How to rename LDAP DN ?

Often a times I hear from my friends that they have a requirement to rename the user id in LDAP/Active Directory. They tried to modify the DN attribute directly but that does not help as DN is an operational attribute which can not be directly modified.

Correct approach is to call the rename API from JNDI and that takes care of the job. I am pasting a sample code ( changing the which I feel will help some one who is also looking for similar functionality.

public static boolean changeId(DirContext ctx, String p_oldID, String p_NewID)
{
String RETURN_ATTRIBUTES[] = { "uid","objectclass","modifytimestamp"};
String DN = null, LDAPuid = null ;
boolean status = true;
int i = 0;
Attribute attr = null;

String newid = "\"cn=" + p_NewID +",OU=Users,OU=Test\"";

String empNo = null;

try
{
// Make LDAP connection
//ModificationItem[] mods = new ModificationItem[1];
String SEARCH_FILTER = "(cn=" +p_oldID+")";

SearchControls constraints = new SearchControls();
String newline = System.getProperty("line.separator");
// Set search scope to subtree
constraints.setSearchScope(SearchControls.SUBTREE_SCOPE);
NamingEnumeration results = ctx.search("", SEARCH_FILTER, constraints);

while ( results != null && results.hasMore() )
{
//String s = "";
SearchResult sr = (SearchResult) results.next();
DN = sr.getName();
System.out.println("DN is" + DN);
i++;
Attributes attrs = ctx.getAttributes(DN, RETURN_ATTRIBUTES);

attr = attrs.get("uid");
LDAPuid = (String)attr.get();
System.out.println("UID is " + LDAPuid + newline);

ctx.rename(DN,newid);

System.out.println("Employee Number | New User ID");
// System.out.println(empNo + " " + p_NewID );

}
System.out.println("Total no of records are " + i);
System.out.println("Now changing the userid in LMS ....");


}

catch(Exception e)
{
System.out.println("In the exception block" );
e.printStackTrace();
return false;
}
return status;
}

Technorati : LDAP rename entry