LDAP Search with winldap.h on AD Server

Question

I am trying to do a LDAP search and it is not working on my Active Directory Test Server. I use this code:

#include <winldap.h>
...
LDAP* ld = ldap_init("AD-servername", 389);
int myVersion =LDAP_VERSION3;
ldap_set_option(ld, LDAP_OPT_PROTOCOL_VERSION, &myVersion);
ldap_connect(ld, NULL);
//ldap_simple_bind_s(ld, NULL, NULL); I tried using this line too. but got the same error
LDAPMessage *pMsg = NULL;
int retVal = ldap_search_s(ld, "dc=myDomain,dc=extension", LDAP_SCOPE_SUBTREE, "(samAccountName=testaccount)", NULL, NULL, &pMsg);
//retVal = 1 which is LDAP_OPERATIONS_ERROR

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

Unless otherwise configured, you must bind using a valid account name and password for Microsoft Active Directory servers, otherwise it will return the operations error for all queries except a very small handful.

i.e. that:

ldap_simple_bind_s(ld, NULL, NULL);

Needs to be replaced with something like:

char *username = "cn=aUser,ou=Users,dc=myDomain,dc=extension";
char *password = "this is the password";
ldap_simple_bind_s(ld, username, password);