LDAP Bind failure for user... Can't contact LDAP server [#99009]

Was using ldap://my_ldap_server (port 389) and TLS without an issue until I was told that was only for testing. For production, I now have to use ldaps://my_ldap_server (port 636) and SSL without TLS. Now, I cannot bind with my service account. I'm able to run ldapsearch on the same system (using ldaps://) that Drupal is running on, and ldapsearch works fine. ldap.conf file is same.

I did a tcpdump trace and found that the drupal ldap module doesn't seem to be sending a SSLv2 "Client Hello," which is the first packet after the TCP handshake using ldapsearch. Drupal seems to send a SSL "Continuation Data" packet, instead of the client hello.

Comments

Comment #1

sammys commented 26 November 2006 at 03:04

I've stumbled on this myself. I was also getting the same problem with NSS authentication. Fixing the NSS problem seemed to assist with the LDAP module. My fix was to add 'TLS_REQCERT never' to the /etc/ldap/ldap.conf file (on linux/Debian sarge).

After that i've been having login problems with the bind process failing intermittantly. I'm trying to find the source of the problem.

--
Sammy Spets
Synerger
http://synerger.com

Comment #2

sammys commented 26 November 2006 at 03:35

Thought it might be useful to add what I mean by intermittant.

I've managed to get the bind working occasionally by playing around with the settings:

Store passwords in encrypted form
Password for non-anonymous search

Kind of weird I know... but that's how it is!

Comment #3

js1 commented 27 November 2006 at 02:05

My fix was to add 'TLS_REQCERT never' to the /etc/ldap/ldap.conf file

Just checked... and that's in my ldap.conf file...

Comment #4

js1 commented 28 November 2006 at 23:12

Priority:

Normal

» Critical

Hmm... I'm wondering now if this is a PHP problem. I'm running some test scripts found on the php.net site for the ldap_bind() function, and it doesn't seem to send a SSLv2 "client hello" packet, either. I've tested the sample script on php4 and php5.

Comment #5

ssteinem commented 29 November 2006 at 16:19

I'm having to configure my drupal instance with ldap / SSL the same way mentioned above with the only exception that I run drupal on Windows 2003. ldapsearch works fine.
Does anybody know where I have to place the ldap.conf file? Do I need this file? Using SYSINTERNALS-Tools I found no request for such a file.
My error message is:
LDAP Bind failure for user uid=.... . Error 81: Can't contact LDAP server.
Netmon shoes about 16 tcp packages being exchanged before it stops. I don't know if php does not find the certificates for the ldap server. Does Windows (oder IIS) tell php dll where to look for the cert?
Thanks

Comment #6

js1 commented 30 November 2006 at 19:59

Priority:

Critical

» Minor

Figured it out... under settings->ldapauth->Server Settings, the LDAP Server should be ldaps://your_ldap_server and set LDAP port to be 636. Apparently, to use SSL, you have to explicitly state the ldaps:// protocol. I apologize for my confusion.