diff --git a/dev-requirements.txt b/dev-requirements.txt
index f225f7a..f86aab0 100644
--- a/dev-requirements.txt
+++ b/dev-requirements.txt
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@ html5lib  # needed for beautifulsoup
 mock
 notebook
 pre-commit
+psutil
 pytest-asyncio
 pytest-cov
 pytest>=3.3
diff --git a/ldapauthenticator/ldapauthenticator.py b/ldapauthenticator/ldapauthenticator.py
index 4e3a809..b18a672 100644
--- a/ldapauthenticator/ldapauthenticator.py
+++ b/ldapauthenticator/ldapauthenticator.py
@@ -228,6 +228,15 @@ def _server_port_default(self):
         This can be useful in an heterogeneous environment, when supplying a UNIX username to authenticate against AD.
         """,
     )
+    secondary_uri = Unicode(
+        config=True,
+        default="",
+        help="""
+        Comma separated address:port of the LDAP server which can be tried to contact when
+        primary LDAP server is unavailable.
+
+        """,
+    )
 
     def resolve_username(self, username_supplied_by_user):
         search_dn = self.lookup_dn_search_user
@@ -305,8 +314,31 @@ def resolve_username(self, username_supplied_by_user):
         return (user_dn, response[0]["dn"])
 
     def get_connection(self, userdn, password):
+        try:
+            return self._get_real_connection(
+                userdn, password, self.server_address, self.server_port
+            )
+        except (
+            ldap3.core.exceptions.LDAPSocketOpenError,
+            ldap3.core.exceptions.LDAPBindError,
+            ldap3.core.exceptions.LDAPSocketReceiveError,
+        ):
+            for server, port in self._get_secondary_servers():
+                try:
+                    return self._get_real_connection(userdn, password, server, port)
+                except (
+                    ldap3.core.exceptions.LDAPSocketOpenError,
+                    ldap3.core.exceptions.LDAPBindError,
+                    ldap3.core.exceptions.LDAPSocketReceiveError,
+                ):
+                    continue
+            else:
+                # re-raise the last caught error
+                raise
+
+    def _get_real_connection(self, userdn, password, server_address, server_port):
         server = ldap3.Server(
-            self.server_address, port=self.server_port, use_ssl=self.use_ssl
+            server_address, port=server_port, use_ssl=self.use_ssl
         )
         auto_bind = (
             ldap3.AUTO_BIND_NO_TLS if self.use_ssl else ldap3.AUTO_BIND_TLS_BEFORE_BIND
@@ -316,6 +348,24 @@ def get_connection(self, userdn, password):
         )
         return conn
 
+    def _get_secondary_servers(self):
+        uri_list = self.secondary_uri.split(",")
+        for uri in uri_list:
+            server_port = uri.strip().split(":")
+            assert len(server_port) <= 2
+            if len(server_port) == 2:
+                try:
+                    port = int(server_port[1])
+                except ValueError:
+                    self.log.warning(
+                        "Invalid port in secondary uri %s, use default" % uri
+                    )
+                    port = self._server_port_default()
+            else:
+                port = self._server_port_default()
+
+            yield (server_port[0], port)
+
     def get_user_attributes(self, conn, userdn):
         attrs = {}
         if self.auth_state_attributes:
diff --git a/ldapauthenticator/tests/test_ldapauthenticator.py b/ldapauthenticator/tests/test_ldapauthenticator.py
index 6471213..ea2a993 100644
--- a/ldapauthenticator/tests/test_ldapauthenticator.py
+++ b/ldapauthenticator/tests/test_ldapauthenticator.py
@@ -1,4 +1,14 @@
 # Inspired by https://github.com/jupyterhub/jupyterhub/blob/master/jupyterhub/tests/test_auth.py
+import random
+
+import psutil
+
+
+def unused_port():
+    while True:
+        port = random.randint(1024, 65534)
+        if port not in psutil.net_connections():
+            return port
 
 
 async def test_ldap_auth_allowed(authenticator):
@@ -100,3 +110,26 @@ async def test_ldap_auth_state_attributes(authenticator):
     )
     assert authorized["name"] == "fry"
     assert authorized["auth_state"] == {"employeeType": ["Delivery boy"]}
+
+
+async def test_ldap_auth_redirects(authenticator):
+    # set non-available port
+    correct_server_port = "%s:%s" % (
+        authenticator.server_address,
+        authenticator._server_port_default(),
+    )
+    authenticator.server_port = unused_port()
+
+    async def _test_ldap_redirect(uri_pattern):
+        authenticator.secondary_uri = uri_pattern
+        authorized = await authenticator.get_authenticated_user(
+            None, {"username": "fry", "password": "fry"}
+        )
+        assert authorized["name"] == "fry"
+
+    await _test_ldap_redirect(correct_server_port)
+    await _test_ldap_redirect("unavailable,%s" % correct_server_port)
+    await _test_ldap_redirect("unavailable, %s" % correct_server_port)
+    await _test_ldap_redirect(
+        "unavailable:8080,localhost:8080,%s" % correct_server_port
+    )