Basicly speaking, LDAP is a network protocol that can be used to talk to Active Directory.
In Windows Servers, LDAP can be integrated as a feature along side AD, to add authentication/authorization scalability to the entire system.
It's so big a topic, I won't write about it.
Here are some good references to read about LDAP.
- LDAP Wiki
- LDAP Search Queries
- LDAP Windows Server Setup
- ldapsearch C Source Code
- ldapsearch Python Version
I set up LDAP in my own windows AD lab, and here is the equivalent search in ldp.exe.
And here is the TestUser I added. In the right panel, the added attribute that I added is also displayed.
References:
