Spring LDAP - Reference Documentation

1.3.0.RELEASE

Copyright © 2005-2009 Mattias Arthursson, Ulrik Sandberg, Eric Dalquist

Copies of this document may be made for your own use and for distribution to others, provided that you do not
charge any fee for such copies and further provided that each copy contains this Copyright Notice, whether
distributed in print or electronically.
Preface ............................................................................................................................................ iv
1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 1
1.1. Overview ........................................................................................................................... 1
1.2. Packaging overview ........................................................................................................... 3
1.3. Package structure ............................................................................................................... 3
1.3.1. org.springframework.transaction.compensating ......................................................... 3
1.3.2. org.springframework.ldap ........................................................................................ 4
1.3.3. org.springframework.ldap.core ................................................................................. 4
1.3.4. org.springframework.ldap.core.support ..................................................................... 4
1.3.5. org.springframework.ldap.core.simple ...................................................................... 4
1.3.6. org.springframework.ldap.pool ................................................................................. 4
1.3.7. org.springframework.ldap.pool.factory ..................................................................... 4
1.3.8. org.springframework.ldap.pool.validation ................................................................. 4
1.3.9. org.springframework.ldap.support ............................................................................ 5
1.3.10. org.springframework.ldap.authentication ................................................................. 5
1.3.11. org.springframework.ldap.control ........................................................................... 5
1.3.12. org.springframework.ldap.filter .............................................................................. 5
1.3.13. org.springframework.ldap.transaction.compensating ................................................ 5
1.3.14. org.springframework.ldap.transaction.compensating.manager .................................. 5
1.3.15. org.springframework.ldap.transaction.compensating.support .................................... 5
1.4. Support .............................................................................................................................. 6
2. Basic Operations ........................................................................................................................... 7
2.1. Search and Lookup Using AttributesMapper ........................................................................ 7
2.2. Building Dynamic Filters .................................................................................................... 8
2.3. Building Dynamic Distinguished Names .............................................................................. 9
2.4. Binding and Unbinding ..................................................................................................... 10
2.4.1. Binding Data ......................................................................................................... 10
2.4.2. Unbinding Data ..................................................................................................... 10
2.5. Modifying ....................................................................................................................... 10
2.5.1. Modifying using rebind ........................................................................................ 11
2.5.2. Modifying using modifyAttributes ....................................................................... 11
2.6. Sample applications .......................................................................................................... 11
3. Simpler Attribute Access and Manipulation with DirContextAdapter ............................................. 12
3.1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 12
3.2. Search and Lookup Using ContextMapper ......................................................................... 12
3.2.1. The AbstractContextMapper .................................................................................. 13
3.3. Binding and Modifying Using DirContextAdapter .............................................................. 13
3.3.1. Binding ................................................................................................................. 13
3.3.2. Modifying ............................................................................................................. 14
3.4. A Complete PersonDao Class ........................................................................................... 15
4. Adding Missing Overloaded API Methods .................................................................................... 17
4.1. Implementing Custom Search Methods .............................................................................. 17
4.2. Implementing Other Custom Context Methods ................................................................... 18
5. Processing the DirContext ........................................................................................................... 20
5.1. Custom DirContext Pre/Postprocessing .............................................................................. 20
5.2. Implementing a Request Control DirContextProcessor ........................................................ 20
5.3. Paged Search Results ........................................................................................................ 21
6. Transaction Support .................................................................................................................... 23
6.1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 23
6.2. Configuration ................................................................................................................... 23
6.3. JDBC Transaction Integration ........................................................................................... 24
6.4. LDAP Compensating Transactions Explained .................................................................... 24

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 Spring LDAP - Reference Documentation

6.4.1. Renaming Strategies .............................................................................................. 26

7. Java 5 Support ............................................................................................................................ 27
7.1. SimpleLdapTemplate ....................................................................................................... 27
8. Configuration ............................................................................................................................. 28
8.1. ContextSource Configuration ............................................................................................ 28
8.1.1. LDAP Server URLs ............................................................................................... 28
8.1.2. Base LDAP path .................................................................................................... 28
8.1.3. DirContext Authentication ..................................................................................... 28
8.1.4. Native Java LDAP Pooling .................................................................................... 31
8.1.5. Advanced ContextSource Configuration ................................................................. 31
8.2. LdapTemplate Configuration ............................................................................................ 31
8.2.1. Ignoring PartialResultExceptions ............................................................................ 31
8.3. Obtaining a reference to the base LDAP path ..................................................................... 32
9. Pooling Support .......................................................................................................................... 33
9.1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 33
9.2. DirContext Validation ...................................................................................................... 33
9.3. Pool Properties ................................................................................................................. 33
9.4. Configuration ................................................................................................................... 35
9.4.1. Validation Configuration ....................................................................................... 36
9.5. Known Issues .................................................................................................................. 36
9.5.1. Custom Authentication .......................................................................................... 36
10. User Authentication using Spring LDAP .................................................................................... 38

Spring LDAP (1.3.0.RELEASE) iii

Preface
The Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI) is for LDAP programming what Java Database Connectivity
(JDBC) is for SQL programming. There are several similarities between JDBC and JNDI/LDAP (Java LDAP).
Despite being two completely different APIs with different pros and cons, they share a number of less flattering
characteristics:

• They require extensive plumbing code, even to perform the simplest of tasks.
• All resources need to be correctly closed, no matter what happens.
• Exception handling is difficult.

The above points often lead to massive code duplication in common usages of the APIs. As we all know, code
duplication is one of the worst code smells. All in all, it boils down to this: JDBC and LDAP programming in
Java are both incredibly dull and repetitive.

Spring JDBC, a part of the Spring framework, provides excellent utilities for simplifying SQL programming.
We need a similar framework for Java LDAP programming.

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Chapter 1. Introduction

1.1. Overview
Spring LDAP (http://www.springframework.org/ldap) is a library for simpler LDAP programming in Java,
built on the same principles as the JdbcTemplate in Spring JDBC. It completely eliminates the need to worry
about creating and closing LdapContext and looping through NamingEnumeration. It also provides a more
comprehensive unchecked Exception hierarchy, built on Spring's DataAccessException. As a bonus, it also
contains classes for dynamically building LDAP filters and DNs (Distinguished Names), LDAP attribute
management, and client-side LDAP transaction management.

Consider, for example, a method that should search some storage for all persons and return their names in a list.
Using JDBC, we would create a connection and execute a query using a statement. We would then loop over
the result set and retrieve the column we want, adding it to a list. In contrast, using Java LDAP, we would
create a context and perform a search using a search filter. We would then loop over the resulting naming
enumeration and retrieve the attribute we want, adding it to a list.

The traditional way of implementing this person name search method in Java LDAP looks like this, where the
code marked as bold actually performs tasks related to the business purpose of the method:

package com.example.dao;

public class TraditionalPersonDaoImpl implements PersonDao {

public List getAllPersonNames() {
Hashtable env = new Hashtable();
env.put(Context.INITIAL_CONTEXT_FACTORY, "com.sun.jndi.ldap.LdapCtxFactory");
env.put(Context.PROVIDER_URL, "ldap://localhost:389/dc=example,dc=com");

DirContext ctx;
try {
ctx = new InitialDirContext(env);
} catch (NamingException e) {
throw new RuntimeException(e);
}

LinkedList list = new LinkedList();

NamingEnumeration results = null;
try {
SearchControls controls = new SearchControls();
controls.setSearchScope(SearchControls.SUBTREE_SCOPE);
results = ctx.search("", "(objectclass=person)", controls);

while (results.hasMore()) {
SearchResult searchResult = (SearchResult) results.next();
Attributes attributes = searchResult.getAttributes();
Attribute attr = attributes.get("cn");
String cn = (String) attr.get();
list.add(cn);
}
} catch (NameNotFoundException e) {
// The base context was not found.
// Just clean up and exit.
} catch (NamingException e) {
throw new RuntimeException(e);
} finally {
if (results != null) {
try {
results.close();
} catch (Exception e) {
// Never mind this.
}
}
if (ctx != null) {
try {
ctx.close();

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 Introduction

} catch (Exception e) {
// Never mind this.
}
}
}
return list;
}
}

By using the Spring LDAP classes AttributesMapper and LdapTemplate, we get the exact same functionality
with the following code:

package com.example.dao;

public class PersonDaoImpl implements PersonDao {

private LdapTemplate ldapTemplate;

public void setLdapTemplate(LdapTemplate ldapTemplate) {

this.ldapTemplate = ldapTemplate;
}

public List getAllPersonNames() {

return ldapTemplate.search(
"", "(objectclass=person)",
new AttributesMapper() {
public Object mapFromAttributes(Attributes attrs)
throws NamingException {
return attrs.get("cn").get();
}
});
}
}

The amount of boiler-plate code is significantly less than in the traditional example. The LdapTemplate version
of the search method performs the search, maps the attributes to a string using the given AttributesMapper,
collects the strings in an internal list, and finally returns the list.

