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<article lang="en">
<articleinfo>
<title>LDAP Authentication</title>
<authorgroup>
<author>
<firstname>Toby</firstname>
<surname>Burress</surname>
<affiliation>
<address><email>kurin@causa-sui.net</email></address>
</affiliation>
</author>
</authorgroup>
<copyright>
<year>2007</year>
<year>2008</year>
<holder>The FreeBSD Documentation Project</holder>
</copyright>
<legalnotice id="trademarks" role="trademarks">
&tm-attrib.freebsd;
&tm-attrib.general;
</legalnotice>
<pubdate>$FreeBSD$</pubdate>
<releaseinfo>$FreeBSD$</releaseinfo>
<abstract>
<para>This document is intended as a guide for the configuration
of an LDAP server (principally an <application>OpenLDAP</application>
server) for authentication on &os;. This is useful for situations
where many servers need the same user accounts, for example as a
replacement for <application>NIS</application>.</para>
</abstract>
</articleinfo>
<sect1 id="preface">
<title>Preface</title>
<para>This document is intended to give the reader enough of an
understanding of LDAP to configure an LDAP server. This document will
attempt to provide an
explanation of <filename role="package">net/nss_ldap</filename>
and <filename role="package">security/pam_ldap</filename> for use with
client machines services for use with the LDAP server.</para>
<para>When finished, the reader should be able to configure and
deploy a &os; server that can host an LDAP directory, and to
configure and deploy a &os; server which can authenticate against
an LDAP directory.</para>
<para>This article is not intended to be an exhaustive account of
the security, robustness, or best practice considerations for
configuring LDAP or the other services discussed herein. While the author
takes care to do everything correctly, he does not
address security issues beyond a general scope. This article should be
considered to lay the theoretical groundwork only, and any actual
implementation should be accompanied by careful requirement
analysis.</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="ldap">
<title>Configuring LDAP</title>
<para>LDAP stands for <quote>Lightweight Directory Access
Protocol</quote> and is a subset of the X.500 Directory Access
Protocol. Its most recent specifications are in <ulink
url="http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4510.txt">RFC4510</ulink> and
friends. Essentially it is a database that expects to be read from
more often than it is written to.</para>
<para>The LDAP server <ulink
url="http://www.openldap.org/">OpenLDAP</ulink> will be used in the
examples in this document; while the principles here should be
generally applicable to many different servers, most of the
concrete administration is
<application>OpenLDAP</application>-specific. There are several
server versions in ports, for example <filename
role="package">net/openldap24-server</filename>. Client servers
will need the corresponding <filename
role="package">net/openldap24-client</filename> libraries.</para>
<para>There are (basically) two areas of the LDAP service which need
configuration. The first is setting up a server to receive
connections properly, and the second is adding entries to the
server's directory so that &os; tools know how to interact with it.</para>
<sect2 id="ldap-connect">
<title>Setting Up the Server for Connections</title>
<note>
<para>This section is specific to
<application>OpenLDAP</application>. If you are using another
server, you will need to consult that server's
documentation.</para>
</note>
<sect3 id="ldap-connect-install">
<title>Installing <application>OpenLDAP</application></title>
<para>First, install <application>OpenLDAP</application>:</para>
<example id="oldap-install">
<title>Installing <application>OpenLDAP</application></title>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>cd /usr/ports/net/openldap24-server</userinput>
&prompt.root; make install clean</screen>
</example>
<para>This installs the <command>slapd</command> and
<command>slurpd</command> binaries, along with the required
<application>OpenLDAP</application> libraries.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3 id="ldap-connect-config">
<title>Configuring <application>OpenLDAP</application></title>
<para>Next we must configure
<application>OpenLDAP</application>.</para>
<para>You will want to require encryption in your
connections to the LDAP server; otherwise your users' passwords
will be transferred in plain text, which is considered
insecure. The tools we will be using support two very similar kinds
of encryption, SSL and TLS.</para>
<para>TLS stands for <quote>Transportation Layer Security</quote>.
