Providers

Ldaptive does not implement any of the LDAP protocol. Instead, LDAP operations are delegated to what we call a provider. This allows developers and deployers to change the underlying library that provides the LDAP implementation without modifying any code. By default the JNDI provider is used, but a provider can be specified programmatically:

DefaultConnectionFactory.setProvider(new org.ldaptive.provider.unboundid.UnboundIDProvider());

or it can be specified with a JVM system property:

-Dorg.ldaptive.provider=org.ldaptive.provider.unboundid.UnboundIDProvider

Functionality Comparison

Provider SSL startTLS SASL External Digest-MD5 CRAM-MD5 GSSAPI Follow Referrals
JNDI ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
JLDAP ✓ ✓ ✶ ✓ ✗ ✗ ✓
Apache LDAP ✓ ✓ ✗ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✗
UnboundID ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
OpenDJ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✶ ✶ ✗
✓ Functionality exists in the provider API and has been confirmed
✗ Functionality does not exist in the provider API
✶ Functionality exists in the provider API, but did not work in our test environment
? Functionality exists in the provider API, but has not been integrated into the ldaptive provider

Installation & Configuration

Providers may have custom properties that aren’t represented in the ldaptive configuration objects. Those properties are detailed in the following sections. If you don’t like the behavior of a provider consider extending it to change its functionality.

JNDI Provider

This provider is included in the core library as it has no dependencies outside the Java SE, so it does not need to be installed. The following configuration properties are specific to this provider:

/**
 * Overrides the context environment produced by ldaptive with the supplied environment.
 */
JndiProviderConfig.setEnvironment(Map<String, Object> env)
/**
 * Sets the hostname verifier to use for startTLS connections.
 */
JndiProviderConfig.setHostnameVerifier(HostnameVerifier verifier)
/**
 * JNDI may set an LDAP entry's DN to be a URL if the entry was ultimately found at a different baseDN than was searched on,
 * which is often the case when using referrals. This property controls whether to remove that URL from the DN.
 * The default value is true and in most cases this is the desired behavior.
 */
JndiProviderConfig.setRemoveDnUrls(boolean b)
/**
 * Sets the SSL socket factory to use for SSL and startTLS connections. Setting this property will override any configuration
 * data provided in ConnectionConfig.setSslConfig(SslConfig).
 */
JndiProviderConfig.setSslSocketFactory(SSLSocketFactory sf)
/**
 * Writes a hexadecimal dump of the incoming and outgoing LDAP ASN.1 BER packets to the supplied OutputStream.
 */
JndiProviderConfig.setTracePackets(OutputStream stream)

JLDAP Provider

This provider uses the JLDAP library created by Novell and often used with their eDirectory product. The following configuration properties are specific to this provider:

/**
 * Overrides the LDAPConstraints produced by ldaptive with the supplied constraints.
 */
JLdapProviderConfig.setLDAPConstraints(LDAPConstraints constraints)
/**
 * Sets the SSL socket factory to use for SSL and startTLS connections. Setting this property will override any configuration
 * data provided in ConnectionConfig.setSslConfig(SslConfig).
 */
JLdapProviderConfig.setSslSocketFactory(SSLSocketFactory sf)

Apache LDAP Provider

This provider uses the Apache LDAP API library created in conjunction with the Apache Directory Project. This library is still under development and should be considered beta software. The following configuration properties are specific to this provider:

/**
 * Sets the LdapConnectionConfig object used by this API. Setting this property will override any configuration
 * data provided in ConnectionConfig.
 */
ApacheLdapProviderConfig.setLdapConnectionConfig(LdapConnectionConfig config)

UnboundID Provider

This provider uses the UnboundID LDAP SDK created by UnboundID for use with their directory product. The following configuration properties are specific to this provider:

/**
 * Sets the LDAPConnectionOptions object used by this API. Setting this property will override any configuration
 * data provided in ConnectionConfig.
 */
UnboundIDProviderConfig.setConnectionOptions(LDAPConnectionOptions options)
/**
 * Sets the SocketFactory to use for LDAP connections.
 */
UnboundIDProviderConfig.setSocketFactory(SocketFactory sf)
/**
 * Sets the SocketFactory to use for LDAPS and startTLS connections.
 */
UnboundIDProviderConfig.setSSLSocketFactory(SSLSocketFactory sf)

OpenDJ Provider

This provider uses the OpenDJ LDAP SDK created in conjunction with the OpenDJ project. This project was forked from the OpenDS project. Instructions on how to install this provider can be found at: http://opendj.forgerock.org/opendj-ldap-sdk/. The following configuration properties are specific to this provider:

/**
 * Sets the LDAPOptions object used by this API. Setting this property will override any configuration
 * data provided in ConnectionConfig.
 */
OpenDJProviderConfig.setOptions(LDAPOptions o)