Editing Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (section)

==URI scheme==
An LDAP [[Uniform resource identifier|uniform resource identifier (URI)]] scheme exists, which clients support in varying degrees, and servers return in referrals and continuation references (see RFC 4516):

 ldap://host:port/DN?attributes?scope?filter?extensions

Most of the components described below are optional.
* ''host'' is the [[FQDN]] or IP address of the LDAP server to search.
* ''port'' is the [[network port]] (default port 389) of the LDAP server.
* ''DN'' is the distinguished name to use as the search base.
* ''attributes'' is a comma-separated list of attributes to retrieve.
* ''scope'' specifies the search scope and can be "base" (the default), "one" or "sub".
* ''filter'' is a search filter. For example, <code>(objectClass=*)</code> as defined in RFC 4515.
* ''extensions'' are extensions to the LDAP URL format.

For example, "<code>ldap://ldap.example.com/cn=John%20Doe,dc=example,dc=com</code>" refers to all user attributes in John Doe's entry in <code>ldap.example.com</code>, while "<code>ldap:///dc=example,dc=com??sub?(givenName=John)</code>" searches for the entry in the default server (note the triple slash, omitting the host, and the double question mark, omitting the attributes).  As in other URLs, special characters must be [[percent-encoded]].

There is a similar non-standard <code>ldaps</code> URI scheme for LDAP over SSL. This should not be confused with LDAP with TLS, which is achieved using the StartTLS operation using the standard <code>ldap</code> scheme.