Services that employ TLS tend to connect on the
<emphasis>same</emphasis> ports as the same services without
TLS; thus an SMTP server which supports TLS will listen for
connections on port 25, and an LDAP server will listen on 389.</para>
<para>SSL stands for <quote>Secure Sockets Layer</quote>, and
services that implement SSL do <emphasis>not</emphasis> listen on
the same ports as their non-SSL counterparts. Thus SMTPS listens
on port 465 (not 45), HTTPS listens on 443, and LDAPS on
636.</para>
<para>The reason SSL uses a different port than TLS is because a
TLS connection begins as plain text, and switches to encrypted
traffic after the <literal>STARTTLS</literal> directive. SSL
connections are encrypted from the beginning. Other than that
there are no substantial differences between the two.</para>
<note>
<para>We will adjust
<application>OpenLDAP</application> to use TLS, as SSL is
considered deprecated.</para>
</note>
<para>Once <application>OpenLDAP</application> is installed via
ports, the following configuration parameters in
<filename>/usr/local/etc/openldap/slapd.conf</filename> will
enable TLS:</para>
<programlisting>security ssf=128
TLSCertificateFile /path/to/your/cert.crt
TLSCertificateKeyFile /path/to/your/cert.key
TLSCACertificateFile /path/to/your/cacert.crt</programlisting>
<para>Here, <literal>ssf=128</literal> tells
<application>OpenLDAP</application> to require 128-bit
encryption for all connections, both search and update. This
parameter may be configured based on the security needs of your
site, but rarely you need to weaken it, as most LDAP client
libraries support strong encryption.</para>
<para>The <filename>cert.crt</filename>,
<filename>cert.key</filename>, and
<filename>cacert.crt</filename> files are necessary for clients
to authenticate <emphasis>you</emphasis> as the valid LDAP
server. If you simply want a server that runs, you can create a
self-signed certificate with OpenSSL:</para>
<example id="genrsa">
<title>Generating an RSA key</title>
<screen>&prompt.user; <userinput>openssl genrsa -out cert.key 1024</userinput>
Generating RSA private key, 1024 bit long modulus
....................++++++
...++++++
e is 65537 (0x10001)
&prompt.user; <userinput>openssl req -new -key cert.key -out cert.csr</userinput></screen>
</example>
<para>At this point you should be prompted for some values. You
may enter whatever values you like; however, it is important the
<quote>Common Name</quote> value be the fully qualified domain
name of the <application>OpenLDAP</application> server.
In our case, and the examples here, the server is
<replaceable>server.example.org</replaceable>.
Incorrectly setting this value will cause clients to fail when
making connections. This can the
cause of great frustration, so ensure that you follow these
steps closely.</para>
<para>Finally, the certificate signing request needs to be
signed:</para>
<example id="self-sign">
<title>Self-signing the certificate</title>
<screen>&prompt.user; <userinput>openssl x509 -req -in cert.csr -days 365 -signkey cert.key -out cert.crt</userinput>
Signature ok
subject=/C=AU/ST=Some-State/O=Internet Widgits Pty Ltd
Getting Private key</screen>
</example>
<para>This will create a self-signed certificate that can be
used for the directives in <filename>slapd.conf</filename>,
where <filename>cert.crt</filename> and
<filename>cacert.crt</filename> are the same file. If you are
going to use many <application>OpenLDAP</application> servers
(for replication via <literal>slurpd</literal>) you will want to
see <xref linkend="ssl-ca"/> to generate a CA key and use it to
sign individual server certificates.</para>
<para>Once this is done, put the following in
<filename>/etc/rc.conf</filename>:</para>
<programlisting>slapd_enable="YES"</programlisting>
<para>Then run <userinput>/usr/local/etc/rc.d/slapd
start</userinput>. This should start
<application>OpenLDAP</application>. Confirm that it is
listening on 389 with</para>
<screen>&prompt.user; <userinput>sockstat -4 -p 389</userinput>
ldap slapd 3261 7 tcp4 *:389 *:*</screen>
</sect3>
<sect3 id="ldap-connect-client">
<title>Configuring the Client</title>
<para>Install the <filename
role="package">net/openldap24-client</filename> port for the
<application>OpenLDAP</application> libraries. The client
machines will always have <application>OpenLDAP</application>
libraries since that is all <filename
role="package">security/pam_ldap</filename> and <filename
role="package">net/nss_ldap</filename> support, at least for the
moment.</para>
<para>The configuration file for the
<application>OpenLDAP</application> libraries is
<filename>/usr/local/etc/openldap/ldap.conf</filename>. Edit
this file to contain the following values:</para>
<programlisting>base dc=example,dc=org
uri ldap://server.example.org/
ssl start_tls
tls_cacert /path/to/your/cacert.crt</programlisting>
<note>
<para>It is important that your clients have access to
<filename>cacert.crt</filename>, otherwise they will not be
able to connect.</para>
</note>
<note>
<para>There are two files called
<filename>ldap.conf</filename>. The first is this file, which
is for the <application>OpenLDAP</application> libraries and
defines how to talk to the server. The second is
<filename>/usr/local/etc/ldap.conf</filename>, and is for
<application>pam_ldap</application>.</para>
</note>
<para>At this point you should be able to run
<userinput>ldapsearch -Z</userinput> on the client machine;
<option>-Z</option> means <quote>use TLS</quote>. If you
encounter an error, then something is configured wrong; most
likely it is your certificates. Use &man.openssl.1;'s
<command>s_client</command> and <command>s_server</command> to
ensure you have them configured and signed properly.</para>
</sect3>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="ldap-database">
<title>Entries in the Database</title>
<para>Authentication against an LDAP directory is generally
accomplished by attempting to bind to the directory as the connecting user.
