title: How do I build this LDAP connection string?
body: <p>I'm trying to retrieve user information in Active Directory, but am finding some things to be poorly documented.  For example, the LDAP connection strings I have seen contain some keywords that I don't know the meaning of.  Here's a sample:</p>
  
  <pre><code>LDAP://ofmdcoly302.ofm.wa.lcl/ou=employees,dc=ofm,dc=wa
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>What are the keywords "ou" and "dc" supposed to signify?  In our case "ou=employees" seems to identify a particular AD node.  However when I try to do a .FindAll() on the above directory entry, I get "A referral was returned from the server". I guess that means it couldn't find what I was looking for, but it might be available somewhere else?  In one place I read "A referral is AD's way of saying, 'this object probably exists in another domain'".</p>
  
  <p>What are "ou" and "dc" supposed to mean?  And if I had this A/D structure, how would I code the LDAP connetion string to retrieve information in the "AR" node:</p>
  
  <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/jOxGH.png" alt="enter image description here"></p>