Note that the PersonDaoImpl code simply assumes that it has an LdapTemplate instance, rather than looking
one up somewhere. It provides a set method for this purpose. There is nothing Spring-specific about this
"Inversion of Control". Anyone that can create an instance of PersonDaoImpl can also set the LdapTemplate on
it. However, Spring provides a very flexible and easy way of achieving this. The Spring container can be told to
wire up an instance of LdapTemplate with its required dependencies and inject it into the PersonDao instance.
This wiring can be defined in various ways, but the most common is through XML:

<beans>
<bean id="contextSource" class="org.springframework.ldap.core.support.LdapContextSource">
<property name="url" value="ldap://localhost:389" />
<property name="base" value="dc=example,dc=com" />
<property name="userDn" value="cn=Manager" />
<property name="password" value="secret" />
</bean>

<bean id="ldapTemplate" class="org.springframework.ldap.core.LdapTemplate">

<constructor-arg ref="contextSource" />
</bean>

<bean id="personDao" class="com.example.dao.PersonDaoImpl">

<property name="ldapTemplate" ref="ldapTemplate" />
</bean>
</beans>

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 Introduction

1.2. Packaging overview

At a minimum, to use Spring LDAP you need:

• spring-ldap-core (the Spring LDAP library)

• spring-core (miscellaneous utility classes used internally by the framework)
• spring-beans (contains interfaces and classes for manipulating Java beans)
• commons-logging (a simple logging facade, used internally)
• commons-lang (misc utilities, used internally)

In addition to the required dependencies the following optional dependencies are required for certain
functionality:

• spring-context (If your application is wired up using the Spring Application Context - adds the ability for
application objects to obtain resources using a consistent API. Definitely needed if you are planning on using
the BaseLdapPathBeanPostProcessor.)

• spring-tx (If you are planning to use the client side compensating transaction support)

• spring-jdbc (If you are planning to use the client side compensating transaction support)

• ldapbp (Sun LDAP Booster Pack - if you will use the LDAP v3 Server controls integration and you're not
using Java5 or higher)

• commons-pool (If you are planning to use the pooling functionality)

1.3. Package structure

This section provides an overview of the logical package structure of the Spring LDAP codebase. The
dependencies for each package are clearly noted.

Figure 1.1. Spring LDAP package structure

1.3.1. org.springframework.transaction.compensating

The transaction.compensating package contains the generic compensating transaction support. This is not

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 Introduction

LDAP-specific or JNDI-specific in any way.

• Dependencies: commons-logging

1.3.2. org.springframework.ldap

The ldap package contains the exceptions of the library. These exceptions form an unchecked hierarchy that
mirrors the NamingException hierarchy.

• Dependencies: spring-core

1.3.3. org.springframework.ldap.core

The ldap.core package contains the central abstractions of the library. These abstractions include
AuthenticationSource, ContextSource, DirContextProcessor, and NameClassPairCallbackHandler. This
package also contains the central class LdapTemplate, plus various mappers and executors.

• Dependencies: ldap, ldap.support, spring-beans, spring-core, spring-tx, commons-lang, commons-logging

1.3.4. org.springframework.ldap.core.support

The ldap.core.support package contains supporting implementations of some of the core interfaces.

• Dependencies: ldap, ldap.core, ldap.support, spring-core, spring-beans, spring-context, commons-lang,

commons-logging

1.3.5. org.springframework.ldap.core.simple

The ldap.core.simple package contains Java5-specific parts of Spring LDAP. It's mainly a simplification layer
that takes advantage of the generics support in Java5, in order to get typesafe context mappers as well as
typesafe search and lookup methods.

• Dependencies: ldap.core

1.3.6. org.springframework.ldap.pool

The ldap.pool package contains support for detailed pool configuration on a per-ContextSource basis. Pooling
support is provided by PoolingContextSource which can wrap any ContextSource and pool both read-only and
read-write DirContext objects. Jakarta Commons-Pool is used to provide the underlying pool implementation.

• Dependencies: ldap.core, commons-lang, commons-pool

1.3.7. org.springframework.ldap.pool.factory

The ldap.pool.factory package contains the actual pooling context source and other classes for context creation.

• Dependencies: ldap, ldap.core, ldap.pool, spring-beans, spring-tx commons-lang, commons-logging,

commons-pool

1.3.8. org.springframework.ldap.pool.validation

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 Introduction

The ldap.pool.validation package contains the connection validation support.

• Dependencies: ldap.pool, commons-lang, commons-logging

1.3.9. org.springframework.ldap.support

The ldap.support package contains supporting utilities, like the exception translation mechanism.

• Dependencies: ldap, spring-core, commons-logging

1.3.10. org.springframework.ldap.authentication

The ldap.authentication package contains an implementation of the AuthenticationSource interface that can be
used if the user should be allowed to read some information even though not logged in.

• Dependencies: ldap.core, spring-beans, commons-lang

1.3.11. org.springframework.ldap.control

The ldap.control package contains an abstract implementation of the DirContextProcessor interface that can be
used as a basis for processing RequestControls and ResponseControls. There is also a concrete implementation
that handles paged search results and one that handles sorting. The LDAP Booster Pack is used to get support
for controls, unless Java5 is used.

• Dependencies: ldap, ldap.core, LDAP booster pack (optional), spring-core, commons-lang,

commons-logging

1.3.12. org.springframework.ldap.filter

The ldap.filter package contains the Filter abstraction and several implementations of it.

• Dependencies: ldap.core, spring-core, commons-lang

1.3.13. org.springframework.ldap.transaction.compensating

The ldap.transaction.compensating package contains the core LDAP-specific implementation of compensating

transactions.

• Dependencies: ldap.core, transaction.compensating, spring-core, commons-lang, commons-logging

1.3.14. org.springframework.ldap.transaction.compensating.manager

The ldap.transaction.compensating.manager package contains the core implementation classes for client-side
compensating transactions.

• Dependencies: ldap, ldap.core, ldap.support, ldap.transaction.compensating, transaction.compensating,

spring-tx, spring-jdbc, spring-orm, commons-logging

1.3.15. org.springframework.ldap.transaction.compensating.support

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 Introduction

The ldap.transaction.compensating.support package contains useful helper classes for client-side compensating
transactions.

• Dependencies: ldap.core, ldap.transaction.compensating

For the exact list of jar dependencies, see the Spring LDAP Maven2 Project Object Model (POM) files in the
source tree.

1.4. Support
Spring LDAP 1.3 is supported on Spring 2.0 and later.

The community support forum is located at http://forum.springframework.org, and the project web page is
http://www.springframework.org/ldap.

Spring LDAP (1.3.0.RELEASE) 6

Chapter 2. Basic Operations

2.1. Search and Lookup Using AttributesMapper

In this example we will use an AttributesMapper to easily build a List of all common names of all person
objects.

Example 2.1. AttributesMapper that returns a single attribute

package com.example.dao;

public class PersonDaoImpl implements PersonDao {

private LdapTemplate ldapTemplate;

public void setLdapTemplate(LdapTemplate ldapTemplate) {

this.ldapTemplate = ldapTemplate;
}

public List getAllPersonNames() {

return ldapTemplate.search(
"", "(objectclass=person)",
new AttributesMapper() {
public Object mapFromAttributes(Attributes attrs)
throws NamingException {
return attrs.get("cn").get();
}
});
}
}

The inline implementation of AttributesMapper just gets the desired attribute value from the Attributes and
returns it. Internally, LdapTemplate iterates over all entries found, calling the given AttributesMapper for each
entry, and collects the results in a list. The list is then returned by the search method.

Note that the AttributesMapper implementation could easily be modified to return a full Person object:

Example 2.2. AttributesMapper that returns a Person object

package com.example.dao;

public class PersonDaoImpl implements PersonDao {

private LdapTemplate ldapTemplate;
...
private class PersonAttributesMapper implements AttributesMapper {
public Object mapFromAttributes(Attributes attrs) throws NamingException {
Person person = new Person();
person.setFullName((String)attrs.get("cn").get());
person.setLastName((String)attrs.get("sn").get());
person.setDescription((String)attrs.get("description").get());
return person;
}
}

public List getAllPersons() {

return ldapTemplate.search("", "(objectclass=person)", new PersonAttributesMapper());
}
}

If you have the distinguished name (dn) that identifies an entry, you can retrieve the entry directly, without

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 Basic Operations

searching for it. This is called a lookup in Java LDAP. The following example shows how a lookup results in a
Person object:

Example 2.3. A lookup resulting in a Person object

package com.example.dao;

public class PersonDaoImpl implements PersonDao {

private LdapTemplate ldapTemplate;
...
public Person findPerson(String dn) {
return (Person) ldapTemplate.lookup(dn, new PersonAttributesMapper());
}
}

This will look up the specified dn and pass the found attributes to the supplied AttributesMapper, in this case
resulting in a Person object.

2.2. Building Dynamic Filters

We can build dynamic filters to use in searches, using the classes from the
org.springframework.ldap.filter package. Let's say that we want the following filter:
(&(objectclass=person)(sn=?)), where we want the ? to be replaced with the value of the parameter
lastName. This is how we do it using the filter support classes:

Example 2.4. Building a search filter dynamically

package com.example.dao;

public class PersonDaoImpl implements PersonDao {

private LdapTemplate ldapTemplate;
...
public List getPersonNamesByLastName(String lastName) {
AndFilter filter = new AndFilter();
filter.and(new EqualsFilter("objectclass", "person"));
filter.and(new EqualsFilter("sn", lastName));
return ldapTemplate.search(
"", filter.encode(),
new AttributesMapper() {
public Object mapFromAttributes(Attributes attrs)
throws NamingException {
return attrs.get("cn").get();
}
});
}
}

To perform a wildcard search, it's possible to use the WhitespaceWildcardsFilter:

Example 2.5. Building a wildcard search filter

AndFilter filter = new AndFilter();

filter.and(new EqualsFilter("objectclass", "person"));
filter.and(new WhitespaceWildcardsFilter("cn", cn));

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 Basic Operations

Note
In addition to simplifying building of complex search filters, the Filter classes also provide proper
escaping of any unsafe characters. This prevents "ldap injection", where a user might use such
characters to inject unwanted operations into your LDAP operations.