This is done by establishing a <quote>simple</quote>
bind on the directory with the user name supplied. If there is an
entry with the <literal>uid</literal> equal to the user name and
that entry's <literal>userPassword</literal> attribute matches the
password supplied, then the bind is successful.</para>
<para>The first thing we have to do is figure out is where in the
directory our users will live.</para>
<para>The base entry for our database is
<literal>dc=example,dc=org</literal>. The default location for
users that most clients seem to expect is something like
<literal>ou=people,<replaceable>base</replaceable></literal>, so
that is what will be used here. However keep in mind that this is
configurable.</para>
<para>So the ldif entry for the <literal>people</literal>
organizational unit will look like:</para>
<programlisting>dn: ou=people,dc=example,dc=org
objectClass: top
objectClass: organizationalUnit
ou: people</programlisting>
<para>All users will be created as subentries of this
organizational unit.</para>
<para>Some thought might be given to the object class your users
will belong to. Most tools by default will use
<literal>people</literal>, which is fine if you simply want to
provide entries against which to authenticate. However, if you
are going to store user information in the LDAP database as well,
you will probably want to use <literal>inetOrgPerson</literal>,
which has many useful attributes. In either case, the relevant
schemas need to be loaded in
<filename>slapd.conf</filename>.</para>
<para>For this example we will use the <literal>person</literal>
object class. If you are using <literal>inetOrgPerson</literal>,
the steps are basically identical, except that the
<literal>sn</literal> attribute is required.</para>
<para>To add a user <literal>testuser</literal>, the ldif would
be:</para>
<programlisting>dn: uid=tuser,ou=people,dc=example,dc=org
objectClass: person
objectClass: posixAccount
objectClass: shadowAccount
objectClass: top
uidNumber: 10000
gidNumber: 10000
homeDirectory: /home/tuser
loginShell: /bin/csh
uid: tuser
cn: tuser</programlisting>
<para>I start my LDAP users' UIDs at 10000 to avoid collisions with
system accounts; you can configure whatever number you wish here,
as long as it's less than 65536.</para>
<para>We also need group entries. They are as configurable as
user entries, but we will use the defaults below:</para>
<programlisting>dn: ou=groups,dc=example,dc=org
objectClass: top
objectClass: organizationalUnit
ou: groups
dn: cn=tuser,ou=groups,dc=example,dc=org
objectClass: posixGroup
objectClass: top
gidNumber: 10000
cn: tuser</programlisting>
<para>To enter these into your database, you can use
<command>slapadd</command> or <command>ldapadd</command>
on a file containing these entries. Alternatively, you can use
<filename role="package">sysutils/ldapvi</filename>.</para>
<para>The <command>ldapsearch</command> utility on the client machine
should now return these entries. If it does, your database is
properly configured to be used as an LDAP authentication server.</para>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="client">
<title>Client Configuration</title>
<para>The client should already have
<application>OpenLDAP</application> libraries from <xref
linkend="ldap-connect-client"/>, but if you are installing several
client machines you will need to install <filename
role="package">net/openldap24-client</filename> on each of
them.</para>
<para>&os; requires two ports to be installed to authenticate
against an LDAP server, <filename
role="package">security/pam_ldap</filename> and <filename
role="package">net/nss_ldap</filename>.</para>
<sect2 id="client-auth">
<title>Authentication</title>
<para><filename role="package">security/pam_ldap</filename> is
configured via <filename>/usr/local/etc/ldap.conf</filename>.</para>
<note>
<para>This is a <emphasis>different file</emphasis> than the
<application>OpenLDAP</application> library functions'
configuration file,
<filename>/usr/local/etc/openldap/ldap.conf</filename>; however,
it takes many of the same options; in fact it is a superset of
that file. For the rest of this section, references to
<filename>ldap.conf</filename> will mean
