LDAP Ramblings

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Revision as of 01:14, 11 January 2008 by Oborn (talk | contribs)
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Intro

On the IAC's user accessable Linux servers (Brems, web, Inca, backup) there is a need for centralized user authentication. With the addition of email users this need becomes critical. The proposed solution is to use OpenLDAP replicated across the mail servers for redundancy.

Clients

Linux Clients

Administrative users will retain entries in the local /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow files for troubleshooting access. All other users will exist in LDAP and will have individual server permissions.

Email Clients

Ideally email users can be accommodated without having local accounts. If this is not possible, the local shell can be set to disallow logins for security purposes.

Windows Clients

Currently not planned, but possible once the setup has been proven. This would allow users to log into any machine using their username and login. Only a select few machines (data aquisition etc.) would retain generic iacuser access.

LDAP Settings

Debian LDAP VM

  • Distinguished name of the search base:"dc=iac,dc=isu,dc=edu"
  • LDAP version 3
  • Priviledged account for libpam/libnss ldap: "cn=admin,dc=iac,dc=isu,dc=edu"
  • Need to modify /etc/nsswitch.conf to use the "ldap" datasource. Example file /usr/share/doc/libnss-ldap/examples/nsswitch.ldap

The following /etc/nsswitch lines: 

passwd:         compat
group:          compat
shadow:         compat
hosts:          files dns
netgroup:       nis

will be changed to: 

passwd:         files ldap
group:          files ldap
#shadow line removed (only needed for pre-nsswitch compat programs?)
hosts:          files dns ldap
netgroup:       files ldap

SUSE Test

  • Base DN: dc=iac, dc=isu, dc=edu
  • Root DN: cn=Administrator, Append Base DN=true
  • Default Policy Object DN: cn=Default Password Policy, Append Base DN=true

The rest of the schema was set up by the SUSE tools SUSE /etc/nsswitch.conf file has the following relevent lines: 

passwd:        compat
group:	        files ldap
services:      files ldap #probably not needed
netgroup:	files ldap
aliases:	files ldap
passwd_compat:	ldap

The line "passwd: ldap" should be able to replace the 2 passwd lines as long as you're not using the "+" NIS notation in the /etc/passwd file?

Multimaster Replication

  • Requires ntp time syncronization between replication servers.
  • Only works with OpenLDAP 2.4 (not available in current Debian/Ubuntu/SUSE repositories)
  • Probably not needed with our very infrequent writes

Resources

Books

Websites

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