2.3. Building Dynamic Distinguished Names

The standard Name interface represents a generic name, which is basically an ordered sequence of components.
The Name interface also provides operations on that sequence; e.g., add or remove. LdapTemplate provides an
implementation of the Name interface: DistinguishedName. Using this class will greatly simplify building
distinguished names, especially considering the sometimes complex rules regarding escapings and encodings.
As with the Filter classes this helps preventing potentially malicious data being injected into your LDAP
operations.

The following example illustrates how DistinguishedName can be used to dynamically construct a
distinguished name:

Example 2.6. Building a distinguished name dynamically

package com.example.dao;

import org.springframework.ldap.core.support.DistinguishedName;
import javax.naming.Name;

public class PersonDaoImpl implements PersonDao {

public static final String BASE_DN = "dc=example,dc=com";
...
protected Name buildDn(Person p) {
DistinguishedName dn = new DistinguishedName(BASE_DN);
dn.add("c", p.getCountry());
dn.add("ou", p.getCompany());
dn.add("cn", p.getFullname());
return dn;
}
}

Assuming that a Person has the following attributes:

country Sweden

company Some Company

fullname Some Person

The code above would then result in the following distinguished name:

cn=Some Person, ou=Some Company, c=Sweden, dc=example, dc=com

In Java 5, there is an implementation of the Name interface: LdapName. If you are in the Java 5 world, you
might as well use LdapName. However, you may still use DistinguishedName if you so wish.

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 Basic Operations

2.4. Binding and Unbinding

2.4.1. Binding Data

Inserting data in Java LDAP is called binding. In order to do that, a distinguished name that uniquely identifies
the new entry is required. The following example shows how data is bound using LdapTemplate:

Example 2.7. Binding data using Attributes

package com.example.dao;

public class PersonDaoImpl implements PersonDao {

private LdapTemplate ldapTemplate;
...
public void create(Person p) {
Name dn = buildDn(p);
ldapTemplate.bind(dn, null, buildAttributes(p));
}

private Attributes buildAttributes(Person p) {

Attributes attrs = new BasicAttributes();
BasicAttribute ocattr = new BasicAttribute("objectclass");
ocattr.add("top");
ocattr.add("person");
attrs.put(ocattr);
attrs.put("cn", "Some Person");
attrs.put("sn", "Person");
return attrs;
}
}

The Attributes building is--while dull and verbose--sufficient for many purposes. It is, however, possible to
simplify the binding operation further, which will be described in Chapter 3, Simpler Attribute Access and
Manipulation with DirContextAdapter.

2.4.2. Unbinding Data

Removing data in Java LDAP is called unbinding. A distinguished name (dn) is required to identify the entry,
just as in the binding operation. The following example shows how data is unbound using LdapTemplate:

Example 2.8. Unbinding data

package com.example.dao;

public class PersonDaoImpl implements PersonDao {

private LdapTemplate ldapTemplate;
...
public void delete(Person p) {
Name dn = buildDn(p);
ldapTemplate.unbind(dn);
}
}

2.5. Modifying

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 Basic Operations

In Java LDAP, data can be modified in two ways: either using rebind or modifyAttributes.

2.5.1. Modifying using rebind

A rebind is a very crude way to modify data. It's basically an unbind followed by a bind. It looks like this:

Example 2.9. Modifying using rebind

package com.example.dao;

public class PersonDaoImpl implements PersonDao {

private LdapTemplate ldapTemplate;
...
public void update(Person p) {
Name dn = buildDn(p);
ldapTemplate.rebind(dn, null, buildAttributes(p));
}
}

2.5.2. Modifying using modifyAttributes

If only the modified attributes should be replaced, there is a method called modifyAttributes that takes an
array of modifications:

Example 2.10. Modifying using modifyAttributes

package com.example.dao;

public class PersonDaoImpl implements PersonDao {

private LdapTemplate ldapTemplate;
...
public void updateDescription(Person p) {
Name dn = buildDn(p);
Attribute attr = new BasicAttribute("description", p.getDescription())
ModificationItem item = new ModificationItem(DirContext.REPLACE_ATTRIBUTE, attr);
ldapTemplate.modifyAttributes(dn, new ModificationItem[] {item});
}
}

Building Attributes and ModificationItem arrays is a lot of work, but as you will see in Chapter 3, Simpler
Attribute Access and Manipulation with DirContextAdapter, the update operations can be simplified.

2.6. Sample applications

It is recommended that you review the Spring LDAP sample applications included in the release distribution for
best-practice illustrations of the features of this library. A description of each sample is provided below:

1. spring-ldap-person - the sample demonstrating most features.

2. spring-ldap-article - the sample application that was written to accompany a java.net article about Spring
LDAP.

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Chapter 3. Simpler Attribute Access and
Manipulation with DirContextAdapter

3.1. Introduction
A little-known--and probably underestimated--feature of the Java LDAP API is the ability to register a
DirObjectFactory to automatically create objects from found contexts. One of the reasons why it is seldom
used is that you will need an implementation of DirObjectFactory that creates instances of a meaningful
implementation of DirContext. The Spring LDAP library provides the missing pieces: a default
implementation of DirContext called DirContextAdapter, and a corresponding implementation of
DirObjectFactory called DefaultDirObjectFactory. Used together with DefaultDirObjectFactory, the
DirContextAdapter can be a very powerful tool.

3.2. Search and Lookup Using ContextMapper

The DefaultDirObjectFactory is registered with the ContextSource by default, which means that whenever a
context is found in the LDAP tree, its Attributes and Distinguished Name (DN) will be used to construct a
DirContextAdapter. This enables us to use a ContextMapper instead of an AttributesMapper to transform
found values:

Example 3.1. Searching using a ContextMapper

package com.example.dao;

public class PersonDaoImpl implements PersonDao {

...
private static class PersonContextMapper implements ContextMapper {
public Object mapFromContext(Object ctx) {
DirContextAdapter context = (DirContextAdapter)ctx;
Person p = new Person();
p.setFullName(context.getStringAttribute("cn"));
p.setLastName(context.getStringAttribute("sn"));
p.setDescription(context.getStringAttribute("description"));
return p;
}
}

public Person findByPrimaryKey(

String name, String company, String country) {
Name dn = buildDn(name, company, country);
return ldapTemplate.lookup(dn, new PersonContextMapper());
}
}

The above code shows that it is possible to retrieve the attributes directly by name, without having to go
through the Attributes and BasicAttribute classes. This is particularly useful when working with
multi-value attributes. Extracting values from multi-value attributes normally requires looping through a
NamingEnumeration of attribute values returned from the Attributes implementation. The
DirContextAdapter can do this for you, using the getStringAttributes() or getObjectAttributes()
methods:

Example 3.2. Getting multi-value attribute values using getStringAttributes()

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 Simpler Attribute Access and Manipulation with

private static class PersonContextMapper implements ContextMapper {

public Object mapFromContext(Object ctx) {
DirContextAdapter context = (DirContextAdapter)ctx;
Person p = new Person();
p.setFullName(context.getStringAttribute("cn"));
p.setLastName(context.getStringAttribute("sn"));
p.setDescription(context.getStringAttribute("description"));
// The roleNames property of Person is an String array
p.setRoleNames(context.getStringAttributes("roleNames"));
return p;
}
}

3.2.1. The AbstractContextMapper

Spring LDAP provides an abstract base implementation of ContextMapper, AbstractContextMapper. This

automatically takes care of the casting of the supplied Object parameter to DirContexOperations. The
PersonContextMapper above can thus be re-written as follows:

Example 3.3. Using an AbstractContextMapper

private static class PersonContextMapper extends AbstractContextMapper {

public Object doMapFromContext(DirContextOperations ctx) {
Person p = new Person();
p.setFullName(context.getStringAttribute("cn"));
p.setLastName(context.getStringAttribute("sn"));
p.setDescription(context.getStringAttribute("description"));
return p;
}
}

3.3. Binding and Modifying Using DirContextAdapter

While very useful when extracting attribute values, DirContextAdapter is even more powerful for hiding
attribute details when binding and modifying data.

3.3.1. Binding

This is an example of an improved implementation of the create DAO method. Compare it with the previous
implementation in Section 2.4.1, “Binding Data”.

Example 3.4. Binding using DirContextAdapter

package com.example.dao;

public class PersonDaoImpl implements PersonDao {

...
public void create(Person p) {
Name dn = buildDn(p);
DirContextAdapter context = new DirContextAdapter(dn);

context.setAttributeValues("objectclass", new String[] {"top", "person"});

context.setAttributeValue("cn", p.getFullname());
context.setAttributeValue("sn", p.getLastname());
context.setAttributeValue("description", p.getDescription());

Spring LDAP (1.3.0.RELEASE) 13

 DirContextAdapter

ldapTemplate.bind(context);
}
}

Note that we use the DirContextAdapter instance as the second parameter to bind, which should be a Context.
The third parameter is null, since we're not using any Attributes.

