LDAP with Rails

Quick Example of a user-authentication against an LDAP directory:

require 'rubygems'
require 'net/ldap'

ldap = Net::LDAP.new
ldap.host = your_server_ip_address
ldap.port = 389
ldap.auth "joe_user", "opensesame"
if ldap.bind

# authentication succeeded
else
# authentication failed
end

Quick Example of a search against an LDAP directory:

 require 'rubygems'
require 'net/ldap'

ldap = Net::LDAP.new :host => server_ip_address,
  :port => 389,
  :auth => {
        :method => :simple,
        :username => "cn=manager,dc=example,dc=com",

        :password => "opensesame"
  }

filter = Net::LDAP::Filter.eq( "cn", "George*" )
treebase = "dc=example,dc=com"

ldap.search( :base => treebase, :filter => filter ) do |entry|

puts "DN: #{entry.dn}"
entry.each do |attribute, values|
 puts "   #{attribute}:"
 values.each do |value|
   puts "      --->#{value}"
 end
end

end

p ldap.get_operation_result

LDAP

The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, or LDAP , is an application protocol for querying and modifying directory services running over TCP/IP.

A directory is a set of objects with attributes organized in a logical and hierarchical manner. A simple example is the telephone directory, which consists of a list of names (of either persons or organizations) organized alphabetically, with each name having an address and phone number associated with it.

An LDAP directory tree often reflects various political, geographic, and/or organizational boundaries, depending on the model chosen. LDAP deployments today tend to use Domain name system (DNS) names for structuring the topmost levels of the hierarchy. Deeper inside the directory might appear entries representing people, organizational units, printers, documents, groups of people or anything else that represents a given tree entry (or multiple entries).