# ActiveLdap questions **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [May 1, 2007, 9:50pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/activeldap-questions/103100 "2007-05-01T21:50:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![reidmefirst](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/fbc32d/32.png) [@reidmefirst](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/reidmefirst)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2007, 9:50pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/activeldap-questions/103100/1 "2007-05-01T21:50:48Z")
Hi All - I have some silly questions about ActiveLdap. I’m a pretty new Ruby programmer, so I may be doing foolish things… I am trying to connect to and search for records on my ldap server. I have installed activeldap using gem. My test ruby program looks like this: :: require ‘rubygems’ require ‘log4r’ require ‘active\_ldap’ class Entry \< ActiveLdap::Base ldap\_mapping :dn\_attribute=\>“cn” end ActiveLdap::Base.establish\_connection( :host =\> “ldap-server.domain”, :port =\> 389, :bind\_dn =\> “ou=A,ou=B,ou=c,ou=D,o=E,c=US” ) entry = Entry.find(“krwightm”) :: When I run this, I get: /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/ruby-activeldap-0.8.1/lib/active\_ldap/base.rb:531:in `find\_one’: Couldn’t find Device with DN=krwightm (cn=krwightm) (ActiveLdap::EntryNotFound) If I perform the same query with the command-line tool ldapsearch: ldapsearch -x -LLL -h ldap-server.domain -p 389 -b “ou=A,ou=B,ou=C,ou=D,o=E,c=US” “(cn=krwightm)” I find exactly one entry with cn=krwightm in my ldap. Am I doing everything correctl in my rubyprogram? From the docs and usage available I think so, but again I don’t know Ruby so well :). Is there a way to verify that my bind succeeds? Even changing the last line of my program to be: entry = Entry.find("\*") returns the error. Thanks much for any guidance, Reid ---
**Author:** ![reidmefirst](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/fbc32d/32.png) [@reidmefirst](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/reidmefirst)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2007, 11:22pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/activeldap-questions/103100/2 "2007-05-01T23:22:01Z")
On 5/1/07, Reid W. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > require ‘rubygems’ > :bind\_dn =\> “ou=A,ou=B,ou=c,ou=D,o=E,c=US” > If I perform the same query with the command-line tool ldapsearch: > > ldapsearch -x -LLL -h ldap-server.domain -p 389 -b > “ou=A,ou=B,ou=C,ou=D,o=E,c=US” “(cn=krwightm)” The ldapsearch line is setting both a treebase and a search filter. Neither is present in your ActiveLDAP query. In addition you’re passing what you think is a filter string to Entry.find, whereas it’s looking for a DN. (Both queries are binding anonymously, which is unusual, but you’d have gotten a different message from ldapsearch if that were a problem.) Look into the Net::LDAP library on Rubyforge, also installable as a gem. It has a reasonably complete rdoc, including some theory of how LDAP queries work. ---
**Author:** ![reidmefirst](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/fbc32d/32.png) [@reidmefirst](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/reidmefirst)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2007, 1:53am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/activeldap-questions/103100/3 "2007-05-02T01:53:16Z")
Hi, You need to add some configurations. In [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) “ActiveLdap questions” on Wed, 2 May 2007 04:50:31 +0900, “Reid W.” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > class Entry \< ActiveLdap::Base > ldap\_mapping :dn\_attribute=\>“cn” ldap\_mapping :dn\_attribute=\>“cn”, :prefix =\> “” > end > ActiveLdap::Base.establish\_connection( > :host =\> “ldap-server.domain”, > :port =\> 389, > :bind\_dn =\> “ou=A,ou=B,ou=c,ou=D,o=E,c=US” Perhaps, you wanted to specify search base not bind DN. You need to use :base not :bind\_dn for that propose: ``` :base => "ou=A,ou=B,ou=c,ou=D,o=E,c=US" ``` > ) > entry = Entry.find(“krwightm”) > :: > When I run this, I get: > /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/ruby-activeldap-0.8.1/lib/active\_ldap/base.rb:531:in > `find\_one’: Couldn’t find Device with DN=krwightm (cn=krwightm) > (ActiveLdap::EntryNotFound) Uhm, is your class name really Entry? It seems that your class name is Device. Thanks, ---