Also note the use of the setAttributeValues() method when setting the objectclass attribute values. The
objectclass attribute is multi-value, and similar to the troubles of extracting muti-value attribute data, building
multi-value attributes is tedious and verbose work. Using the setAttributeValues() mehtod you can have
DirContextAdapter handle that work for you.

3.3.2. Modifying

The code for a rebind would be pretty much identical to Example 3.4, “Binding using DirContextAdapter”,
except that the method called would be rebind. As we saw in Section 2.5.2, “Modifying using
modifyAttributes” a more correct approach would be to build a ModificationItem array containing the
actual modifications you want to do. This would require you to determine the actual modifications compared to
the data present in the LDAP tree. Again, this is something that DirContextAdapter can help you with; the
DirContextAdapter has the ability to keep track of its modified attributes. The following example takes
advantage of this feature:

Example 3.5. Modifying using DirContextAdapter

package com.example.dao;

public class PersonDaoImpl implements PersonDao {

...
public void update(Person p) {
Name dn = buildDn(p);
DirContextOperations context = ldapTemplate.lookupContext(dn);

context.setAttributeValues("objectclass", new String[] {"top", "person"});

context.setAttributeValue("cn", p.getFullname());
context.setAttributeValue("sn", p.getLastname());
context.setAttributeValue("description", p.getDescription());

ldapTemplate.modifyAttributes(context);
}
}

When no mapper is passed to a ldapTemplate.lookup() operation, the result will be a DirContextAdapter

instance. While the lookup method returns an Object, the convenience method lookupContext method
automatically casts the return value to a DirContextOperations (the interface that DirContextAdapter
implements.

The observant reader will see that we have duplicated code in the create and update methods. This code maps
from a domain object to a context. It can be extracted to a separate method:

Example 3.6. Binding and modifying using DirContextAdapter

package com.example.dao;

public class PersonDaoImpl implements PersonDao {

private LdapTemplate ldapTemplate;

Spring LDAP (1.3.0.RELEASE) 14

 Simpler Attribute Access and Manipulation with

...
public void create(Person p) {
Name dn = buildDn(p);
DirContextAdapter context = new DirContextAdapter(dn);
mapToContext(p, context);
ldapTemplate.bind(context);
}

public void update(Person p) {

Name dn = buildDn(p);
DirContextOperations context = ldapTemplate.lookupContext(dn);
mapToContext(person, context);
ldapTemplate.modifyAttributes(context);
}

protected void mapToContext (Person p, DirContextOperations context) {

context.setAttributeValues("objectclass", new String[] {"top", "person"});
context.setAttributeValue("cn", p.getFullName());
context.setAttributeValue("sn", p.getLastName());
context.setAttributeValue("description", p.getDescription());
}
}

3.4. A Complete PersonDao Class

To illustrate the power of Spring LDAP, here is a complete Person DAO implementation for LDAP in just 68
lines:

Example 3.7. A complete PersonDao class

package com.example.dao;

import java.util.List;

import javax.naming.Name;
import javax.naming.NamingException;
import javax.naming.directory.Attributes;

import org.springframework.ldap.core.AttributesMapper;
import org.springframework.ldap.core.ContextMapper;
import org.springframework.ldap.core.LdapTemplate;
import org.springframework.ldap.core.DirContextAdapter;
import org.springframework.ldap.core.support.DistinguishedName;
import org.springframework.ldap.filter.AndFilter;
import org.springframework.ldap.filter.EqualsFilter;
import org.springframework.ldap.filter.WhitespaceWildcardsFilter;

public class PersonDaoImpl implements PersonDao {

private LdapTemplate ldapTemplate;

public void setLdapTemplate(LdapTemplate ldapTemplate) {

this.ldapTemplate = ldapTemplate;
}

public void create(Person person) {

DirContextAdapter context = new DirContextAdapter(buildDn(person));
mapToContext(person, context);
ldapTemplate.bind(context);
}

public void update(Person person) {

Name dn = buildDn(person);
DirContextOperations context = ldapTemplate.lookupContext(dn);
mapToContext(person, context);
ldapTemplate.modifyAttributes(context);
}

public void delete(Person person) {

ldapTemplate.unbind(buildDn(person));

Spring LDAP (1.3.0.RELEASE) 15

 DirContextAdapter

public Person findByPrimaryKey(String name, String company, String country) {

Name dn = buildDn(name, company, country);
return (Person) ldapTemplate.lookup(dn, getContextMapper());
}

public List findByName(String name) {

AndFilter filter = new AndFilter();
filter.and(new EqualsFilter("objectclass", "person")).and(new WhitespaceWildcardsFilter("cn",name));
return ldapTemplate.search(DistinguishedName.EMPTY_PATH, filter.encode(), getContextMapper());
}

public List findAll() {

EqualsFilter filter = new EqualsFilter("objectclass", "person");
return ldapTemplate.search(DistinguishedName.EMPTY_PATH, filter.encode(), getContextMapper());
}

protected ContextMapper getContextMapper() {

return new PersonContextMapper();
}

protected Name buildDn(Person person) {

return buildDn(person.getFullname(), person.getCompany(), person.getCountry());
}

protected Name buildDn(String fullname, String company, String country) {

DistinguishedName dn = new DistinguishedName();
dn.add("c", country);
dn.add("ou", company);
dn.add("cn", fullname);
return dn;
}

protected void mapToContext(Person person, DirContextOperations context) {

context.setAttributeValues("objectclass", new String[] {"top", "person"});
context.setAttributeValue("cn", person.getFullName());
context.setAttributeValue("sn", person.getLastName());
context.setAttributeValue("description", person.getDescription());
}

private static class PersonContextMapper extends AbstractContextMapper {

public Object doMapFromContext(DirContextOperations context) {
Person person = new Person();
person.setFullName(context.getStringAttribute("cn"));
person.setLastName(context.getStringAttribute("sn"));
person.setDescription(context.getStringAttribute("description"));
return person;
}
}
}

Note
In several cases the Distinguished Name (DN) of an object is constructed using properties of the
object. E.g. in the above example, the country, company and full name of the Person are used in
the DN, which means that updating any of these properties will actually require moving the entry in
the LDAP tree using the rename() operation in addition to updating the Attribute values. Since
this is highly implementation specific this is something you'll need to keep track of yourself - either
by disallowing the user to change these properties or performing the rename() operation in your
update() method if needed.

Spring LDAP (1.3.0.RELEASE) 16

Chapter 4. Adding Missing Overloaded API Methods

4.1. Implementing Custom Search Methods

While LdapTemplate contains several overloaded versions of the most common operations in DirContext, we
have not provided an alternative for each and every method signature, mostly because there are so many of
them. We have, however, provided a means to call whichever DirContext method you want and still get the
benefits that LdapTemplate provides.

Let's say that you want to call the following DirContext method:

NamingEnumeration search(Name name, String filterExpr, Object[] filterArgs, SearchControls ctls)

There is no corresponding overloaded method in LdapTemplate. The way to solve this is to use a custom
SearchExecutor implementation:

public interface SearchExecutor {

public NamingEnumeration executeSearch(DirContext ctx) throws NamingException;
}

In your custom executor, you have access to a DirContext object, which you use to call the method you want.
You then provide a handler that is responsible for mapping attributes and collecting the results. You can for
example use one of the available implementations of CollectingNameClassPairCallbackHandler, which will
collect the mapped results in an internal list. In order to actually execute the search, you call the search method
in LdapTemplate that takes an executor and a handler as arguments. Finally, you return whatever your handler
has collected.

Example 4.1. A custom search method using SearchExecutor and AttributesMapper

package com.example.dao;

public class PersonDaoImpl implements PersonDao {

...
public List search(final Name base, final String filter, final String[] params,
final SearchControls ctls) {
SearchExecutor executor = new SearchExecutor() {
public NamingEnumeration executeSearch(DirContext ctx) {
return ctx.search(base, filter, params, ctls);
}
};

CollectingNameClassPairCallbackHandler handler =
new AttributesMapperCallbackHandler(new PersonAttributesMapper());

ldapTemplate.search(executor, handler);
return handler.getList();
}
}

If you prefer the ContextMapper to the AttributesMapper, this is what it would look like:

Example 4.2. A custom search method using SearchExecutor and ContextMapper

Spring LDAP (1.3.0.RELEASE) 17

 Adding Missing Overloaded API Methods

package com.example.dao;

public class PersonDaoImpl implements PersonDao {

...
public List search(final Name base, final String filter, final String[] params,
final SearchControls ctls) {
SearchExecutor executor = new SearchExecutor() {
public NamingEnumeration executeSearch(DirContext ctx) {
return ctx.search(base, filter, params, ctls);
}
};

CollectingNameClassPairCallbackHandler handler =
new ContextMapperCallbackHandler(new PersonContextMapper());

ldapTemplate.search(executor, handler);
return handler.getList();
}
}

Note
When using the ContextMapperCallbackHandler you must make sure that you have called
setReturningObjFlag(true) on your SearchControls instance.

