[active-directory] What are CN, OU, DC in an LDAP search?

I have a search query in LDAP like this. What exactly does this query mean?

("CN=Dev-India,OU=Distribution Groups,DC=gp,DC=gl,DC=google,DC=com");

I want to add somethings different from definitions of words. Most of them will be visual.

Technically, LDAP is just a protocol that defines the method by which directory data is accessed.Necessarily, it also defines and describes how data is represented in the directory service

Data is represented in an LDAP system as a hierarchy of objects, each of which is called an entry. The resulting tree structure is called a Directory Information Tree (DIT). The top of the tree is commonly called the root (a.k.a base or the suffix).

To navigate the DIT we can define a path (a DN) to the place where our data is (cn=DEV-India,ou=Distrubition Groups,dc=gp,dc=gl,dc=google,dc=com will take us to a unique entry) or we can define a path (a DN) to where we think our data is (say, ou=Distrubition Groups,dc=gp,dc=gl,dc=google,dc=com) then search for the attribute=value or multiple attribute=value pairs to find our target entry (or entries).

If you want to get more depth information, you visit here

At least with Active Directory, I have been able to search by DistinguishedName by doing an LDAP query in this format (assuming that such a record exists with this distinguishedName):

"(distinguishedName=CN=Dev-India,OU=Distribution Groups,DC=gp,DC=gl,DC=google,DC=com)"

What are CN, OU, DC?

From RFC2253 (UTF-8 String Representation of Distinguished Names):

String  X.500 AttributeType
------------------------------
CN      commonName
L       localityName
ST      stateOrProvinceName
O       organizationName
OU      organizationalUnitName
C       countryName
STREET  streetAddress
DC      domainComponent
UID     userid

What does the string from that query mean?

The string ("CN=Dev-India,OU=Distribution Groups,DC=gp,DC=gl,DC=google,DC=com") is a path from an hierarchical structure (DIT = Directory Information Tree) and should be read from right (root) to left (leaf).

It is a DN (Distinguished Name) (a series of comma-separated key/value pairs used to identify entries uniquely in the directory hierarchy). The DN is actually the entry's fully qualified name.

Here you can see an example where I added some more possible entries.
The actual path is represented using green.

The following paths represent DNs (and their value depends on what you want to get after the query is run):

• "DC=gp,DC=gl,DC=google,DC=com"
• "OU=Distribution Groups,DC=gp,DC=gl,DC=google,DC=com"
• "OU=People,DC=gp,DC=gl,DC=google,DC=com"
• "OU=Groups,DC=gp,DC=gl,DC=google,DC=com"
• "CN=QA-Romania,OU=Distribution Groups,DC=gp,DC=gl,DC=google,DC=com"
• "CN=Dev-India,OU=Distribution Groups,DC=gp,DC=gl,DC=google,DC=com"
• "CN=Diana Anton,OU=People,DC=gp,DC=gl,DC=google,DC=com"