APEX_LDAP.AUTHENTICATE - using Microsoft Active Directory

Question

Application Express 4.1.1.00.23
Internet Explorer - 8
Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.2.0.3.0 - 64bit Production
Hi very new to Apex and trying to get the authenticaqtion to work against our active directory. I have setup an authentication scheme for my application chossing the schema type as LDAP Directory...my settings are as follows:
Host : ****
Port : 389
Use SSL: No SSL
Distinguished Name (DN) String : domain\%LDAP_USER%
Use Exact Distinguished Name (DN) : Yes
This works perfectly and authenticates the user against active directory. The problem is when I try do the following in the database as I really want to setup a custom authentication scheme, it just does not work.
Begin
IF apex_ldap.authenticate(
p_username => 'testusername',
p_password => 'testpassword',
p_search_base => 'domain\%LDAP_USER%',
p_host => '*****',
p_port => 389) THEN
dbms_output.put_line('True');
Else
dbms_output.put_line('False');
End If;
End;
No matter what I do this always returns false. I have created a function based on same code and created a custom authentication scheme that calls the function but I always get a false. Not sure why it works one way and not the other. Also would really appreciate if someone could help me get the code above to work or help correct it.
I have looked through the forum and tried many different search base strings but nothing seems to work.
Regards
Ash

Answer 1

Hi Ash,
Microsoft AD allows "domain\%LDAP_USER%" instead of a real distinguished name (DN), but this does not work with apex_ldap.authenticate. The authenticate function tries to create a DN from username and search base. It does not substitute the "%LDAP_USER%" pattern with the username. Based on the parameters I see in your example, it would try to authenticate with "cn=testusername,domain\%LDAP_USER%", which is clearly wrong, hence the authentication failure.
What you could do is use another package, although it's not in the official API docs, like this (untested):
Begin
    IF wwv_flow_custom_auth_ldap.authenticate(
           p_dn => 'domain\testusername',
           p_password => 'testpassword',
           p_ldap_host => '*****',
           p_ldap_port => 389)
    THEN
        dbms_output.put_line('True');
    Else
        dbms_output.put_line('False');
    End If;
End;Regards,
Christian