4.2. Implementing Other Custom Context Methods

In the same manner as for custom search methods, you can actually execute any method in DirContext by
using a ContextExecutor.

public interface ContextExecutor {

public Object executeWithContext(DirContext ctx) throws NamingException;
}

When implementing a custom ContextExecutor, you can choose between using the executeReadOnly() or the
executeReadWrite() method. Let's say that we want to call this method:

Object lookupLink(Name name)

It's available in DirContext, but there is no matching method in LdapTemplate. It's a lookup method, so it
should be read-only. We can implement it like this:

Example 4.3. A custom DirContext method using ContextExecutor

package com.example.dao;

public class PersonDaoImpl implements PersonDao {

...
public Object lookupLink(final Name name) {
ContextExecutor executor = new ContextExecutor() {
public Object executeWithContext(DirContext ctx) {
return ctx.lookupLink(name);
}
};

return ldapTemplate.executeReadOnly(executor);
}
}

Spring LDAP (1.3.0.RELEASE) 18

 Adding Missing Overloaded API Methods

In the same manner you can execute a read-write operation using the executeReadWrite() method.

Spring LDAP (1.3.0.RELEASE) 19

Chapter 5. Processing the DirContext

5.1. Custom DirContext Pre/Postprocessing

In some situations, one would like to perform operations on the DirContext before and after the search
operation. The interface that is used for this is called DirContextProcessor:

public interface DirContextProcessor {

public void preProcess(DirContext ctx) throws NamingException;
public void postProcess(DirContext ctx) throws NamingException;
}

The LdapTemplate class has a search method that takes a DirContextProcessor:

public void search(SearchExecutor se, NameClassPairCallbackHandler handler,

DirContextProcessor processor) throws DataAccessException;

Before the search operation, the preProcess method is called on the given DirContextProcessor instance.
After the search has been executed and the resulting NamingEnumeration has been processed, the postProcess
method is called. This enables a user to perform operations on the DirContext to be used in the search, and to
check the DirContext when the search has been performed. This can be very useful for example when handling
request and response controls.

There are also a few convenience methods for those that don't need a custom SearchExecutor:

public void search(Name base, String filter,

SearchControls controls, NameClassPairCallbackHandler handler, DirContextProcessor processor)

public void search(String base, String filter,

SearchControls controls, NameClassPairCallbackHandler handler, DirContextProcessor processor)

public void search(Name base, String filter,

SearchControls controls, AttributesMapper mapper, DirContextProcessor processor)

public void search(String base, String filter,

SearchControls controls, AttributesMapper mapper, DirContextProcessor processor)

public void search(Name base, String filter,

SearchControls controls, ContextMapper mapper, DirContextProcessor processor)

public void search(String base, String filter,

SearchControls controls, ContextMapper mapper, DirContextProcessor processor)

5.2. Implementing a Request Control DirContextProcessor

The LDAPv3 protocol uses Controls to send and receive additional data to affect the behavior of predefined
operations. In order to simplify the implementation of a request control DirContextProcessor, Spring LDAP
provides the base class AbstractRequestControlDirContextProcessor. This class handles the retrieval of the
current request controls from the LdapContext, calls a template method for creating a request control, and adds
it to the LdapContext. All you have to do in the subclass is to implement the template method

Spring LDAP (1.3.0.RELEASE) 20

 Processing the DirContext

createRequestControl, and of course the postProcess method for performing whatever you need to do after
the search.

public abstract class AbstractRequestControlDirContextProcessor implements

DirContextProcessor {

public void preProcess(DirContext ctx) throws NamingException {

...
}

public abstract Control createRequestControl();

}

A typical DirContextProcessor will be similar to the following:

Example 5.1. A request control DirContextProcessor implementation

package com.example.control;

public class MyCoolRequestControl extends AbstractRequestControlDirContextProcessor {

private static final boolean CRITICAL_CONTROL = true;
private MyCoolCookie cookie;
...
public MyCoolCookie getCookie() {
return cookie;
}

public Control createRequestControl() {

return new SomeCoolControl(cookie.getCookie(), CRITICAL_CONTROL);
}

public void postProcess(DirContext ctx) throws NamingException {

LdapContext ldapContext = (LdapContext) ctx;
Control[] responseControls = ldapContext.getResponseControls();

for (int i = 0; i < responseControls.length; i++) {

if (responseControls[i] instanceof SomeCoolResponseControl) {
SomeCoolResponseControl control = (SomeCoolResponseControl) responseControls[i];
this.cookie = new MyCoolCookie(control.getCookie());
}
}
}
}

Note
Make sure you use LdapContextSource when you use Controls. The Control interface is specific
for LDAPv3 and requires that LdapContext is used instead of DirContext. If an
AbstractRequestControlDirContextProcessor subclass is called with an argument that is not an
LdapContext, it will throw an IllegalArgumentException.

5.3. Paged Search Results

Some searches may return large numbers of results. When there is no easy way to filter out a smaller amount, it
would be convenient to have the server return only a certain number of results each time it is called. This is
known as paged search results. Each "page" of the result could then be displayed at the time, with links to the
next and previous page. Without this functionality, the client must either manually limit the search result into
pages, or retrieve the whole result and then chop it into pages of suitable size. The former would be rather

Spring LDAP (1.3.0.RELEASE) 21

 Processing the DirContext

complicated, and the latter would be consuming unnecessary amounts of memory.

Some LDAP servers have support for the PagedResultsControl, which requests that the results of a search
operation are returned by the LDAP server in pages of a specified size. The user controls the rate at which the
pages are returned, simply by the rate at which the searches are called. However, the user must keep track of a
cookie between the calls. The server uses this cookie to keep track of where it left off the previous time it was
called with a paged results request.

Spring LDAP provides support for paged results by leveraging the concept for pre- and postprocessing of an
LdapContext that was discussed in the previous sections. It does so by providing two classes:
PagedResultsRequestControl and PagedResultsCookie. The PagedResultsRequestControl class creates a
PagedResultsControl with the requested page size and adds it to the LdapContext. After the search, it gets the
PagedResultsResponseControl and retrieves two pieces of information from it: the estimated total result size
and a cookie. This cookie is a byte array containing information that the server needs the next time it is called
with a PagedResultsControl. In order to make it easy to store this cookie between searches, Spring LDAP
provides the wrapper class PagedResultsCookie.

Below is an example of how the paged search results functionality may be used:

Example 5.2. Paged results using PagedResultsRequestControl

public PagedResult getAllPersons(PagedResultsCookie cookie) {

PagedResultsRequestControl control = new PagedResultsRequestControl(PAGE_SIZE, cookie);
SearchControls searchControls = new SearchControls();
searchControls.setSearchScope(SearchControls.SUBTREE_SCOPE);

List persons = ldapTemplate.search("", "objectclass=person", searchControls, control);

return new PagedResult(persons, control.getCookie());

}

In the first call to this method, null will be supplied as the cookie parameter. On subsequent calls the client
will need to supply the cookie from the last search (returned wrapped in the PagedResult) each time the
method is called. When the actual cookie is null (i.e. pagedResult.getCookie().getCookie() returns null),
the last batch has been returned from the search.

Spring LDAP (1.3.0.RELEASE) 22

Chapter 6. Transaction Support

6.1. Introduction
Programmers used to working with relational databases coming to the LDAP world often express surprise to
the fact that there is no notion of transactions. It is not specified in the protocol, and thus no servers support it.
Recognizing that this may be a major problem, Spring LDAP provides support for client-side, compensating
transactions on LDAP resources.

LDAP transaction support is provided by ContextSourceTransactionManager, a

PlatformTransactionManager implementation that manages Spring transaction support for LDAP operations.
Along with its collaborators it keeps track of the LDAP operations performed in a transaction, making record of
the state before each operation and taking steps to restore the initial state should the transaction need to be
rolled back.

In addition to the actual transaction management, Spring LDAP transaction support also makes sure that the
same DirContext instance will be used throughout the same transaction, i.e. the DirContext will not actually
be closed until the transaction is finished, allowing for more efficient resources usage.

Note
It is important to note that while the approach used by Spring LDAP to provide transaction support
is sufficient for many cases it is by no means "real" transactions in the traditional sense. The server
is completely unaware of the transactions, so e.g. if the connection is broken there will be no hope
to rollback the transaction. While this should be carefully considered it should also be noted that
the alternative will be to operate without any transaction support whatsoever; this is pretty much as
good as it gets.

Note
The client side transaction support will add some overhead in addition to the work required by the
original operations. While this overhead should not be something to worry about in most cases, if
your application will not perform several LDAP operations within the same transaction (e.g. a
modifyAttributes followed by a rebind), or if transaction synchronization with a JDBC data
source is not required (see below) there will be nothing to gain by using the LDAP transaction
support.

6.2. Configuration
Configuring Spring LDAP transactions should look very familiar if you're used to configuring Spring
transactions. You will create a TransactionManager instance and wrap your target object using a
TransactionProxyFactoryBean. In addition to this, you will also need to wrap your ContextSource in a
TransactionAwareContextSourceProxy.

