Certificate-Based Client Authentication

When establishing encrypted connections over SSL or TLS, you can also configure the server to require client authentication. The client must send its credentials to the server to confirm the identity of the user. The user's certificate, not the DN, is used to determine the bind DN. Client authentication protects against user impersonation and is the most secure type of connection.

Certificate-based client authentication operates at the SSL, TLS layer only. To use a certificate-based authentication ID with LDAP, you must use SASL EXTERNAL authentication after establishing the SSL connection.

You can configure certificate-based client authentication by using the dsconf get-server-prop command. See dsconf(1M) for more information.