**Author:** ![reidmefirst](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/fbc32d/32.png) [@reidmefirst](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/reidmefirst)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2007, 2:45am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/activeldap-questions/103100/4 "2007-05-02T02:45:18Z")
On 5/1/07, Kouhei S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > But Net::LDAP doesn’t support START\_TLS. Net::LDAP does support TLS connections (typically over port 636). It doesn’t currently support the STARTTLS verb, but this is planned. I think Net::LDAP > is a low level library rather than ActiveLdap. To modify > a LDAP entry, I prefer > > someone = User.find(“someone”) > someone.description = “Who am I?” > someone.save That’s really quite a good point. Early on in the development of Net::LDAP, I thought quite hard about how to make a far-simplified interface to directory functionality. Some of LDAP’s weirdness can be wrapped up, but some of it is quite hard to do away with. In particular, I tried to solve the problem of writing LDAP filters by using a search-oriented interface. But everyone who works with LDAP seems to be quite invested in standard filters, especially Microsoft, so it seemed like a low-value effort. Does ActiveLDAP solve this problem by reading the root DSE records and guessing about things like the treebase, the supported authentication models and the schema? Or does it require configuration entries to be made somewhere in the user application? At the end of the day, I observed what people were doing with Net::LDAP, and it seems for the most part to be bind-authentication against Active Directory (and some group-membership querying). Actually maintaining directory information, as in your example, seems to be a rare use case indeed. (Most people seem to manage directory data with existing native tools and with workflow applications tied to HR and CRM apps.) I appreciate your insights, and if anyone disagrees with me, I’d very much like to hear from you. ---
**Author:** ![reidmefirst](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/fbc32d/32.png) [@reidmefirst](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/reidmefirst)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2007, 2:09am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/activeldap-questions/103100/5 "2007-05-02T02:09:16Z")
Hi, In [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) “Re: ActiveLdap questions” on Wed, 2 May 2007 06:21:17 +0900, “Francis C.” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Look into the Net::LDAP library on Rubyforge, also installable as a gem. It > has a reasonably complete rdoc, including some theory of how LDAP queries > work. But Net::LDAP doesn’t support START\_TLS. I think Net::LDAP is a low level library rather than ActiveLdap. To modify a LDAP entry, I prefer someone = User.find(“someone”) someone.description = “Who am I?” someone.save rather than ldap.search(:base =\> “…”, :filter =\> “cn=someone”) do |someone| if someone.description.empty? ops = [[:add, :description, “Who am I?”]] else ops = [[:replace, :description, “Who am I?”]] end ldap.modify :dn =\> dnsomeone.dn, :operations =\> ops end ActiveLdap has a framework to support Net::LDAP as backend but Net::LDAP doesn’t have enough functions such as START\_TLS support. Thanks, ---
**Author:** ![reidmefirst](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/fbc32d/32.png) [@reidmefirst](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/reidmefirst)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2007, 3:02am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/activeldap-questions/103100/6 "2007-05-02T03:02:19Z")
Hi, In [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) “Re: ActiveLdap questions” on Wed, 2 May 2007 09:43:47 +0900, “Francis C.” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > On 5/1/07, Kouhei S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > > But Net::LDAP doesn’t support START\_TLS. > > Net::LDAP does support TLS connections (typically over port 636). It doesn’t > currently support the STARTTLS verb, but this is planned. Yes. I know. And I already submitted a patch for supporting START\_TLS 6 months ago: [http://rubyforge.org/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=6345&group\_id=143&atid=633](http://rubyforge.org/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=6345&group_id=143&atid=633) > and the schema? Or does it require configuration entries to be made > somewhere in the user application? I’m sorry. I don’t understand what is the problem but ActiveLdap uses root DSE to get schema information and construct accessores dynamically. ActiveLdap doesn’t require any configurations for that. Thanks, ---
**Author:** ![reidmefirst](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/fbc32d/32.png) [@reidmefirst](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/reidmefirst)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2007, 5:16am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/activeldap-questions/103100/7 "2007-05-02T05:16:26Z")
On 5/1/07, Kouhei S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Yes. I know. And I already submitted a patch for supporting > START\_TLS 6 months ago: > > [http://rubyforge.org/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=6345&group\_id=143&atid=633](http://rubyforge.org/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=6345&group_id=143&atid=633) Somehow I missed that patch. I just added it to Net::LDAP. Sync to head revision to try it. Thanks, Kouhei.