<beans>
...
<bean id="contextSourceTarget" class="org.springframework.ldap.core.support.LdapContextSource">
<property name="url" value="ldap://localhost:389" />
<property name="base" value="dc=example,dc=com" />
<property name="userDn" value="cn=Manager" />
<property name="password" value="secret" />

Spring LDAP (1.3.0.RELEASE) 23

 Transaction Support

</bean>

<bean id="contextSource"
class="org.springframework.ldap.transaction.compensating.manager.TransactionAwareContextSourceProxy"
<constructor-arg ref="contextSourceTarget" />
</bean>

<bean id="ldapTemplate" class="org.springframework.ldap.core.LdapTemplate">

<constructor-arg ref="contextSource" />
</bean>

<bean id="transactionManager"
class="org.springframework.ldap.transaction.compensating.manager.ContextSourceTransactionManager">
<constructor-arg ref="contextSource" />
</bean>

<bean id="myDataAccessObjectTarget" class="com.example.MyDataAccessObject">

<property name="ldapTemplate" ref="ldapTemplate" />
</bean>

<bean id="myDataAccessObject"
class="org.springframework.transaction.interceptor.TransactionProxyFactoryBean">
<property name="transactionManager" ref="transactionManager" />
<property name="target" ref="myDataAccessObjectTarget" />
<property name="transactionAttributes">
<props>
<prop key="*">PROPAGATION_REQUIRES_NEW</prop>
</props>
</property>
</bean>
...

In a real world example you would probably apply the transactions on the service object level rather than the
DAO level; the above serves as an example to demonstrate the general idea.

Note
You'll notice that the actual ContextSource and DAO instances get ids with a "Target" suffix. The
beans you will actually refer to are the Proxies that are created around the targets; contextSource
and myDataAccessObject

6.3. JDBC Transaction Integration

A common use case when working against LDAP is that some of the data is stored in the LDAP tree, but other
data is stored in a relational database. In this case, transaction support becomes even more important, since the
update of the different resources should be synchronized.

While actual XA transactions is not supported, support is provided to conceptually wrap JDBC and LDAP
access within the same transaction using the ContextSourceAndDataSourceTransactionManager. A
DataSource and a ContextSource is supplied to the ContextSourceAndDataSourceTransactionManager,
which will then manage the two transactions, virtually as if they were one. When performing a commit, the
LDAP part of the operation will always be performed first, allowing both transactions to be rolled back should
the LDAP commit fail. The JDBC part of the transaction is managed exactly as in
DataSourceTransactionManager, except that nested transactions is not supported.

Note
Once again it should be noted that the provided support is all client side. The wrapped transaction
is not an XA transaction. No two-phase as such commit is performed, as the LDAP server will be
unable to vote on its outcome. Once again, however, for the majority of cases the supplied support
will be sufficient.

Spring LDAP (1.3.0.RELEASE) 24

 Transaction Support

6.4. LDAP Compensating Transactions Explained

Spring LDAP manages compensating transactions by making record of the state in the LDAP tree before each
modifying operation (bind, unbind, rebind, modifyAttributes, and rename).

This enables the system to perform compensating operations should the transaction need to be rolled back. In
many cases the compensating operation is pretty straightforward. E.g. the compensating rollback operation for
a bind operation will quite obviously be to unbind the entry. Other operations however require a different, more
complicated approach because of some particular characteristics of LDAP databases. Specifically, it is not
always possible to get the values of all Attributes of an entry, making the above strategy insufficient for e.g.
an unbind operation.

This is why each modifying operation performed within a Spring LDAP managed transaction is internally split
up in four distinct operations - a recording operation, a preparation operation, a commit operation, and a
rollback operation. The specifics for each LDAP operation is described in the table below:

Table 6.1.

LDAP Operation Recording Preparation Commit Rollback

bind Make record of the Bind the entry. No operation. Unbind the entry
DN of the entry to using the recorded
bind. DN.

rename Make record of the Rename the entry. No operation. Rename the entry
original and target back to its original
DN. DN.

unbind Make record of the Rename the entry to Unbind the Rename the entry
original DN and the temporary temporary entry. from the temporary
calculate a location. location back to its
temporary DN. original DN.

rebind Make record of the Rename the entry to Bind the new Rename the entry
original DN and the a temporary Attributes at the from the temporary
new Attributes, location. original DN, and location back to its
and calculate a unbind the original original DN.
temporary DN. entry from its
temporary location.

modifyAttributes Make record of the Perform the No operation. Perform a

DN of the entry to modifyAttributes modifyAttributes
modify and operation. operation using the
calculate calculated
compensating compensating
ModificationItems ModificationItems.
for the
modifications to be
done.

A more detailed description of the internal workings of the Spring LDAP transaction support is available in the
javadocs.

Spring LDAP (1.3.0.RELEASE) 25

 Transaction Support

6.4.1. Renaming Strategies

As described in the table above, the transaction management of some operations require the original entry
affected by the operation to be temporarily renamed before the actual modification can be made in the commit.
The manner in which the temporary DN of the entry is calculated is managed by a
TempEntryRenamingStrategy supplied to the ContextSourceTransactionManager. Two implementations are
supplied with Spring LDAP, but if specific behaviour is required a custom implementation can easily be
implemented by the user. The provided TempEntryRenamingStrategy implementations are:

• DefaultTempEntryRenamingStrategy (the default). Adds a suffix to the least significant part of the entry
DN. E.g. for the DN cn=john doe, ou=users, this strategy would return the temporary DN cn=john
doe_temp, ou=users. The suffix is configurable using the tempSuffix property

• DifferentSubtreeTempEntryRenamingStrategy. Takes the least significant part of the DN and appends a

subtree DN to this. This makes all temporary entries be placed at a specific location in the LDAP tree. The
temporary subtree DN is configured using the subtreeNode property. E.g., if subtreeNode is
ou=tempEntries and the original DN of the entry is cn=john doe, ou=users, the temporary DN will be
cn=john doe, ou=tempEntries. Note that the configured subtree node needs to be present in the LDAP tree.

Note
There are some situations where the DefaultTempEntryRenamingStrategy will not work. E.g. if
your are planning to do recursive deletes you'll need to use
DifferentSubtreeTempEntryRenamingStrategy. This is because the recursive delete operation
actually consists of a depth-first delete of each node in the sub tree individually. Since it is not
allowed to rename an entry that has any children, and DefaultTempEntryRenamingStrategy would
leave each node in the same subtree (with a different name) in stead of actually removing it, this
operation would fail. When in doubt, use DifferentSubtreeTempEntryRenamingStrategy.

Spring LDAP (1.3.0.RELEASE) 26

Chapter 7. Java 5 Support

7.1. SimpleLdapTemplate
As of version 1.3 Spring LDAP includes the spring-ldap-core-tiger.jar distributable, which adds a thin layer of
Java 5 functionality on top of Spring LDAP.

The SimpleLdapTemplate class adds search and lookup methods that take a ParameterizedContextMapper,
adding generics support to these methods.

ParametrizedContextMapper is a typed version of ContextMapper, which simplifies working with searches

and lookups:

Example 7.1. Using ParameterizedContextMapper

public List<Person> getAllPersons(){

return simpleLdapTemplate.search("", "(objectclass=person)",
new ParameterizedContextMapper<Person>() {
public Person mapFromContext(Object ctx) {
DirContextAdapter adapter = (DirContextAdapter) ctx;
Person person = new Person();
// Fill the domain object with data from the DirContextAdapter

return person;
}
};
}

Spring LDAP (1.3.0.RELEASE) 27

Chapter 8. Configuration

8.1. ContextSource Configuration

There are several properties in AbstractContextSource (superclass of DirContextSource and
LdapContextSource) that can be used to modify its behaviour.

8.1.1. LDAP Server URLs

The URL of the LDAP server is specified using the url property. The URL should be in the format
ldap://myserver.example.com:389. For SSL access, use the ldaps protocol and the appropriate port, e.g.
ldaps://myserver.example.com:636

It is possible to configure multiple alternate LDAP servers using the urls property. In this case, supply all
server urls in a String array to the urls property.

8.1.2. Base LDAP path

It is possible to specify the root context for all LDAP operations using the base property of
AbstractContextSource. When a value has been specified to this property, all Distinguished Names supplied
to and received from LDAP operations will be relative to the LDAP path supplied. This can significantly
simplify working against the LDAP tree; however there are several occations when you will need to have
access to the base path. For more information on this, please refer to Section 8.3, “Obtaining a reference to the
base LDAP path”

8.1.3. DirContext Authentication

When DirContext instances are created to be used for performing operations on an LDAP server these contexts
often need to be authenticated. There are different options for configuring this using Spring LDAP, described in
this chapter.

Note
This section refers to authenticating contexts in the core functionality of the ContextSource - to
construct DirContext instances for use by LdapTemplate. LDAP is commonly used for the sole
purpose of user authentication, and the ContextSource may be used for that as well. This process is
discussed in Chapter 10, User Authentication using Spring LDAP.

Authenticated contexts are created for both read-only and read-write operations by default. You specify userDn
and password of the LDAP user to be used for authentication on the ContextSource.

Note
The userDn needs to be the full Distinguished Name (DN) of the user from the root of the LDAP
tree, regardless of whether a base LDAP path has been supplied to the ContextSource.

Spring LDAP (1.3.0.RELEASE) 28

 Configuration

Some LDAP server setups allow anonymous read-only access. If you want to use anonymous Contexts for
read-only operations, set the anonymousReadOnly property to true.

8.1.3.1. Custom DirContext Authentication Processing

The default authentication mechanism used in Spring LDAP is SIMPLE authentication. This means that in the
user DN (as specified to the userDn property) and the credentials (as specified to the password) are set in the
Hashtable sent to the DirContext implementation constructor.

