# Pulling information from LDAP server using Ruby on Rails **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [July 21, 2006, 6:11pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/pulling-information-from-ldap-server-using-ruby-on-rails/99316 "2006-07-21T18:11:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![gilles](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/ce7236/32.png) [@gilles](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/gilles)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2006, 6:11pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/pulling-information-from-ldap-server-using-ruby-on-rails/99316/1 "2006-07-21T18:11:09Z")
Hello, I am currently working on a project using Ruby on Rails. So far, I have a well-populated mySQL database the RoR refers to and the basic scaffolding functions implemented. I also designed views/layouts that furthers the basic scaffolding interface. No problem and no big accomplishment by any means. Now, I want to pull user information from an already existing LDAP server and put that information on one of my pages, but I haven’t had any success. I searched for resources on the internet and have done many steps to get to where I am now, but I hit a wall and currently do not know where to go. Let me tell you what I did: I am developing on a windows machine and started off following Chris Scarf’s instructions to copy the ruby-ldap (0.9.4) library to a ruby subdirectory so ruby has access to it. [http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/62584](http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/62584) However, I couldn’t find any reason to believe that this was all I needed for RoR to pull LDAP information. I found examples of using the ruby-ldap module in pure ruby code, but not within the rails framework. This led me to Ruby/ActiveLDAP. [http://projects.dataspill.org/pages/projects/ruby-activeldap](http://projects.dataspill.org/pages/projects/ruby-activeldap) It requires the previously mentioned ruby-ldap module which I have and log4r as well. I installed the log4r gem. I then installed Ruby/ActiveLDAP from source. It was at this time that I followed these instructions: [http://aaronbedra.com/pages/ldap](http://aaronbedra.com/pages/ldap) Basically I add additional lines in environment.rb to connect to the LDAP server, create directory and user model files, then create a controller to access the information. This is where I am at the moment. The previous link has a source with views that I used to see if I could display a page with LDAP information but I receive an uninitialized constant ActiveLDAP. When I type require ‘activeldap’ in irb, it returns true. Any ideas? It is entirely possible that I’m going in the wrong direction and maybe do not need activeldap or maybe I’m just missing something important. If anyone can help me, I’d really appreciate it. I’m fairly new at this, so please be specific if you have a solution. Thanks! -Gilles ---
**Author:** ![gilles](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/ce7236/32.png) [@gilles](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/gilles)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2006, 8:39pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/pulling-information-from-ldap-server-using-ruby-on-rails/99316/2 "2006-07-21T20:39:03Z")
hey Gilles, I too recently had to use ruby to query an LDAP server. It did not involve rails(except for ActiveRecord), but I think the things that I did still stands. I used ruby-ldap ([http://ruby-ldap.sourceforge.net/](http://ruby-ldap.sourceforge.net/)) and looked up the docs at [RDoc Documentation](http://ruby-ldap.sourceforge.net/rdoc/) . An excerpt from the code I wrote: require ‘ldap’ require ‘ldap/control’ require ‘rubygems’ require ‘active\_record’ ActiveRecord::Base.establish\_connection( :adapter =\> “mysql”, :host =\> “localhost”, :username =\> “root”, :password =\> “”, :database =\> “test” ) class Customer \< ActiveRecord::Base set\_table\_name “customer” end ActiveRecord::Base.logger = Logger.new(STDERR) dn = “uid=test,ou=University of California Irvine,o=University of California, c=US” bdn = “ou=University of California Irvine,o=University of California, c=US” c = LDAP::Conn.new(“[ldap.server.domain.com](http://ldap.server.domain.com)”) c.set\_option( LDAP::LDAP\_OPT\_PROTOCOL\_VERSION, 3 ) c.start\_tls c.bind(dn, “secret”) total = Customer.count step = 500 num\_chunks = total / step p “Updating #{total} records in chunks of #{step}” 0.upto(num\_chunks) do |offset| Customer.find(:all, :limit =\> step, :offset =\> (offset\*step)).each do |record| next if record.UCINETID.blank? ``` begin c.search(bdn, LDAP::LDAP_SCOPE_SUBTREE, "uid=#{record.UCINETID}", ``` “department”) do |entry| #do stuff print “.” end end rescue #Skip to the next one # p e.inspect end end p “(#{offset})” end c.unbind HTH. ~Rohith ---
