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Trail: Java Naming and Directory Interface(TM).
Lesson: Advanced Topics for LDAP Users
Section: Security
Advanced Topics for LDAP Users
LDAP v3
JNDI as an LDAP API
How LDAP Operations Map to JNDI APIs
How LDAP Error Codes Map to JNDI Exceptions
Security
Modes of Authenticating to LDAP
Authentication Mechanisms
Anonymous
Simple
SASL
Digest-MD5
SSL and Custom Sockets
More LDAP Operations
LDAP Compare
Search Results
LDAP Unsolicited Notifications
Connection Management
Creation
Closing
Pooling
Configuration
Frequently Asked Questions
Home Page > Java Naming and Directory Interface(TM). > Advanced Topics for LDAP Users
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Anonymous

> As just stated, the default authentication mechanism is `"none"` if no authentication environment properties have been set. If the client sets the `Context.SECURITY_AUTHENTICATION` environment property to `"none"`, then the authentication mechanism is `"none"` and all other authentication environment properties are ignored. You would want to do this explicitly only to ensure that any other authentication properties that might have been set are ignored. In either case, the client will be treated as an anonymous client. This means that the server does not know or care who the client is and will allow the client to access (read and update) any data that has been configured to be accessible by any unauthenticated client.

> Because none of the directory examples in the Naming and Directory Operations lesson set any of the authentication environment properties, all of them use anonymous authentication.

> Here is an example that explicitly sets the `Context.SECURITY_AUTHENTICATION` property to `"none"` (even though doing this is not strictly necessary because that is the default).

> >     // Set up the environment for creating the initial context
> >     Hashtable env = new Hashtable();
> >     env.put(Context.INITIAL_CONTEXT_FACTORY,
> >         "com.sun.jndi.ldap.LdapCtxFactory");
> >     env.put(Context.PROVIDER_URL, "ldap://localhost:389/o=JNDITutorial");

> >     // Use anonymous authentication
> >     env.put(Context.SECURITY_AUTHENTICATION, "none");

> >     // Create the initial context
> >     DirContext ctx = new InitialDirContext(env);

> >     // ... do something useful with ctx

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