The OpenLDAP libraries will return error 53 (Server unwilling to perform) when trying to re-bind to a non-anonymous account if you accidentally leave the password field blank. If you want to authenticate against a different field than the dn, you have to bind to the server twice. Your code may look like the following:<?function ldapLogin($uname, $pass, $base_dn, $fname, $server, $port){ $ldc=@ldap_connect($server, $port); if (!$ldc) return ERROR_CODE; $bn='cn=anonymous-user,'.$base_dn; $pw='anonymous-pass'; $lbind=@ldap_bind($ldc, $bn, $pw); if (!$lbind) return ERROR_CODE; $ureturn=@ldap_search($ldc, $base_dn, "($fname=$uname)", array('dn', 'givenName', 'sn', 'mail')); $uent=@ldap_first_entry($ldc, $ureturn); if (!$uent) return ERROR_CODE; $bn=@ldap_get_dn($ldc, $uent); //This line should use $pass rather than $password $lbind=@ldap_bind($ldc, $bn, $password); // Now you can find the error echo ldap_error($ltc); if ($lbind) return true; else return false;?>Hope this helps someone else running in to the same error.