Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)
To understand Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) you must first understand directory services. This article defines directory services and how LDAP structures the entries in a directory service. Pay attention to the basic LDAP components such as attributes, entries, and data information trees (DITs). How does LDAP organize data, and what is LDAP inheritance? Note that there are some variations in LDAP protocols.
Basic LDAP Data Components
Attributes
The data itself in an LDAP system is mainly stored in elements called attributes. Attributes are basically key-value pairs. Unlike in some other systems, the keys have predefined names which are dictated by the objectClasses selected for entry (we'll discuss this in a bit). Furthermore, the data in an attribute must match the type defined in the attribute's initial definition.
Setting the value for an attribute is done with the attribute name and the attribute value separated by a colon and a space. An example of an attribute called mail, which defines an email address would look like this:
mail: admin@example.com
When referring to an attribute and its data (when not setting it), the two sides are instead joined by an equals sign:
mail=example.comThe attribute values contain most of the actual data you want to store and access in an LDAP system. The other elements within LDAP are used for structure, organization, etc.