Oracle Fusion Middleware Reference for Oracle Directory Server Enterprise Edition

Searching the Directory With ldapsearch

You can use the ldapsearch command-line utility to locate and retrieve directory entries. Note that the ldapsearch utility described in this section is not the utility provided with the Solaris platform, but is part of the Directory Server Resource Kit.

This utility opens a connection to the server with a specified a user identity (usually a distinguished name) and password, and locates entries based on a search filter. Search scopes can include a single entry, an entry’s immediate subentries, or an entire tree or subtree.

Search results are returned in LDIF format.

ldapsearch Command-Line Format

When you use ldapsearch, you must enter the command using the following format:

ldapsearch [optional_options] [search_filter] [optional_list_of_attributes]

where


Note –

If you want operational attributes returned as a result of a search operation, you must explicitly specify them in the search command. To retrieve regular attributes in addition to explicitly specified operational attributes, use an asterisk (*) in the list of attributes in the ldapsearch command.


Using Special Characters

When using the ldapsearch command-line utility, you may need to specify values that contain characters that have special meaning to the command-line interpreter (such as space [ ], asterisk [*], backslash [\\], and so forth). When you specify special characters, enclose the value in quotation marks (“”). For example:

-D "cn=Charlene Daniels,ou=People,dc=example,dc=com"

Depending on your command-line interpreter, use either single or double quotation marks for this purpose. Refer to your shell documentation for more information.