There are many occasions when this processing is not sufficient. For instance, LDAP Servers are commonly set
up to only accept communication on a secure TLS channel; there might be a need to use the particular LDAP
Proxy Auth mechanism, etc.

It is possible to specify
an alternative authentication mechanism by supplying a
DirContextAuthenticationStrategy implementation to the ContextSource in the configuration.

8.1.3.1.1. TLS
Spring LDAP provides two different configuration options for LDAP servers requiring TLS secure channel
communication: DefaultTlsDirContextAuthenticationStrategy and
ExternalTlsDirContextAuthenticationStrategy. Both these implementations will negotiate a TLS channel
on the target connection, but they differ in the actual authentication mechanism. Whereas the
DefaultTlsDirContextAuthenticationStrategy will apply SIMPLE authentication on the secure channel
(using the specified userDn and password), the ExternalDirContextAuthenticationStrategy will use
EXTERNAL SASL authentication, applying a client certificate configured using system properties for
authentication.

Since different LDAP server implementations respond differently to explicit shutdown of the TLS channel
(some servers require the connection be shutdown gracefully; others do not support it), the TLS
DirContextAuthenticationStrategy implementations support specifying the shutdown behavior using the
shutdownTlsGracefully parameter. If this property is set to false (the default), no explicit TLS shutdown will
happen; if it is true, Spring LDAP will try to shutdown the TLS channel gracefully before closing the target
context.

Note
When working with TLS connections you need to make sure that the native LDAP Pooling
functionality is turned off. As of release 1.3, the default setting is off. For earlier versions, simply
set the pooled property to false. This is particularly important if shutdownTlsGracefully is set to
false. However, since the TLS channel negotiation process is quite expensive, great performance
benefits will be gained by using the Spring LDAP Pooling Support, described in Chapter 9,
Pooling Support.

8.1.3.2. Custom Principal and Credentials Management

While the user name (i.e. user DN) and password used for creating an authenticated Context are static by
default - the ones set on the ContextSource on startup will be used throughout the lifetime of the
ContextSource - there are however several cases in which this is not the desired behaviour. A common
scenario is that the principal and credentials of the current user should be used when executing LDAP
operations for that user. The default behaviour can be modified by supplying a custom AuthenticationSource
implementation to the ContextSource on startup, instead of explicitly specifying the userDn and password. The

Spring LDAP (1.3.0.RELEASE) 29

 Configuration

AuthenticationSource will be queried by the ContextSource for principal and credentials each time an
authenticated Context is to be created.

If you are using Spring Security you can make sure the principal and credentials of the currently logged in user
is used at all times by configuring your ContextSource with an instance of the
SpringSecurityAuthenticationSource shipped with Spring Security.

Example 8.1. The Spring bean definition for a SpringSecurityAuthenticationSource

<beans>
...
<bean id="contextSource" class="org.springframework.ldap.core.support.LdapContextSource">
<property name="url" value="ldap://localhost:389" />
<property name="base" value="dc=example,dc=com" />
<property name="authenticationSource" ref="springSecurityAuthenticationSource" />
</bean>

<bean id="springSecurityAuthenticationSource"
class="org.springframework.security.ldap.SpringSecurityAuthenticationSource" />
...
</beans>

Note
We don't specify any userDn or password to our ContextSource when using an
AuthenticationSource - these properties are needed only when the default behaviour is used.

Note
When using the SpringSecurityAuthenticationSource you need to use Spring Security's
LdapAuthenticationProvider to authenticate the users against LDAP.

8.1.3.3. Default Authentication

When using SpringSecurityAuthenticationSource, authenticated contexts will only be possible to create

once the user is logged in using Spring Security. To use default authentication information when no user is
logged in, use the DefaultValuesAuthenticationSourceDecorator:

Example 8.2. Configuring a DefaultValuesAuthenticationSourceDecorator

<beans>
...
<bean id="contextSource" class="org.springframework.ldap.core.support.LdapContextSource">
<property name="url" value="ldap://localhost:389" />
<property name="base" value="dc=example,dc=com" />
<property name="authenticationSource" ref="authenticationSource" />
</bean>

<bean id="authenticationSource"
class="org.springframework.ldap.authentication.DefaultValuesAuthenticationSourceDecorator">
<property name="target" ref="springSecurityAuthenticationSource" />
<property name="defaultUser" value="cn=myDefaultUser" />
<property name="defaultPassword" value="pass" />
</bean>

<bean id="springSecurityAuthenticationSource"
class="org.springframework.security.ldap.SpringSecurityAuthenticationSource" />
...
</beans>

Spring LDAP (1.3.0.RELEASE) 30

 Configuration

8.1.4. Native Java LDAP Pooling

The internal Java LDAP provider provides some very basic pooling capabilities. This LDAP connection
pooling can be turned on/off using the pooled flag on AbstractContextSource. The default value is false
(since release 1.3), i.e. the native Java LDAP pooling will be turned on. The configuration of LDAP connection
pooling is managed using System properties, so this needs to be handled manually, outside of the Spring
Context configuration. Details of the native pooling configuration can be found here.

Note
There are several serious deficiencies in the built-in LDAP connection pooling, which is why
Spring LDAP provides a more sophisticated approach to LDAP connection pooling, described in
Chapter 9, Pooling Support. If pooling functionality is required, this is the recommended approach.

8.1.5. Advanced ContextSource Configuration

8.1.5.1. Alternate ContextFactory

It is possible to configure the ContextFactory that the ContextSource is to use when creating Contexts using
the contextFactory property. The default value is com.sun.jndi.ldap.LdapCtxFactory.

8.1.5.2. Custom DirObjectFactory

As described in Chapter 3, Simpler Attribute Access and Manipulation with DirContextAdapter, a

DirObjectFactory can be used to translate the Attributes of found Contexts to a more useful DirContext
implementation. This can be configured using the dirObjectFactory property. You can use this property if you
have your own, custom DirObjectFactory implementation.

The default value is DefaultDirObjectFactory.

8.1.5.3. Custom DirContext Environment Properties

In some cases the user might want to specify additional environment setup properties in addition to the ones
directly configurable from AbstractContextSource. Such properties should be set in a Map and supplied to the
baseEnvironmentProperties property.

8.2. LdapTemplate Configuration

8.2.1. Ignoring PartialResultExceptions

Some Active Directory (AD) servers are unable to automatically following referrals, which often leads to a
PartialResultException being thrown in searches. You can specify that PartialResultException is to be
ignored by setting the ignorePartialResultException property to true.

Note
This causes all referrals to be ignored, and no notice will be given that a PartialResultException
has been encountered. There is currently no way of manually following referrals using
LdapTemplate.

Spring LDAP (1.3.0.RELEASE) 31

 Configuration

8.3. Obtaining a reference to the base LDAP path

As described above, a base LDAP path may be supplied to the ContextSource, specifying the root in the LDAP
tree to which all operations will be relative. This means that you will only be working with relative
distinguished names throughout your system, which is typically rather handy. There are however some cases in
which you will need to have access to the base path in order to be able to construct full DNs, relative to the
actual root of the LDAP tree. One example would be when working with LDAP groups (e.g. groupOfNames
objectclass), in which case each group member attribute value will need to be the full DN of the referenced
member.

For that reason, Spring LDAP has a mechanism by which any Spring controlled bean may be supplied the base
path on startup. For beans to be notified of the base path, two things need to be in place: First of all, the bean
that wants the base path reference needs to implement the BaseLdapPathAware interface. Secondly, a
BaseLdapPathBeanPostProcessor needs to be defined in the application context

Example 8.3. Implementing BaseLdapPathAware

package com.example.service;

public class PersonService implements PersonService, BaseLdapPathAware {

...
private DistinguishedName basePath;

public void setBaseLdapPath(DistinguishedName basePath) {

this.basePath = basePath;
}
...
private DistinguishedName getFullPersonDn(Person person) {
return new DistinguishedName(basePath).append(person.getDn());
}
...
}

Example 8.4. Specifying a BaseLdapPathBeanPostProcessor in your ApplicationContext

<beans>
...
<bean id="contextSource" class="org.springframework.ldap.core.support.LdapContextSource">
<property name="url" value="ldap://localhost:389" />
<property name="base" value="dc=example,dc=com" />
<property name="authenticationSource" ref="authenticationSource" />
</bean>
...
<bean class="org.springframework.ldap.core.support.BaseLdapPathBeanPostProcessor" />
</beans>

The default behaviour of the BaseLdapPathBeanPostProcessor is to use the base path of the single defined
BaseLdapPathSource (AbstractContextSource )in the ApplicationContext. If more than one
BaseLdapPathSource is defined, you will need to specify which one to use with the baseLdapPathSourceName
property.

Spring LDAP (1.3.0.RELEASE) 32

Chapter 9. Pooling Support

9.1. Introduction
Pooling LDAP connections helps mitigate the overhead of creating a new LDAP connection for each LDAP
interaction. While Java LDAP pooling support exists it is limited in its configuration options and features, such
as connection validation and pool maintenance. Spring LDAP provides support for detailed pool configuration
on a per- ContextSource basis.

Pooling support is provided by PoolingContextSource which can wrap any ContextSource and pool both
read-only and read-write DirContext objects. Jakarta Commons-Pool is used to provide the underlying pool
implementation.

