operation against the LDAP server.

Allows you to add an entry (which is just a plain JS object), and as always, controls are optional.

Example:

var entry = {
  cn: 'foo',
  sn: 'bar',
  email: ['foo@bar.com', 'foo1@bar.com'],
  objectclass: 'fooPerson'
};
client.add('cn=foo, o=example', entry, function(err) {
  assert.ifError(err);
});

compare

compare(dn, attribute, value, controls, callback)

Performs an LDAP compare operation with the given attribute and value against the entry referenced by dn.

Example:

client.compare('cn=foo, o=example', 'sn', 'bar', function(err, matched) {
  assert.ifError(err);

  console.log('matched: ' + matched);
});

del

del(dn, controls, callbak)

Deletes an entry from the LDAP server.

Example:

client.del('cn=foo, o=example', function(err) {
  assert.ifError(err);
});

exop

exop(name, value, controls, callback)

Performs an LDAP extended operation against an LDAP server. name is typically going to be an OID (well, the RFC says it must be; however, ldapjs has no such restriction). value is completely arbitrary, and is whatever the exop says it should be.

Example (performs an LDAP 'whois' extended op):

client.exop('1.3.6.1.4.1.4203.1.11.3', function(err, value, res) {
  assert.ifError(err);

  console.log('whois: ' + value);
});

modify

modify(name, changes, controls, callback)

Performs an LDAP modify operation against the LDAP server. This API requires you to pass in a Change object, which is described below. Note that you can pass in a single Change or an array of Change objects.

Example:

var change = new Change({
  type: 'add',
  modification: {
    pets: ['cat', 'dog']
  }
});

client.modify('cn=foo, o=example', change, function(err) {
  assert.ifError(err);
});

Change

A Change object maps to the LDAP protocol of a modify change, and requires you to set the operation and modification. The operation is a string, and must be one of:

replace	Replaces the attribute referenced in `modification`. If the modification has no values, it is equivalent to a delete.
add	Adds the attribute value(s) referenced in `modification`. The attribute may or may not already exist.
delete	Deletes the attribute (and all values) referenced in `modification`.

modification is just a plain old JS object with the values you want.

modifyDN

modifyDN(dn, newDN, controls, callback)

Performs an LDAP modifyDN (rename) operation against an entry in the LDAP server. A couple points with this client API:

There is no ability to set "keep old dn." It's always going to flag the old dn to be purged.
The client code will automagically figure out if the request is a "new superior" request ("new superior" means move to a different part of the tree, as opposed to just renaming the leaf).

Example:

client.modifyDN('cn=foo, o=example', 'cn=bar', function(err) {
  assert.ifError(err);
});

search

search(base, options, controls, callback)

Performs a search operation against the LDAP server.

The search operation is more complex than the other operations, so this one takes an options object for all the parameters. However, ldapjs makes some defaults for you so that if you pass nothing in, it's pretty much equivalent to an HTTP GET operation (i.e., base search against the DN, filter set to always match).

Like every other operation, base is a DN string. Options has the following fields:

scope	One of `base`, `one`, or `sub`. Defaults to `base`.
filter	A string version of an LDAP filter (see below), or a programatically constructed `Filter` object. Defaults to `(objectclass=*)`.
attributes	attributes to select and return (if these are set, the server will return only these attributes). Defaults to the empty set, which means all attributes.
attrsOnly	boolean on whether you want the server to only return the names of the attributes, and not their values. Borderline useless. Defaults to false.
sizeLimit	the maximum number of entries to return. Defaults to 0 (unlimited).
timeLimit	the maximum amount of time the server should take in responding, in seconds. Defaults to 10. Lots of servers will ignore this.

Responses from the search method are an EventEmitter where you will get a notification for each search entry that comes back from the server. You will additionally be able to listen for an error and end event. Note that the error event will only be for client/TCP errors, not LDAP error codes like the other APIs. You'll want to check the LDAP status code (likely for 0) on the end event to assert success. LDAP search results can give you a lot of status codes, such as time or size exceeded, busy, inappropriate matching, etc., which is why this method doesn't try to wrap up the code matching.

Example:

var opts = {
  filter: '(&(l=Seattle)(email=*@foo.com))',
  scope: 'sub'
};

client.search('o=example', opts, function(err, res) {
  assert.ifError(err);

  res.on('searchEntry', function(entry) {
    console.log('entry: ' + JSON.stringify(entry.object));
  });
  res.on('error', function(err) {
    console.error('error: ' + err.message);
  });
  res.on('end', function(result) {
    console.log('status: ' + result.status);
  });
});

Filter Strings

The easiest way to write search filters is to write them compliant with RFC2254, which is "The string representation of LDAP search filters." Note that ldapjs doesn't support extensible matching, since it's one of those features that almost nobody actually uses in practice.

Assuming you don't really want to read the RFC, search filters in LDAP are basically are a "tree" of attribute/value assertions, with the tree specified in prefix notation. For example, let's start simple, and build up a complicated filter. The most basic filter is equality, so let's assume you want to search for an attribute email with a value of foo@bar.com. The syntax would be:

(email=foo@bar.com)

ldapjs requires all filters to be surrounded by '()' blocks. Ok, that was easy. Let's now assume you want to find all records where the email is actually just anything in the "@bar.com" domain, and the location attribute is set to Seattle:

(&(email=*@bar.com)(l=Seattle))

Now our filter is actually three LDAP filters. We have an and filter, an equality filter (the l=Seattle), and a substring filter. Substrings are wildcard filters. Now, let's say we want to also set our filter to include a specification that either the employeeType not be a manager or a secretary:

(&(email=*@bar.com)(l=Seattle)(!(|(employeeType=manager)(employeeType=secretary))))

It gets a little bit complicated, but it's actually quite powerful, and lets you find almost anything you're looking for.

unbind

unbind(callback)

Performs an unbind operation against the LDAP server.

The unbind operation takes no parameters other than a callback, and will unbind (and disconnect) all of the connections in the pool.

Example:

client.unbind(function(err) {
  assert.ifError(err);
});