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List:       perl-ldap-dev
Subject:    Re: Correct usage
From:       Peter Marschall <peter () adpm ! de>
Date:       2005-04-19 15:20:02
Message-ID: 200504191720.02563.peter () adpm ! de
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Hi Darren,

On Thursday 14 April 2005 03:43, Young, Darren wrote:
> I have a general question on how the first parts of the connect (the new()
> and bind()) calls should be used.
>
> The first question is on the usage of the new method. Now, I'm assuming
> that new() is actually trying to establish a connection to the server, so
> if that fails then the server is unavailable? The reason I ask is that we
> have several LDAP servers that I want to perform searches against, if one
> is down then move on to the next, if they're all down, explode.
>
> Is this the correct way to perform the new():
>
>     if ( $ldap = Net::LDAP->new($host, => timeout=>$timeout,
> version=>$ldapver)) { logmsg("$name: established LDAP connection to
> $host");
>     } else {
>         logmsg("$name: FAILED to estblish LDAP connection to $host");
>         return(0);
>     }

Correct new() either returns an object or undef. In the latter case the 
variable $@ gives more information about the error.

> Now, for the bind() call. Does it return true/false or do I need to
> evaluate the code() or error() from it? In the same code, I'm doing this:
>
>     if ( $mesg = $ldap->bind( $binddn, password => $bindpw ) ) {
>         logmsg("$name: successful bind to $conn");
>     } else {
>         logmsg("$name: FAILED to bind to LDAP server $conn as $binddn");
>         logmsg("$name: LDAP error code is " . $ldap->code);
>         logmsg("$name: LDAP error text is " . $ldap->error);
>         return(0);
>     }

This is wrong:
Simply do:
	$mesg = $ldap->bind( $binddn, password => $bindpw);

The bind() method returns an object no matter if the bind was successful
or not. This resulting object then needs to be checked to find out whether
the bind() was successful.

>     if ( $mesg->code ) {
>         logmsg("$name: FAILED to bind to $conn");
>         logmsg("$name: LDAP error is: " . $mesg->error);
>         return(0);
>     } else {
>         logmsg("$name: bind was successful");
>         logmsg("$name: performing search");
>     }

This is O.K. 

> Is the second part just overly redundant?

No, the first part was ;-)

Hope it helps
Peter
-- 
Peter Marschall
eMail: peter@adpm.de
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