Can you use JAVA with LDAP?

Products

• LDAP SERVER FOR Z/OS
• Top Secret - LDAP

Issue/Introduction

Can you use JAVA with LDAP?

 

 

Resolution

The LDAP Server for z/OS provides an inbound Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) interface to several Broadcom products. It is an open, vendor-neutral, industry standard application protocol for accessing and maintaining distributed directory information services over an Internet Protocol (IP) network.

The LDAP protocol is a standard way of accessing data, that is not language specific.

Since the LDAP Server on z/OS is a TCP/IP based server, calling it using the LDAP protocol (bind, search, unbind) can be performed from C, Java, Perl, etc, in the same way the application would call Microsoft Active Directory using the LDAP protocol.

There are 2 options available when trying to access LDAP servers from Java. You can use a 3rd party library like JLDAP from the OpenLDAP.org website or use the build in JNDI methods of the Java JDK.

There is no recommended option since both of them will format the final request that's sent over TCP/IP to the server in the send exact format as they both support the LDAP protocol standard.