# Ldap **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [August 15, 2006, 2:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ldap/102445 "2006-08-15T14:17:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![barjunk](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/3ec8ea/32.png) [@barjunk](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/barjunk)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2006, 2:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ldap/102445/1 "2006-08-15T14:17:34Z")
Are folks just using net/ldap or are there some other ldap libraries that folks prefer? What I’d like is to be able to bind to the server then make multiple queries, modifications, etc. Thanks for any guidance. Mike B. ---
**Author:** ![barjunk](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/3ec8ea/32.png) [@barjunk](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/barjunk)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2006, 2:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ldap/102445/2 "2006-08-15T14:17:35Z")
Personally I use net/ldap and for my needs it does the job. Plus I use the Ruby O.-Click Installer for Windows so compiling another LDAP library is a bit of a stretch for me. I haven’t looked at the docs lately. Is this library lacking the ability to open an LDAP session and then post multiple calls against it later on? ---
**Author:** ![barjunk](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/3ec8ea/32.png) [@barjunk](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/barjunk)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2006, 2:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ldap/102445/3 "2006-08-15T14:17:35Z")
On 8/11/06, barjunk [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Are folks just using net/ldap or are there some other ldap libraries > that folks prefer? > > What I’d like is to be able to bind to the server then make multiple > queries, modifications, etc. According to what Francis has told me, it should be possible to do that with Net::LDAP, although internally it will connect and disconnect as necessary. It is my understanding – which could be wrong – that LDAP connections are rarely persistent and require rebinding in any case, but Net::LDAP should be hiding this from you. Net::LDAP is the only _pure_ Ruby LDAP library in existence right now. The main other way of connecting to LDAP is with ruby-ldap (or is it ldap-ruby?) which uses bindings to a C library and requires compiling to use. -austin ---
**Author:** ![barjunk](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/3ec8ea/32.png) [@barjunk](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/barjunk)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2006, 2:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ldap/102445/4 "2006-08-15T14:17:36Z")
On 8/11/06, barjunk [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Get Net::LDAP and read the Rdoc for Net::LDAP#open. As Austin said, this library is very disciplined (and documented) about how it uses the network (unlike the native-C libraries), and it’s pure Ruby- no compiler needed on any platform. To your specific point, you can specify connection and authentication parameters to Net::LDAP#open, and then pass it a Ruby block. The #open call will pass a Net::LDAP object to your block, and you can make any number of LDAP calls on the object. All calls inside the block will take place on the same network connection to the server, and the authentication (binding) will be done automatically. If you have questions or need support, post to this list. Good luck. ---
**Author:** ![barjunk](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/3ec8ea/32.png) [@barjunk](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/barjunk)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2006, 2:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ldap/102445/5 "2006-08-15T14:17:35Z")
Yeah, looking at the basic test cases for the library you can define a general LDAP session and then invoke methods against it as you see fit. For example, ldap = Net::LDAP.new :host =\> my\_hostname, :port =\> my\_port, :auth =\> my\_auth Once that ldap object is defined then it can be accessed by various methods that come with the net/ldap library. All in all I think LDAP in general is rather straightforward, so working with one of these libraries shouldn’t force you to reinvent the wheel or anything.