Question

I am currently using the netscape.ldap package to handle LDAP Connection and Authentication. I don’t know if this is the best framework for LDAP Management but it’s what I’ve got anyways.

Using this I really have to check if the user exists or not by doing so obisouly ugly and bad statements, such as followed:

 try{
        conn.connect(this.host, this.port, this.dn, this.password);
        this.validUser = true;
    }
    catch(LDAPException e) {
        this.validUser = false;
    }

This is seriously very ugly and bad practice, however, it’s simple and understandable. And that’s the most important part, I want it to be as simple and easy on the eyes as possible.

However the documentation for netscape.ldap feels outdated. So, anyone got suggestions on how I can implement this better or with another package? ( Prefferable not with hundreds of dependencies ).

Also I’d like to be able to do something like: conn.add(“user”, “pass”); without having to bother looking into the various security methods I’d have to implement to get the password right.

Answer 1

I think a better approach is always to search the ldap structure. In that sense you would create a connection (perhaps an anonymous bind) and then do a search. Something like this:

LDAPConnection ld = new LDAPConnection();
ld.connect(LDAP_SERVER, LDAP_PORT);
LDAPSearchResults res = ld.search(BASE_DN, SEARCH_SCOPE, "(uid=" + THE_ID +")", null, false);

Check the result. If you get anything (a DN) then there is something.