Query LDAP Objects through ODBC in Node.js

Node.js is a JavaScript runtime environment that allows you to run JavaScript code outside of a browser. With the CData ODBC Driver for LDAP, you can access live LDAP objects from Node.js apps and scripts. In this article, we walk through installing node-odbc and the required tools to create a simple Node.js app with access to live LDAP objects.

With built-in optimized data processing, the CData ODBC Driver offers unmatched performance for interacting with live LDAP objects in Node.js. When you issue complex SQL queries from Node.js to LDAP, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to LDAP and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations client-side (often SQL functions and JOIN operations).

Connecting to LDAP Objects

If you have not already done so, provide values for the required connection properties in the data source name (DSN). You can use the built-in Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to configure the DSN. This is also the last step of the driver installation. See the "Getting Started" chapter in the help documentation for a guide to using the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure a DSN.

To establish a connection, the following properties under the Authentication section must be provided:

• Valid User and Password credentials (e.g., Domain\BobF or cn=Bob F,ou=Employees,dc=Domain).
• Server information, including the IP or host name of the Server, as well as the Port.

• BaseDN: This will limit the scope of LDAP searches to the height of the distinguished name provided.

  Note: Specifying a narrow BaseDN may greatly increase performance; for example, cn=users,dc=domain will only return results contained within cn=users and its children.

Building node-odbc

In order to connect to LDAP through the CData ODBC Driver, you need to build node-odbc manually (after installing the required tools).

Installing the Required Tools

The following commands install the tools required to build node-odbc (note the -g parameter, which installs the tools globally).

npm i -g windows-build-tools
npm i -g node-gyp

Building node-odbc

After installing the required tools, create a directory for the Node.js app and install odbc (which builds the binary for us to use in our Node.js script).

mkdir nodeodbc
cd nodeodbc
npm i -g node

Querying LDAP from Node.js

With the ODBC Driver installed, a DSN Configured, and node-odbc built, we are ready to query live LDAP objects from a Node.js app. The sample code below connects to a specific DSN and queries the User table.

myscript.js

const odbc = require('odbc');

async function queryLDAP() {
    const connection = await odbc.connect(`DSN=CData LDAP Source`);
    const data = await connection.query('SELECT Id, LogonCount FROM User');
    console.log(data);
}

queryLDAP();

Once you write the app, use node to execute the script:

node myscript.js

Download a free, 30-day trial of the CData ODBC Driver for LDAP and start working with your live LDAP objects in Node.js. Reach out to our Support Team if you have any questions.