<filename>/usr/local/etc/ldap.conf</filename>.</para>
</note>
<para>Thus, we will want to copy all of our original
configuration parameters from
<filename>openldap/ldap.conf</filename> to the new
<filename>ldap.conf</filename>. Once this is done, we want to
tell <filename role="package">security/pam_ldap</filename> what to
look for on the directory server.</para>
<para>We are identifying our users with the <literal>uid</literal>
attribute. To configure this (though it is the default), set the
<literal>pam_login_attribute</literal> directive in
<filename>ldap.conf</filename>:</para>
<example id="set-pam-login-attr">
<title>Setting <literal>pam_login_attribute</literal></title>
<programlisting>pam_login_attribute uid</programlisting>
</example>
<para>With this set, <filename
role="package">security/pam_ldap</filename> will search the entire
LDAP directory under <literal>base</literal> for the value
<literal>uid=<replaceable>username</replaceable></literal>. If it
finds one and only one entry, it will attempt to bind as that user
with the password it was given. If it binds correctly, then it
will allow access. Otherwise it will fail.</para>
<sect3 id="client-auth-pam">
<title>PAM</title>
<para>PAM, which stands for <quote>Pluggable Authentication
Modules</quote>, is the method by which &os; authenticates most
of its sessions. To tell &os; we wish to use an LDAP server, we
will have to add a line to the appropriate PAM file.</para>
<para>Most of the time the appropriate PAM file is
<filename>/etc/pam.d/sshd</filename>, if you want to use
<application>SSH</application> (remember to set the relevant
options in <filename>/etc/ssh/sshd_config</filename>, otherwise
<application>SSH</application> will not use PAM).</para>
<para>To use PAM for authentication, add the line</para>
<programlisting>auth sufficient /usr/local/lib/pam_ldap.so no_warn</programlisting>
<para>Exactly where this line shows up in the file and which
options appear in the fourth column determine the exact behavior
of the authentication mechanism; see &man.pam.d.5;</para>
<para>With this configuration you should be able to authenticate
a user against an LDAP directory.
<application>PAM</application> will perform a bind with your
credentials, and if successful will tell
<application>SSH</application> to allow access.</para>
<para>However it is not a good idea to allow
<emphasis>every</emphasis> user in the directory into
<emphasis>every</emphasis> client machine. With the
current configuration, all that a user needs to log into a
machine is an LDAP entry. Fortunately there are a few ways to
restrict user access.</para>
<para><filename>ldap.conf</filename> supports a
<literal>pam_groupdn</literal> directive; every account that
connects to this machine needs to be a member of the group
specified here. For example, if you have</para>
<programlisting>pam_groupdn cn=servername,ou=accessgroups,dc=example,dc=org</programlisting>
<para>in <filename>ldap.conf</filename>, then only members of
that group will be able to log in. There are a few things to
bear in mind, however.</para>
<para>Members of this group are specified in one or more
<literal>memberUid</literal> attributes, and each attribute must
have the full distinguished name of the member. So
<literal>memberUid: someuser</literal> will not work; it must
be:</para>
<programlisting>memberUid: uid=someuser,ou=people,dc=example,dc=org</programlisting>
<para>Additionally, this directive is not checked in PAM during
authentication, it is checked during account management, so you
will need a second line in your PAM files under
<literal>account</literal>. This will require, in turn,
<emphasis>every</emphasis> user to be listed in the group, which
is not necessarily what we want. To avoid blocking users that
are not in LDAP, you should enable the
<literal>ignore_unknown_user</literal> attribute. Finally, you
should set the <literal>ignore_authinfo_unavail</literal> option
so that you are not locked out of every computer when the LDAP
server is unavailable.</para>
<para>Your <filename>pam.d/sshd</filename> might then end up
looking like this:</para>
<example id="pam">
<title>Sample <filename>pam.d/sshd</filename></title>
<programlisting>auth required pam_nologin.so no_warn
