LDAPReader

Short Description

LDAPReader reads information from an LDAP directory converting it to Data Shaper Data Records.

Ports

[1] Metadata on the output must precisely describe the structure of the read object.

Metadata

LDAPReader does not propagate metadata.
LDAPReader has no metadata template.
Metadata on the output must precisely describe the structure of the read object. Only Clover fields of types string and byte/compressedByte are supported.

Note that metadata field names have strict naming conventions; therefore, to map an LDAP attribute containing special characters (e.g. a dash) in its name, use a metadata field label. Metadata field labels can contain special characters and have a higher priority than field names. For example, to read from the msDS-PrincipalName LDAP attribute, use a field with label msDS-PrincipalName and any name that follows the naming convention (e.g. msDS-PrincipalName).

Metadata can use Autofilling Functions. The autofilling attribute filename is set to complete the URL (includes base, filter).

LDAPReader Attributes

Details

LDAPReader provides the logic to extract the search results and transform them into Data Shaper Data Records. The results of the search must have the same objectClass.
The metadata provided on the output port/edge (field names) are used when mapping from LDAP attributes to fields.
Only string and byte (cbyte) Data Shaper data fields are supported. String is compatible with most of LDAP usual types, byte is necessary; for example, for userPassword LDAP type reading.
Multi-value attributes are mapped onto target fields in two ways:

• if target field is of type List then individual values are stored as individual items.
• If target field is simple type (and multiValueSeparator is set) then values are concatenated with the defined separator and stored as a single value.

When the defaultMapping field is set (must be of type Map) then all unmapped attributes returned from LDAP server are stored in the map in a key→value manner. Multi-values are stored concatenated.

Alias Handling

Searching the entry to which an alias entry points is known as dereferencing an alias. Setting the Alias handling attribute, you can control the extent to which entries are searched:

• always: Always dereference aliases.
• never: Never dereference aliases.
• finding: Dereference aliases in locating the base of the search but not in searching subordinates of the base.
• searching: Dereference aliases in searching subordinates of the base but not in locating the base

Examples

Reading Data from LDAP

Read records with uid=* from ou=people,dc=foo,dc=? subtree on foobar.com (port 389). Use credentials: user uid=Manager,dc=foo,dc=bar and password manager_password. The values for dc=? will be received from the input edge in the dc field.

Solution

Looking up a Record from LDAP

Retrieve information about particular person identified by UID. The UID is received from the input edge. The information about persons is in cn=people,dc=uninett,dc=no subtree on LDAP server example.com (port 389).
The metadata on output port has following fields: cn (string), displayName (string), mail (list of strings),uid(string), objectClass (list of strings), default (map of strings).

Solution

The filter parameter contains a reference to the input field name userId. This reference will be resolved for all input records and LDAP query executed (and result parsed) for each input record.

Reading binary attributes

This example shows a way to read binary attributes from LDAP.
Read the records from the Reading Data from LDAP example above. In addition to the example, the records contain binary field objectGUID.

Solution
The output metadata of LDAPReader should contain a byte field for objectGUID.
Use the Map and byte2hex function to convert the byte field to string.

//#CTL2

function integer transform() {
    $out.0.* = $in.0.*;
    $out.0.logonHours = byte2hex($in.0.logonHours);

    return ALL;
}

Similarly, you can use the byte2hex function with a prefix argument to get a hexadecimal string representation of the objectGUID attribute.

String strObjectGUID = byte2hex($in.0.objectGUID,"\\");

Best Practices

Improving search performance: If there are no alias entries in the LDAP directory that require dereferencing, choose Alias handling never option.

See also

LDAPWriter
Common Properties of Components
Specific Attribute Types
Common Properties of Readers