Enable and disable anonymous access

This section briefly describes how to enable anonymous access, a feature which is not enabled by default, but quite often requested by users.

Anonymous access to the server is disabled by default. All clients have to provide their name (distinguished name) and password in order to bind to the directory service. If you use the server standalone configured with a server.xml file, you can enable anonymous binds by changing the value for property allowAnonymousAccess in the Spring bean definition for bean aapcheDS, as depicted in the following fragment:

  <apacheDS id="apacheDS"
            synchPeriodMillis="15000"
            allowAnonymousAccess="true">

    <directoryService>#directoryService</directoryService>
    <ldapService>#ldapService</ldapService>
    <ldapsService>#ldapsService</ldapsService>
  </apacheDS>

A restart of the server is necessary for this change to take effect. Learn more about authentication option in the corresponding section of this guide here.