auth sufficient pam_opie.so no_warn no_fake_prompts
auth requisite pam_opieaccess.so no_warn allow_local
auth sufficient /usr/local/lib/pam_ldap.so no_warn
auth required pam_unix.so no_warn try_first_pass
account required pam_login_access.so
account required /usr/local/lib/pam_ldap.so no_warn ignore_authinfo_unavail ignore_unknown_user</programlisting>
</example>
<note>
<para>Since we are adding these lines specifically to
<filename>pam.d/sshd</filename>, this will only have an effect
on <application>SSH</application> sessions. LDAP users will
be unable to log in at the console. To change this behavior,
examine the other files in <filename>/etc/pam.d</filename> and
modify them accordingly.</para>
</note>
</sect3>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="client-nss">
<title>Name Service Switch</title>
<para><application>NSS</application> is the service that maps
attributes to names. So, for example, if a file is owned by user
<literal>1001</literal>, an application will query
<application>NSS</application> for the name of
<literal>1001</literal>, and it might get <literal>bob</literal>
or <literal>ted</literal> or whatever the user's name is.</para>
<para>Now that our user information is kept in LDAP, we need to
tell <application>NSS</application> to look there when
queried.</para>
<para>The <filename role="package">net/nss_ldap</filename> port
does this. It uses the same configuration file as <filename
role="package">security/pam_ldap</filename>, and should not need
any extra parameters once it is installed. Instead, what is left
is simply to edit <filename>/etc/nsswitch.conf</filename> to take
advantage of the directory. Simply replace the following
lines:</para>
<programlisting>group: compat
passwd: compat</programlisting>
<para>with</para>
<programlisting>group: files ldap
passwd: files ldap</programlisting>
<para>This will allow you to map usernames to UIDs and UIDs to
usernames.</para>
<para>Congratulations! You should now have working LDAP
authentication.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="caveats">
<title>Caveats</title>
<para>Unfortunately, as of the time this was written &os; did not
support changing user passwords with &man.passwd.1;. Because of
this, most administrators are left to implement a solution
themselves. I provide some examples here. Note that if you write
your own password change script, there are some security issues
you should be made aware of; see <xref
linkend="security-passwd"/></para>
<example id="chpw-shell">
<title>Shell script for changing passwords</title>
<programlisting><![CDATA[#!/bin/sh
stty -echo
read -p "Old Password: " oldp; echo
read -p "New Password: " np1; echo
read -p "Retype New Password: " np2; echo
stty echo
if [ "$np1" != "$np2" ]; then
echo "Passwords do not match."
exit 1
fi
ldappasswd -D uid="$USER",ou=people,dc=example,dc=org \
-w "$oldp" \
-a "$oldp" \
-s "$np1"]]></programlisting>
</example>
<caution>
<para>This script does hardly any error checking, but more
important it is very cavalier about how it stores your
passwords. If you do anything like this, at least adjust
the <literal>security.bsd.see_other_uids</literal>
sysctl value:</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>sysctl security.bsd.see_other_uids=0</userinput>.</screen>
</caution>
<para>A more flexible (and probably more secure) approach can be
used by writing a custom program, or even a web interface. The
following is part of a <application>Ruby</application> library
that can change LDAP passwords. It sees use both on the command
line, and on the web.</para>
<example id="chpw-ruby">
<title>Ruby script for changing passwords</title>
<programlisting><![CDATA[require 'ldap'
require 'base64'
require 'digest'
require 'password' # ruby-password
ldap_server = "ldap.example.org"
luser = "uid=#{ENV['USER']},ou=people,dc=example,dc=org"
# get the new password, check it, and create a salted hash from it
def get_password
pwd1 = Password.get("New Password: ")
pwd2 = Password.get("Retype New Password: ")
raise if pwd1 != pwd2
pwd1.check # check password strength
salt = rand.to_s.gsub(/0\./, '')
pass = pwd1.to_s
hash = "{SSHA}"+Base64.encode64(Digest::SHA1.digest("#{pass}#{salt}")+salt).chomp!
