I can't install python-ldap

Question

When I run the following command:

sudo pip install python-ldap

I get this error:

In file included from Modules/LDAPObject.c:9:

Modules/errors.h:8: fatal error: lber.h: No such file or directory

How can I fix this?

Answer 1

The python-ldap is based on OpenLDAP, so you need to have the development files (headers) in order to compile the Python module. If you're on Ubuntu, the package is called libldap2-dev.

Debian/Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install libsasl2-dev python-dev-is-python3 libldap2-dev libssl-dev

Red Hat/CentOS:

sudo yum install python-devel openldap-devel

Answer 2

To install python-ldap successfully with pip, following development libraries are needed (package names taken from ubuntu environment):

sudo apt-get install -y python-dev libldap2-dev libsasl2-dev libssl-dev

Answer 3

On CentOS/RHEL 6, you need to install:

sudo yum install python-devel
sudo yum install openldap-devel

And YUM will also install cyrus-sasl-devel as a dependency. Then you can run:

pip-2.7 install python-ldap

Answer 4

"Don't blindly remove/install software"

In a Ubuntu or Debian-based distribution, you can use apt-file to find the name of the exact package that includes the missing header file.

# Do this once
sudo apt-get install apt-file
sudo apt-file update

---

apt-file search lber.h

Output:

libldap2-dev: /usr/include/lber.h

As you could see from the output of apt-file search lber.h, you'd just need to install the package libldap2-dev.

sudo apt-get install libldap2-dev

Answer 5

In Ubuntu it looks like this:

sudo apt-get install python-dev libldap2-dev libsasl2-dev libssl-dev
sudo pip install python-ldap

Answer 6

Windows: I completely agree with the accepted answer, but digging through the comments took a while to get to the meat of what I needed. I ran across this specific problem with Reviewboard on Windows using the Bitnami. To give an answer for Windows then, I used this link mentioned in the comments:

• Archived: Unofficial Windows Binaries for Python Extension Packages, Python-ldap
• placed that wheel (.whl file) into my reviewboard install directory

Then, executed the following commands

easy_install pip
pip install python_ldap-2.4.20-cp27-none_win32.whl

(because I had Python 2.7 and a 32-bit install at that)

easy_install python-ldap

Answer 7

For those having the same issue of missing Iber.h on Alpine Linux, in a Docker image that you are trying to adapt to Alpine for instance.

The package you are looking for is: openldap-dev

So run

apk add openldap-dev

Available from version 3.3 up to Edge.

Available for both armhf and x86_64 Architectures.

Answer 8

I had problems with the installation on Windows, so one of the solutions is to install the ldap package manually.

A few steps:

• Go to the page pyldap and download the latest version *whl.

• Open a console then cd to where you've downloaded your file like some-package.whl and use:

  pip install some-package.whl
  

The current version for pyldap is 2.4.45. On a concrete example the installation would be:

pip install .\pyldap-2.4.45-cp37-cp37m-win_amd64.whl

# Or
pip install .\python_ldap‑3.3.1‑cp39‑cp39‑win_amd64.whl

Output:

Installing collected packages: pyldap
Successfully installed pyldap-2.4.45

You can install the proper version for Python-3.X though using following command:

# If pip3 is the default pip alias for python-3
pip3 install python3-ldap

# Otherwise
pip install python3-ldap

Also here is the link of PiPy package for further information: python3-ldap 0.9.8.4

OR

ldap3 is a strictly RFC 4510 conforming LDAP V3 pure Python client library. The same codebase runs in Python 2, Python 3, PyPy and PyPy3: https://github.com/cannatag/ldap3

pip install ldap3

from ldap3 import Server, Connection, SAFE_SYNC

server = Server('my_server')
conn = Connection(server, 'my_user', 'my_password', client_strategy=SAFE_SYNC, auto_bind=True)

status, result, response, _ = conn.search('o=test', '(objectclass=*)')
# usually you don't need the original request (4th element of the returned tuple)

Answer 9

On Fedora 22, you need to do this instead:

sudo dnf install python-devel
sudo dnf install openldap-devel

Answer 10

As of December 2021 there was/is a strange problem with the ldap library (at least in Arch Linux/Manjaro).