**Author:** ![gilles](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/ce7236/32.png) [@gilles](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/gilles)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2006, 11:05pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/pulling-information-from-ldap-server-using-ruby-on-rails/99316/3 "2006-07-21T23:05:57Z")
Gilles wrote: > Hello, I am currently working on a project using Ruby on Rails. So far, > I have a well-populated mySQL database the RoR refers to and the basic > scaffolding functions implemented. I also designed views/layouts that > furthers the basic scaffolding interface. No problem and no big > accomplishment by any means. > > Now, I want to pull user information from an already existing LDAP > server and put that information on one of my pages, but I haven’t had > any success. You may want to look at Net::LDAP (rubyforge)- it’s in pure Ruby and the API is quite simple so it may be easier for you integrate. ---
**Author:** ![gilles](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/ce7236/32.png) [@gilles](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/gilles)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2006, 1:49am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/pulling-information-from-ldap-server-using-ruby-on-rails/99316/4 "2006-07-22T01:49:51Z")
Thanks for replying Rohith and Francis. I can finally pull information from an LDAP server. Apparently I didn’t need ActiveLDAP for anything. I was looking at some of your code Rohith and was able to figure out what was needed. I actually tried to print out information on the command line with a simple ruby program. After successfully printing all kinds of information, I implemented that code within the rails framework with some trial and error. Since I was making so much progress, I did not get a chance to try Net::LDAP Francis, but I will keep it in mind in the future. Now I have to find a method of printing specific LDAP data based on who the user is that is viewing the page. At the moment I’m hardcoding a filter. I need to find a way to manipulate the filter. I will continue on soon. -Gilles ---
**Author:** ![gilles](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/ce7236/32.png) [@gilles](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/gilles)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2006, 11:50am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/pulling-information-from-ldap-server-using-ruby-on-rails/99316/5 "2006-07-24T11:50:30Z")
On Friday 21 July 2006 16:11, Gilles wrote: > This is where I am at the moment. The previous link has a source with > views that I used to see if I could display a page with LDAP > information but I receive an uninitialized constant ActiveLDAP. When I > type require ‘activeldap’ in irb, it returns true. I’m using activeldap here (together with activerecord), and it runs just fine (and integrates really nicely). So it _can_ be made to work 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![gilles](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/ce7236/32.png) [@gilles](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/gilles)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2006, 5:08pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/pulling-information-from-ldap-server-using-ruby-on-rails/99316/6 "2006-07-24T17:08:16Z")
Christian R. wrote: > I’m using activeldap here (together with activerecord), and it runs just > fine (and integrates really nicely). So it _can_ be made to work 🙂 Oh? Is it similar to the link I provided on my original post? [http://aaronbedra.com/pages/ldap](http://aaronbedra.com/pages/ldap) I wasn’t able to get it working, but I assume I was missing something important and wasn’t able to figure it out. May I ask how you got it working? I am already able to pull the LDAP information without ActiveLDAP, but I’m just curious and was wondering what I was doing wrong. Thanks! -Gilles ---
**Author:** ![gilles](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/ce7236/32.png) [@gilles](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/gilles)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 10:20am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/pulling-information-from-ldap-server-using-ruby-on-rails/99316/7 "2006-07-25T10:20:12Z")
On Monday 24 July 2006 15:08, Gilles wrote: > Christian R. wrote: > > > I’m using activeldap here (together with activerecord), and it runs > > just fine (and integrates really nicely). So it _can_ be made to work > > 🙂 > > Oh? Is it similar to the link I provided on my original post? > > [http://aaronbedra.com/pages/ldap](http://aaronbedra.com/pages/ldap) Yes. I actually got my info from IIRC both that page and [http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/ActiveLDAP](http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/ActiveLDAP) Basically I have activeldap in my vendor/ dir (just didn’t want to require people to install it, since it’s still kind of uncommon), and the following code in environment.rb: * * * ## require ‘activeldap’ ldapconfig = File.open(“#{RAILS\_ROOT}/config/ldap.yml”) { |f| YAML::load(f) } cfg = Hash.new ldapconfig[RAILS\_ENV].each { |key, val| cfg[key.to\_sym] = val } cfg[:return\_objects] = true ActiveLDAP::Base.connect(cfg) And the ldap.yaml looks like this: * * * test: host: localhost port: 389 base: ‘ou=test,dc=dotsrc,dc=org’ bind\_format: ‘uid=%s,ou=people,ou=test,dc=dotsrc,dc=org’ # logger: ## user: wonttellyou password: secret allow\_anonymous: false try\_sasl: false It was actually simpler to set up than I expected 🙂