9.2. DirContext Validation

Validation of pooled connections is the primary motivation for using a custom pooling library versus the JDK
provided LDAP pooling functionality. Validation allows pooled DirContext connections to be checked to
ensure they are still properly connected and configured when checking them out of the pool, in to the pool or
while idle in the pool

The DirContextValidator interface is used by the PoolingContextSource for validation and

DefaultDirContextValidator is provided as the default validation implementation.
DefaultDirContextValidator does a DirContext.search(String, String, SearchControls) , with an
empty name, a filter of "objectclass=*" and SearchControls set to limit a single result with the only the
objectclass attribute and a 500ms timeout. If the returned NamingEnumeration has results the DirContext
passes validation, if no results are returned or an exception is thrown the DirContext fails validation. The
DefaultDirContextValidator should work with no configuration changes on most LDAP servers and provide
the fastest way to validate the DirContext .

9.3. Pool Properties

The following properties are available on the PoolingContextSource for configuration of the DirContext pool.
The contextSource property must be set and the dirContextValidator property must be set if validation is
enabled, all other properties are optional.

Table 9.1. Pooling Configuration Properties

Parameter Default Description

contextSource null The ContextSource

implementation to get DirContext
s from to populate the pool.

dirContextValidator null The DirContextValidator

implementation to use when
validating connections. This is
required if testOnBorrow ,
testOnReturn , or testWhileIdle
options are set to true .

Spring LDAP (1.3.0.RELEASE) 33

 Pooling Support

Parameter Default Description

maxActive 8 The maximum number of active

connections of each type
(read-only|read-write) that can be
allocated from this pool at the
same time, or non-positive for no
limit.

maxTotal -1 The overall maximum number of

active connections (for all types)
that can be allocated from this pool
at the same time, or non-positive
for no limit.

maxIdle 8 The maximum number of active

connections of each type
(read-only|read-write) that can
remain idle in the pool, without
extra ones being released, or
non-positive for no limit.

minIdle 0 The minimum number of active

connections of each type
(read-only|read-write) that can
remain idle in the pool, without
extra ones being created, or zero to
create none.

maxWait -1 The maximum number of

milliseconds that the pool will wait
(when there are no available
connections) for a connection to be
returned before throwing an
exception, or non-positive to wait
indefinitely.

whenExhaustedAction 1 (BLOCK) Specifies the behaviour when the

pool is exhausted.

• The FAIL (0) option will throw

a NoSuchElementException
when the pool is exhausted.

• The BLOCK (1) option will wait

until a new object is available. If
maxWait is positive a
NoSuchElementException is
thrown if no new object is
available after the maxWait time
expires.

• The GROW (2) option will

create and return a new object
(essentially making maxActive

Spring LDAP (1.3.0.RELEASE) 34

 Pooling Support

Parameter Default Description

meaningless).

testOnBorrow false The indication of whether objects

will be validated before being
borrowed from the pool. If the
object fails to validate, it will be
dropped from the pool, and an
attempt to borrow another will be
made.

testOnReturn false The indication of whether objects

will be validated before being
returned to the pool.

testWhileIdle false The indication of whether objects

will be validated by the idle object
evictor (if any). If an object fails to
validate, it will be dropped from
the pool.

timeBetweenEvictionRunsMillis -1 The number of milliseconds to

sleep between runs of the idle
object evictor thread. When
non-positive, no idle object evictor
thread will be run.

numTestsPerEvictionRun 3 The number of objects to examine

during each run of the idle object
evictor thread (if any).

minEvictableIdleTimeMillis 1000 * 60 * 30 The minimum amount of time an

object may sit idle in the pool
before it is eligible for eviction by
the idle object evictor (if any).

9.4. Configuration
Configuring pooling should look very familiar if you're used to Jakarta Commons-Pool or Commons-DBCP.
You will first create a normal ContextSource then wrap it in a PoolingContextSource .

<beans>
...
<bean id="contextSource" class="org.springframework.ldap.pool.factory.PoolingContextSource">
<property name="contextSource" ref="contextSourceTarget" />
</bean>

<bean id="contextSourceTarget" class="org.springframework.ldap.core.support.LdapContextSource">

<property name="url" value="ldap://localhost:389" />
<property name="base" value="dc=example,dc=com" />
<property name="userDn" value="cn=Manager" />
<property name="password" value="secret" />
<property name="pooled" value="false"/>
</bean>
...

Spring LDAP (1.3.0.RELEASE) 35

 Pooling Support

</beans>

In a real world example you would probably configure the pool options and enable connection validation; the
above serves as an example to demonstrate the general idea.

Note
Ensure that the pooled property is set to false on any ContextSource that will be wrapped in a
PoolingContextSource . The PoolingContextSource must be able to create new connections
when needed and if pooled is set to true that may not be possible.

Note
You'll notice that the actual ContextSource gets an id with a "Target" suffix. The bean you will
actually refer to is the PoolingContextSource that wraps the target contextSource

9.4.1. Validation Configuration

Adding validation and a few pool configuration tweaks to the above example is straight forward. Inject a
DirContextValidator and set when validation should occur and the pool is ready to go.

<beans>
...
<bean id="contextSource" class="org.springframework.ldap.pool.factory.PoolingContextSource">
<property name="contextSource" ref="contextSourceTarget" />
<property name="dirContextValidator" ref="dirContextValidator" />
<property name="testOnBorrow" value="true" />
<property name="testWhileIdle" value="true" />
</bean>

<bean id="dirContextValidator"
class="org.springframework.ldap.pool.validation.DefaultDirContextValidator" />

<bean id="contextSourceTarget" class="org.springframework.ldap.core.support.LdapContextSource">

<property name="url" value="ldap://localhost:389" />
<property name="base" value="dc=example,dc=com" />
<property name="userDn" value="cn=Manager" />
<property name="password" value="secret" />
<property name="pooled" value="false"/>
</bean>
...
</beans>

The above example will test each DirContext before it is passed to the client application and test DirContext s
that have been sitting idle in the pool.

9.5. Known Issues

9.5.1. Custom Authentication

The PoolingContextSource assumes that all DirContext objects retrieved from

ContextSource.getReadOnlyContext() will have the same environment and likewise that all DirContext

Spring LDAP (1.3.0.RELEASE) 36

 Pooling Support

objects retrieved from ContextSource.getReadWriteContext() will have the same environment. This means
that wrapping a LdapContextSource configured with an AuthenticationSource in a PoolingContextSource
will not function as expected. The pool would be populated using the credentials of the first user and unless
new connections were needed subsequent context requests would not be filled for the user specified by the
AuthenticationSource for the requesting thread.

Spring LDAP (1.3.0.RELEASE) 37

Chapter 10. User Authentication using Spring LDAP
While the core functionality of the ContextSource is to provide DirContext instances for use by
LdapTemplate, it may also be used for authenticating users against an LDAP server. The
getContext(principal, credentials) method of ContextSource will do exactly that; construct a
DirContext instance according to the ContextSource configuration, authenticating the context using the
supplied principal and credentials.

Example 10.1. Using ContextSource for user authentication

public boolean authenticate(String userDn, String credentials) {

DirContext ctx = null;
try {
ctx = contextSource.getContext(userDn, credentials);

return true;
} catch (Exception e) {
// Context creation failed - authentication did not succeed
logger.error("Login failed", e);
return false;
} finally {
// It is imperative that the created DirContext instance is always closed
LdapUtils.closeContext(ctx);
}
}

Note
The userDn supplied to the authenticate method needs to be the full DN of the user to
authenticate (regardless of the base setting on the ContextSource). You will typically need to
perform an LDAP search based on e.g. the user name to get this DN:

Example 10.2. Finding a user based on uid attribute.

private String getDnForUser(String uid) {

Filter f = new EqualsFilter("uid", uid);
List result = ldapTemplate.search(DistinguishedName.EMPTY_PATH, f.toString(), new AbstractContextMapper() {
protected Object doMapFromContext(DirContextOperations ctx) {
return ctx.getNameInNamespace();
}
});

if(result.size() != 1) {
throw new RuntimeException("User not found or not unique");
}

return (String)result.get(0);
}

Note
Some authentication schemes and LDAP servers require some operation to be performed on the
created DirContext instance for the actual authentication to occur. You should test and make sure
how your server setup and authentication schemes behave; failure to do so might result in that users

Spring LDAP (1.3.0.RELEASE) 38

 User Authentication using Spring LDAP

will be admitted into your system regardless of the DN/credentials supplied.

Example 10.3. Performing LDAP operation on returned DirContext objects.

public boolean authenticate(String userDn, String credentials) {

DirContext ctx = null;
try {
ctx = contextSource.getContext(userDn, credentials);
// Take care here - if a base was specified on the ContextSource
// that needs to be removed from the user DN for the lookup to succeed.
ctx.lookup(userDn);

return true;
} catch (Exception e) {
// Context creation failed - authentication did not succeed
logger.error("Login failed", e);
return false;
} finally {
// It is imperative that the created DirContext instance is always closed
LdapUtils.closeContext(ctx);
}
}

Note
While the approach above may be sufficient for very simple authentication scenarios, requirements
in this area commonly expand rapidly. There is a multitude of aspects that apply to this area,
including authentication, authorization, web integration, user context management, etc. If you
suspect that the requirements might expand you should definitely consider using Spring Security
for your security purposes instead. It is a full-blown, mature security framework addressing the
above aspects as well as several others.

Spring LDAP (1.3.0.RELEASE) 39