title: ssl connection from an openLDAP client to an IBM LDAP
body: <p>I've got problems connecting secure (SSL) to an IBM LDAP server using an openLDAP client.</p>
  
  <p>A connection like the following, which is not using SSL works fine:</p>
  
  <pre><code>ldapsearch -h &lt;LDAP server host name&gt; -D &lt;bind dn&gt; -w ? -b &lt;base dn&gt; &lt;filter&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But when I add the -Z option to use a secure LDAP connection (SSL) like shown in the following ldapsearch an error occours:</p>
  
  <pre><code>ldapsearch -h &lt;LDAP server host name&gt; -Z -D &lt;bind dn&gt; -w ? -b &lt;base dn&gt; &lt;filter&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The error says:</p>
  
  <pre><code>ldap_simple_bind: Can't contact LDAP server
  Attempted communication over SSL.
    The extended error is 116.
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Here I found out that I have to add ssl start_tls to the clients configuration file (ldap.conf) to enable SSL in openLDAP: <a href="http://www.openldap.org/faq/data/cache/185.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.openldap.org/faq/data/cache/185.html</a></p>
  
  <p>After reading the description above I'm not sure if the author is dealing with an openLDAP client and an openLDAP server and if this is the only change that have to be made to make the connection work.</p>
  
  <p>Does anybody here know if it is possible to connect from an openLDAP client to an IBM LDAP server using an SSL connection?</p>
  
  <p>Does anybody have experience with this topic?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks a lot!</p>