The following functions are used to authenticate an LDAP client to an LDAP directory server. The ldap_sasl_bind() and ldap_sasl_bind_s() functions can be used to do general and extensible authentication over LDAP through the use of the Simple Authentication Security Layer. The functions both take the DN to bind as, the method to use, as a dotted-string representation of an OID identifying the method, and a struct berval holding the credentials. The special constant value LDAP_SASL_SIMPLE (NULL) can be passed to request simple authentication, or the simplified functions ldap_simple_bind() or ldap_simple_bind_s() can be used. int ldap_sasl_bind( LDAP *ld, const char *dn, const char *mechanism, const struct berval *cred, LDAPControl **serverctrls, LDAPControl **clientctrls, int *msgidp ); int ldap_sasl_bind_s( LDAP *ld, const char *dn, const char *mechanism, const struct berval *cred, LDAPControl **serverctrls, LDAPControl **clientctrls, struct berval **servercredp ); int ldap_simple_bind( LDAP *ld, const char *dn, const char *passwd ); int ldap_simple_bind_s( LDAP *ld, const char *dn, const char *passwd ); The use of the following functions is deprecated: int ldap_bind( LDAP *ld, char *dn, char *cred, int method ); int ldap_bind_s( LDAP *ld, char *dn, char *cred, int method ); Parameters are as follows: ld The session handle. dn The name of the entry to bind as. mechanism Either LDAP_SASL_SIMPLE (NULL) to get simple authentication, or a text string identifying the SASL method. cred The credentials with which to authenticate. Arbitrary credentials can be passed using this parameter. The format and content of the credentials depends on the setting of the mechanism parameter. passwd For ldap_simple_bind(), the password to compare to the entry's userPassword attribute. serverctrls List of LDAP server controls. clientctrls List of client controls. msgidp This result parameter will be set to the message id of the request if the ldap_sasl_bind() call succeeds. servercredp This result parameter will be filled in with the credentials passed back by the server for mutual authentication, if given. An allocated berval structure is returned that should be disposed of by calling ber_bvfree(). NULL may be passed to ignore this field. Additional parameters for the deprecated functions are not described. See the RFC 1823 documentation for more information. The ldap_sasl_bind() function initiates an asynchronous bind operation and returns the constant LDAP_SUCCESS if the request was successfully sent or another LDAP error code if not. See Errors for more information about possible errors and how to interpret them. If successful, ldap_sasl_bind() places the message id of the request in *msgidp. A subsequent call to ldap_ result() can be used to obtain the result of the bind. The ldap_simple_bind() function initiates a simple asynchronous bind operation and returns the message id of the operation initiated. A subsequent call to ldap_result() can be used to obtain the result of the bind. In case of error, ldap_simple_ bind() will return -1, setting the session error parameters in the LDAP structure appropriately. The synchronous ldap_sasl_bind_s() and ldap_simple_bind_s() functions both return the result of the operation, either the constant LDAP_SUCCESS if the operation was successful, or another LDAP error code if it was not. See Errors for more information about possible errors and how to interpret them. Note that if an LDAP Version 2 server is contacted, no other operations over the connection should be attempted before a bind call has successfully completed. Subsequent bind calls can be used to reauthenticate over the same connection, and multistep SASL sequences can be accomplished through a sequence of calls to ldap_sasl_bind() or ldap_sasl_ bind_s().