Configure an External LDAP Server

You can configure an LDAP server for user validation and to fetch user groups.

LDAP supports three modes for fetching the roles assigned to a user.

The role is available as an attribute in the user Distinguished Name (DN) entry. Group attribute definition is not needed.
The user has a "memberOf" attribute or any appropriate group DN attribute to identify the groups assigned to the user. Assign the corresponding LDAP group to a role in XCO.
LDAP groups have user entries in their group definitions. Assign the LDAP groups to roles in XCO.

Note

If you configure LDAP server over SSL, and use IP to connect to the server, ensure that the certificate includes the IP as part of the subject alternative names (SANs) for a successful connection.

For more information about commands and supported parameters, see ExtremeCloud Orchestrator Command Reference, 3.4.0 .

Basic Configuration


Attribute	Description	Default Value
name	Unique identifier for LDAP configuration in XCO.	-
host	IPv4 or IPv6 Address/Hostname of the LDAP server.	-
port	Port at which the LDAP server is listening for connections.	389
timeout	Duration in number of seconds before considering the server unreachable.	5
bind-user-name	Distinguished Name (DN) of the user that should be used to bind, search, and retrieve LDAP entries.	-
bind-user-password	Password of the bind user.

TLS Configuration


Attribute	Description	Default Value
tls	Use LDAP over SSL/TLS.	-
cacert	Local path to the CA certificate file for SSL verification.	-
insecuretls	Option to skip certificate validation while connecting to the LDAP server	false

Authentication


Attribute	Description	Default Value
user-search-base	Distinguished Name of the node in your directory tree from which to start searching for user objects.	-
user-object-base	Name of the object class used for user objects.	inetOrgPerson
user-login-attribute	Attribute whose value matches the username part of credentials entered by your users when logging in.	uid

Examples

To enable LDAP for authentication in XCO with OpenLDAP, use the following command:

efa auth ldapconfig add --name ldap_xco --host 10.x.x.x --bind-user-name cn=ldapuser,dc=xxx,dc=com 
--bind-user-password ******* --user-search-base ou=people,dc=xxx,dc=com

To enable LDAP for authentication in XCO with Windows AD, use the following command:

efa auth ldapconfig add --name ldap_winad --host 10.x.x.x --bind-user-name CN=ldapuser,CN=Users,DC=xxx,DC=com 
--bind-user-password ******* --user-search-base CN=Users,DC=xxx,DC=com --user-object-class user 
--user-login-attribute sAMAccountName

To use the same configuration with TLS enabled:

efa auth ldapconfig add --name ldap_winad --host 10.x.x.x –-tls –-cacert root-ca.pem --bind-user-name 
CN=ldapuser,CN=Users,DC=xxx,DC=com --bind-user-password ******* --user-search-base CN=Users,DC=xxx,DC=com 
--user-object-class user --user-login-attribute sAMAccountName

To skip certificate verification over the encrypted connection, use the following command:

efa auth ldapconfig add --name ldap_winad --host 10.x.x.x –-tls –-cacert root-ca.pem --insecuretls 
--bind-user-name CN=ldapuser,CN=Users,DC=xxx,DC=com --bind-user-password ******* 
--user-search-base CN=Users,DC=xxx,DC=com --user-object-class user --user-login-attribute sAMAccountName

Authorization

There are multiple ways to define authorization for authenticated users.

Assign roles to users using LDAP groups when users hold group membership details:

Table 1.
Attribute	Description	Default Value
user-member-attribute	Attribute to read the member of the group the user is part of.	-

Example

In Windows AD, if the user has an attribute ‘memberOf‘ which gives the groups that he belongs to, then define ‘user-member-attribute‘

efa auth ldapconfig add --name ldap_winad --host 10.x.x.x --bind-user-name 
CN=ldapuser,CN=Users,DC=xxx,DC=com --bind-user-password ******* 
--user-search-base CN=Users,DC=xxx,DC=com --user-object-class user 
--user-login-attribute sAMAccountName –-user-member-attribute memberOf

These groups should be mapped to XCO roles using the role mapping command.

efa auth rolemapping add --name CN=NMSAdmins,CN=Users,DC=etsuklab,DC=com --role SystemAdmin 
--type group --auth-type LDAP --auth-identifier ldap_winad

Assign roles for multiple groups, if required.

Assign roles to users using LDAP groups when the groups are in a different search base:


Attribute	Description	Default Value
group-search-base	Distinguished Name of the node in your directory tree from which to start searching for group objects.	-
group-object-class	object class used for group objects.	groupOfNames
group-attribute	Attribute to define search filter on group.	cn
group-member-user-attribute	Name of the user attribute whose format matches the group members.	entrydn
group-member-mapping-attribute	Name of the group attribute containing the members of a group.	member

efa auth ldapconfig add --name ldap_xco --host 10.x.x.x --bind-user-name cn=ldapuser,dc=xxx,dc=com 
--bind-user-password ******* --user-search-base ou=people,dc=xxx,dc=com --group-search-base 
ou=groups,dc=extrnet,dc=com

To override the defaults for different LDAP:

efa auth ldapconfig add --name ldap_xco --host 10.x.x.x --bind-user-name cn=ldapuser,dc=xxx,dc=com 
--bind-user-password ******* --user-search-base ou=people,dc=xxx,dc=com --group-search-base 
ou=groups,dc=extrnet,dc=com --group-member-user-attribute dn --group-member-mapping-attribute memberUid --group-object-class posixGroup

Assign the required roles for the groups in XCO using the role mapping command.

Assign roles to user from a custom attribute and XCO role defined with a key/value pair:


Attribute	Description	Default Value
user-role-attribute	Attribute to read the role of user from.	-
user-role-attribute-key	Attribute to read the role value from role attribute.	-

efa auth ldapconfig add --name ldap1 --host 10.x.x.x --bind-user-name cn=admin,dc=extrnet,dc=com 
--bind-user-password ******* --user-search-base ou=people,dc=extrnet,dc=com 
--user-role-attribute role --user-role-attribute-key  rolename

Here role is the custom schema defined in LDAP as an attribute for user and the rolename is where it holds the XCO role in LDAP.

The role attribute for the user entry in LDAP has the value of rolename:SystemAdmin,rolename:FabricAdmin

To defines roles in XCO and skip authorization in LDAP, add the required role for each user:

efa auth rolemapping add --name=testuser --role=FabricAdmin --type=user --auth-type=ldap 
--auth-identifier=ldap_xco