Chapter 18       LDAP Authentication Attributes


The LDAP Authentication attributes are organization attributes. The values applied to them under Service Configuration become the default values for the LDAP Authentication template. The service template needs to be created after registering the service for the organization. The default values can be changed after registration by the organization's administrator. Organization attributes are not inherited by entries in the organization. The LDAP Authentication attributes are:

• Primary LDAP Server and Port

• Secondary LDAP Server and Port

• DN to Start User Search

• DN for Root User bind

• Password for Root User Bind

• Password For Root User Bind (Confirm)

• User Naming Attribute

• User Entry Search Attributes

• User Search Filter

• Search Scope

• Enable SSL to LDAP Server

• Return User DN To Auth

• Authentication Level

Primary LDAP Server and Port

This field specifies the host name and port number of the primary LDAP server specified during Identity Server installation. This is the first server contacted for LDAP authentication. The format is hostname:port. (If there is no port number, assume 389.) Multiple entries must be prefixed by the local server name.

Secondary LDAP Server and Port

This field specifies the host name and port number of a secondary LDAP server available to the Identity Server platform. If the primary LDAP server does not respond to a request for authentication, this server would then be contacted. If this server goes down, Identity Server will switch back to the primary server. The format is also hostname:port. Multiple entries must be prefixed by the local server name.

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Caution

When authenticating users from a Directory Server that is remote from the Identity Server enterprise, it is important that both the Primary and Secondary LDAP Server Ports have values. The value for one Directory Server location can be used for both fields.

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DN to Start User Search

This field specifies the DN of the node where the search for a user would start. (For performance reasons, this DN should be as specific as possible.) The default value is the root of the directory tree. Any valid DN will be recognized. Multiple entries must be prefixed by the local server name.

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Note	If multiple users match the same search, authentication will fail.

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DN for Root User bind

This field specifies the DN of the user that will be used to bind to the Directory Server specified in the Primary LDAP Server and Port field as administrator. The authentication service needs to bind as this DN in order to search for a matching user DN based on the user login ID. There is no default value. Any valid DN will be recognized.

Password for Root User Bind

This field carries the password for the administrator profile specified in the DN for Root User Bind field. There is no default value. Only the administrator's valid LDAP password will be recognized.

Password For Root User Bind (Confirm)

Confirmation of the password.

User Naming Attribute

After successful authentication by a user, the user's profile is retrieved. The value of this attribute is used to perform the search. The field specifies the LDAP attribute to use. By default, Identity Server assumes that user entries are identified by the uid attribute. If your Directory Server uses a different attribute (such as givenname) specify the attribute name in this field.

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Note	The user search filter will be a combination of the Search Filter attribute and the User Entry Naming Attribute.

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User Entry Search Attributes

This field lists the attributes to be used to form the search filter for a user that is to be authenticated, and allows the user to authenticate with more than one attribute in the user's entry. For example, if this field is set to uid, employeenumber and mail, the user could authenticate with any of these names.

User Search Filter

This field specifies an attribute to be used to find the user under the DN to Start User Search field. It works with the User Entry Naming Attribute. There is no default value. Any valid user entry attribute will be recognized.

Search Scope

This menu indicates the number of levels in the Directory Server that will be searched for a matching user profile. The search begins from the node specified in the attribute "DN to Start User Search". The default value is SUBTREE. One of the following choices can be selected from the list:

• OBJECT - Searches only the specified node

• ONELEVEL - Searches at the level of the specified node and one level down

• SUBTREE - Search all entries at and below the specified node

Enable SSL to LDAP Server

This option enables SSL access to the Directory Server specified in the Primary and Secondary LDAP Server and Port field. By default, the box is not checked and the SSL protocol will not be used to access the Directory Server.

Return User DN To Auth

When the Identity Server directory is the same as the directory configured for LDAP, this option may be enabled. If enabled, this option allows the LDAP authentication module to return the DN instead of the userId, and no search is necessary. Normally, an authentication module returns only the userId, and the authentication service searches for the user in the local Identity Server LDAP. If an external LDAP directory is used, this option is typically not enabled.

Authentication Level

The authentication level is set separately for each method of authentication. The value indicates how much to trust an authentication. Once a user has authenticated, this value is stored in the SSO token for the session. When the SSO token is presented to an application the user wants to access, the application uses the stored value to determine whether the level is sufficient to grant the user access. (The value in this attribute is not specifically used by Identity Server but by any external application that may chose to use it.) If the authentication level stored in an SSO token does not meet the minimum value required, the application can prompt the user to authenticate again through a service with a higher authentication level. The default value is 0, the lowest authentication level.

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Note	If no authentication level is specified, the SSO token stores the value specified in the Core Authentication attribute Default Auth Level. See "Default Auth Level" for details.

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