While installing python-ldap (at 'Building wheel for python-ldap'), I got the message 'ERROR: Failed building wheel for python-ldap':

  /usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lldap_r
  collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
  error: command '/usr/bin/gcc' failed with exit code 1

A workaround is provided at Support for OpenLDAP 2.5+ #432.

I cite:

As a workaround create the file /usr/lib64/libldap_r.so with content INPUT ( libldap.so ). The approach works on all systems that use a GNU ld-compatible linker.

# cat > /usr/lib64/libldap_r.so << EOF
INPUT ( libldap.so )
EOF

Answer 11

For Alpine Docker:

apk add openldap-dev

If the Python version is 3 and above, try

pip install python3-ldap

Answer 12

Python 3 does not support python-ldap. Rather install ldap3.

Answer 13

On openSUSE you need to install the packages openldap2-devel, cyrus-sasl-devel, python-devel and libopenssl-devel.

zypper install openldap2-devel cyrus-sasl-devel python-devel libopenssl-devel

Answer 14

To correct the error due to dependencies to install the python-ldap: Windows 7 and Windows 10

Download the whl file from:

https://github.com/cgohlke/python-ldap-build (old link http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/#python-ldap no longer working as reported here)

Python 3.6 suit with

python_ldap-3.2.0-cp36-cp36m-win_amd64.whl

Deploy the file in:

C:\python36\Scripts\

Install it with:

python -m pip install python_ldap-3.2.0-cp36-cp36m-win_amd64.whl

Answer 15

For most systems, the build requirements are now mentioned in python-ldap's documentation, in the "Installing" section.

If anything is missing for your system (or your system is missing entirely), please let maintainer know! (As of 2018, I am the maintainer, so a comment here should be enough. Or you can send a pull request or mail.)

Answer 16

sudo apt-get install build-essential python3-dev python2.7-dev libldap2-dev libsasl2-dev slapd ldap-utils python-tox lcov valgrind

• Debian Reference: Build prerequisites, Debian

• For others: Installing python-ldap

Answer 17

For Arch Linux/Manjaro, for me, it helped with the following command:

yay libldap24

Answer 18

On OS X, you need the Xcode CLI tools. Just open a terminal and run:

xcode-select --install

Answer 19

In FreeBSD 11:

pkg install openldap-client # For lber.h
pkg install cyrus-sasl # If you need sasl.h
pip install python-ldap

Answer 20

Ubuntu

The package python-dev is deprecated or not longer available. You can use this instead:

sudo apt-get install libsasl2-dev python2-dev python2 python-dev-is-python3 libldap2-dev libssl-dev
pip install python-ldap

---Edit---

Answer 21

As a general solution to install Python packages with binary dependencies 1 on Debian/Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get build-dep python-ldap
# Installs system dependencies (but not the package itself)
pew workon my_virtualenv # Enter your virtualenv
pip install python-ldap

You'll have to check the name of your Python package on Ubuntu versus PyPI. In this case they're the same.

Obviously, it doesn't work if the Python package is not in the Ubuntu repositories.

[1] I learnt this trick when trying to pip install matplotlib on Ubuntu.

Answer 22

Also adding libzbar-dev during the installation of python-ldap when building Docker solved it for me.

The full command becomes:

apt-get install -y python-dev libldap2-dev libsasl2-dev libssl-dev libzbar-dev

Answer 23

You need to install libldap2-dev (sudo apt-get install libldap2-dev), but python-dev is also important. Remember to use the version you have (sudo apt-get install python3.8-dev or sudo apt-get install pythonX.X-dev)

Answer 24

A hack answer for FreeBSD 13.1 (yes, I know this is deep South of best practices, but I just needed a quick fix):

pkg install openldap24-client

cd /usr/local/include/python3.9
ln -s ../<all of the below> .

lber.h
lber_types.h
ldap.h
ldap_cdefs.h
ldap_features.h
ldap_schema.h
ldap_utf8.h
openldap.h
sasl

pip install python-ldap

Answer 25

Try:

ARCHFLAGS="-arch x86_64" pip3 install python-ldap

Answer 26

For those who are using Alpine Linux,

apk add openldap-dev

Answer 27

If you're working with Windows machines, you can find the 'python-ldap' wheel in this link and then you can install it.