OUD - How to Use Special Characters in "ldapsearch" Command Line Filters (Doc ID 1549790.1)

Last updated on JULY 19, 2023

Applies to:

Goal

The following use case is assumed:

1 - There is an end-user application which lets users create their profile in an OUD backend.

2 - This application doesn't prevent the use of special characters.

3 - The following Common Name (CN) gets created:
cn: Special\CharacterExample

(the special character in this example is "\")

4 - The LDAP Administrator wants to delete the entry with the CN above.

5 - When attempting to run a search with the asterisk character,  there were too many entries returned for the filter "cn=Special*CharacterExample".

6 - Using the special characters in the search filter triggers an error message:
===================================================================
$ ./ldapsearch -h <HOST> -p <PORT> -b "dc=<SUFFIX_DN>" "cn=Special\CharacterExample" cn givenName displayName
The provided search filter "cn=Special\CharacterExample" had an invalid escaped byte value at position 11.  A backslash in a value must be followed by two
hexadecimal characters that define the byte that has been encoded
===================================================================
 

Solution

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