Managing Roles From the Command Line

Roles are defined in entries that the Directory Administrator can access through command-line utilities. After you create a role, you assign members to the role as follows:

• Members of a managed role have the nsRoleDN attribute in their entry.

• Members of a filtered role are entries that match the filter specified in the nsRoleFilter attribute.

• Members of a nested role are members of the roles that are specified in the nsRoleDN attributes of the nested role definition entry.

All role definitions inherit from the LDAPsubentry and nsRoleDefinition object classes. The following example shows additional object classes and associated attributes specific to each type of role.

Example of a Managed Role Definition

To create a role for all marketing staff, use the following ldapmodify command:

$ ldapmodify -a -h host1 -p 1389 -D cn=admin,cn=Administrators,cn=config -w -
dn: cn=Marketing,ou=marketing,ou=People,dc=example,dc=com
objectclass: top
objectclass: LDAPsubentry
objectclass: nsRoleDefinition
objectclass: nsSimpleRoleDefinition
objectclass: nsManagedRoleDefinition
cn: Marketing
description: managed role for marketing staff

Notice that the nsManagedRoleDefinition object class inherits from the LDAPsubentry, nsRoleDefinition, and nsSimpleRoleDefinition object classes.

Assign the role to a marketing staff member who is named Bob by updating his entry as follows:

$ ldapmodify -h host1 -p 1389 -D cn=admin,cn=Administrators,cn=config -w -
dn: cn=Bob Arnold,ou=marketing,ou=People,dc=example,dc=com
changetype: modify
add: nsRoleDN
nsRoleDN: cn=Marketing,ou=marketing,ou=People,dc=example,dc=com

The nsRoleDN attribute indicates that the entry is a member of a managed role. The managed role is identified by the DN of its role definition. To allow users to modify their own nsRoleDN attribute, but to prevent users from adding or removing the nsManagedDisabledRole, add the following ACI:

aci: (targetattr="nsRoleDN")(targattrfilters="add=nsRoleDN: 
(!(nsRoleDN=cn=AdministratorRole,dc=example,dc=com)), 
del=nsRoleDN:(!(nsRoleDN=cn=nsManagedDisabledRole,dc=example, dc=com)") 
(version3.0;aci "allow mod of nsRoleDN by self except for critical values"; 
allow(write) userdn="ldap:///self";)

Example of a Filtered Role Definition

To set up a filtered role for sales managers, assuming that they all have the isManager attribute, use the following ldapmodify command:

$ ldapmodify -a -h host1 -p 1389 -D cn=admin,cn=Administrators,cn=config -w -
dn: cn=ManagerFilter,ou=sales,ou=People,dc=example,dc=com
objectclass: top
objectclass: LDAPsubentry
objectclass: nsRoleDefinition
objectclass: nsComplexRoleDefinition
objectclass: nsFilteredRoleDefinition
cn: ManagerFilter 
nsRoleFilter: (isManager=True)
Description: filtered role for sales managers

Notice that the nsFilteredRoleDefinition object class inherits from the LDAPsubentry, nsRoleDefinition, and nsComplexRoleDefinition object classes. The nsRoleFilter attribute specifies a filter that finds all employees in the ou=sales organization that have subordinates, for example:

$ ldapsearch -h host1 -p 1389 -D cn=admin,cn=Administrators,cn=config -w - \
 -b "ou=People,dc=example,dc=com" -s sub "(cn=*Fuentes)"
dn: cn=Carla Fuentes,ou=sales,ou=People,dc=example,dc=comcn: Carla Fuentes 
isManager: TRUE...
nsRole: cn=ManagerFilter,ou=sales,ou=People,
dc=example,dc=com

The filter string of a filtered role can be based on any attribute, except computed attributes that are generated by the CoS mechanism.

When filtered role members are user entries, you can choose to restrict their ability to add or remove themselves from the role. Protect the filtered attributes with ACIs.

Example of a Nested Role Definition

The roles that are nested within the nested role are specified by using the nsRoleDN attribute. Use the following command to create a role that contains both the marketing staff and sales manager members of the roles created in the previous examples:

$ ldapmodify -a -h host1 -p 1389 -D cn=admin,cn=Administrators,cn=config -w -
dn: cn=MarketingSales,ou=marketing,ou=People,dc=example,dc=com
objectclass: top
objectclass: LDAPsubentry
objectclass: nsRoleDefinition
objectclass: nsComplexRoleDefinition
objectclass: nsNestedRoleDefinition
cn: MarketingSales
nsRoleDN: cn=ManagerFilter,ou=sales,ou=People,dc=example,dc=com
nsRoleDN: cn=Marketing,ou=marketing,ou=People,dc=example,dc=com
nsRoleScopeDN: ou=sales,ou=People,dc=example,dc=com

Notice that the nsNestedRoleDefinition object class inherits from the LDAPsubentry, nsRoleDefinition, and nsComplexRoleDefinition object classes. The nsRoleDN attributes contain the DN of the marketing managed role and the sales managers filtered role. Both of the users in the previous examples, Bob and Carla, would be members of this new nested role.

The scope of this filter includes the default scope, which is the subtree where the filter is located, and the subtree below any values of the nsRoleScopeDN attribute. In this case, the ManagerFilter is in the ou=sales,ou=People,dc=example,dc=com subtree. This subtree must be added to the scope.