This is not an PHP/ldap bug but a documentation problem it seems to me.

When using an URI to describe the connection, the (open)ldap library only parses the url and checks if it's valid, _no connection_ is established in that case.

Checking the return code of ldap_bind() would be the proper thing to do anyway.

Reverified during bughunt. From the user-comments:

"When using an URI to describe the connection, the (open)ldap library
only parses the url and checks if it's valid, _no connection_ is
established in that case."
-mfischer@php.net

mfischer@php.net suggests that "Checking the return code of ldap_bind() would be the proper thing to do anyway."  However, the act of calling ldap_bind generates an error message on the page, e.g.:

"Warning: LDAP: Unable to bind to server: Can't contact LDAP server in /home/shop/www/ldaps-1.php on line 8"

before any check can be made on the results of ldap_bind().  
We are trying to create our first secure ldap system, and the false-positive returns from ldap_connect() are making it difficult to track down problems.

Hello,

in php-4.30rcX, the ldap_connect doesn't perform the connection, so documentation should be updated.
But, the documention (on zend site) for ldap_connect is:

ldap_connect() establishes a connection to a LDAP server on a specified
hostname and port. Both the arguments are optional. --> If no arguments
are specified then the link identifier of the already opened link will
be returned. 

In my script i don't have any previous opened link, so i think the function would return FALSE. 
Or the documention is wrong and need correction.

<?php

$ds = ldap_connect ( );
echo $ds // return a valid ldap resource

?>


Sincerely

I have observed something like this (in php-4.30rc3):
The whole script:

<?
$ldaphost = "nonexistendserver";
$ldapport = 389;
$ldapconn = ldap_connect( $ldaphost, $ldapport ) 
          or die( "Could not connect to {$ldaphost}" );
echo $ldapconn; // display a valid ldap resource
?>

regards.

when using an ip address ldap_connect doesn't work as described.

$server = "10.1.1.100";
$port = "389";
    
$ds = ldap_connect($server, $port);

the result is true even if the server does not exist or the service is not running.

I cannot get ldap_connect() to return false under ANY conditions, including with the examples provided in this bug report.  I find this behavior impossible to document, please have another look at this.  Reclassifying -> ldap related.

Shouldn't these return false?  They are not URI's:
var_dump(ldap_connect('foo'));
var_dump(ldap_connect('does.not.exist'));

I get resources with both.  apache1.3.26/php4.4/openldap2.0.23

Please try using this CVS snapshot:

  http://snaps.php.net/php4-STABLE-latest.tar.gz
 
For Windows:
 
  http://snaps.php.net/win32/php4-win32-STABLE-latest.zip

With latest CVS it returns FALSE when appropriate, cannot replicate the problem.

Yes, I still get ldap resources everytime except when passing in "/" or a wrong parameter count.

When openldap 2.x is used, the ldap_connect() does not actually connect, it just initializes the connecting parameters. The actual connect happens with next calls
to ldap_* funcs, usually it is 'ldap_bind()'.

This is just documentation problem. Not any bug in code.

Rather anoying though since ldap_bind also fails when using a wrong password... only looking at bind fails doen't neccessarily mean, that the ldap server is down :(

This is not just a documentation problem.


Not only does 

  $ldap_connection = ldap_connect("does.not.exist")

return a resource id when it obviously shouldn't, but

  ldap_bind($ldap_connection, 'username', 'password')

also returns true.

If the actual connect occurs with ldap_bind(), why does it return true for a server that does not exist?


Regards.

So, is there a way to find whether the LDAP server is valid or not ?

Gopalan Sivathanu

I can't get ldap_connect to return false, even when I 
pass an invalid URI or an invalid hostname. At least, I 
think ".*&%^$ldap.central.susx.ac.uk" is an invalid 
host name, and so is "4". They both return ldap 
connection resources, though.

It is important, because I need to be able to test the 
hostname validity so that i know whether the problem 
with the host is that (a) it doesn't exist (b) it is 
down (c) the ldap service is down.

I was trying to test my code which supposed to tell me whether a LDAP server is alive and rechable or not. But no matter what IP address I specified in ldap_connect it returned a valid resource.

I found a way out by first pinging the server to know whether its alive and then trying to bind to know whether it is running LDAP.

My solution was to go one step further by using 'ldap_bind' to test the connection :
      $ds=ldap_connect("titi.tata.net");
      $r=@ldap_bind($ds,"cn=toto","tutu");
      if ($r) {
         bla bla bla
      }
      else die("LDAP server not accessed !");
The '@' before 'ldap_bind' disables Warning dysplay.

I added sniper's comments to the ldap_connect() docs but am leaving this bug report open until a doc member more familiar with LDAP can close out this bug.  Here's the commit:

http://cvs.php.net/diff.php/phpdoc/en/reference/ldap/functions/ldap-connect.xml?r1=1.4&r2=1.5

So there is no way if we are using OpenLDAP to 
distinguish betweeen:

* server is up and pingable
* LDAP server is running

?

Please delete my comment above.

I found the best solution for me was that I could test 
whether I could do ldap_start_tls($myconnection), and 
although this isn't perfect, works well enough for me 
and is almost equivalent to testing whether the server 
is available.