return hash
end
oldp = Password.get("Old Password: ")
newp = get_password
# We'll just replace it. That we can bind proves that we either know
# the old password or are an admin.
replace = LDAP::Mod.new(LDAP::LDAP_MOD_REPLACE | LDAP::LDAP_MOD_BVALUES,
"userPassword",
[newp])
conn = LDAP::SSLConn.new(ldap_server, 389, true)
conn.set_option(LDAP::LDAP_OPT_PROTOCOL_VERSION, 3)
conn.bind(luser, oldp)
conn.modify(luser, [replace])]]></programlisting>
</example>
<para>Although not guaranteed to be free of security holes (the
password is kept in memory, for example) this is cleaner and more
flexible than a simple <command>sh</command> script.</para>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="secure">
<title>Security Considerations</title>
<para>Now that your machines (and possibly other services) are
authenticating against your LDAP server, this server needs to be
protected at least as well as
<filename>/etc/master.passwd</filename> would be on a regular
server, and possibly even more so since a broken or cracked LDAP
server would break every client service.</para>
<para>Remember, this section is not exhaustive. You should
continually review your configuration and procedures for
improvements.</para>
<sect2 id="secure-readonly">
<title>Setting attributes read-only</title>
<para>Several attributes in LDAP should be read-only. If left
writable by the user, for example, a user could change his
<literal>uidNumber</literal> attribute to <literal>0</literal> and
get <username>root</username> access!</para>
<para>To begin with, the <literal>userPassword</literal> attribute
should not be world-readable. By default, anyone who can connect
to the LDAP server can read this attribute. To disable this, put
the following in <filename>slapd.conf</filename>:</para>
<example id="hide-userpass">
<title>Hide passwords</title>
<programlisting>access to dn.subtree="ou=people,dc=example,dc=org"
attrs=userPassword
by self write
by anonymous auth
by * none
access to *
by self write
by * read</programlisting>
</example>
<para>This will disallow reading of the
<literal>userPassword</literal> attribute, while still allowing
users to change their own passwords.</para>
<para>Additionally, you'll want to keep users from changing some
of their own attributes. By default, users can change any
attribute (except for those which the LDAP schemas themselves deny
changes), such as <literal>uidNumber</literal>. To close this
hole, modify the above to</para>
<example id="attrib-readonly">
<title>Read-only attributes</title>
<programlisting>access to dn.subtree="ou=people,dc=example,dc=org"
attrs=userPassword
by self write
by anonymous auth
by * none
access to attrs=homeDirectory,uidNumber,gidNumber
by * read
access to *
by self write
by * read</programlisting>
</example>
<para>This will stop users from being able to masquerade as other
users.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="secure-root">
<title><username>Root</username> account definition</title>
<para>Often the <username>root</username> or manager account for
the LDAP service will be defined in the configuration file.
<application>OpenLDAP</application> supports this, for example,
and it works, but it can lead to trouble if
<filename>slapd.conf</filename> is compromised. It may be better
to use this only to bootstrap yourself into LDAP, and then define
a <username>root</username> account there.</para>
<para>Even better is to define accounts that have limited
permissions, and omit a <username>root</username> account entirely.
For example, users to can add or remove user accounts are added to
one group, but they cannot themselves change the membership of
this group. Such a security policy would help mitigate the effects
of a leaked password.</para>
<sect3 id="manager-acct">
<title>Creating a management group</title>
<para>Say you want your IT department to be able to change home
directories for users, but you don't want all of them to be able
to add or remove users. The way to do this is to add a group
for these admins:</para>
<example id="manager-acct-dn">
<title>Creating a management group</title>
<programlisting>dn: cn=homemanagement,dc=example,dc=org
objectClass: top
objectClass: posixGroup
cn: homemanagement
gidNumber: 121 # required for posixGroup
memberUid: uid=tuser,ou=people,dc=example,dc=org
memberUid: uid=user2,ou=people,dc=example,dc=org</programlisting>
</example>
<para>And then change the permissions attributes in
<filename>slapd.conf</filename>:</para>
<example id="management-acct-acl">
<title>ACLs for a home directory management group</title>
<programlisting>access to dn.subtree="ou=people,dc=example,dc=org"
attr=homeDirectory
by dn="cn=homemanagement,dc=example,dc=org"
dnattr=memberUid write</programlisting>
</example>
<para>Now <username>tuser</username> and <username>user2</username>
can change other users' home directories.</para>
<para>In this example we've given a subset of administrative
power to certain users without giving them power in other
domains. The idea is that soon no single user account has the
power of a <username>root</username> account, but every power
root had is had by at least one user. The <username>root</username>
account then becomes unnecessary and can be removed.</para>
</sect3>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="security-passwd">
<title>Password storage</title>
<para>By default <application>OpenLDAP</application> will store
the value of the <literal>userPassword</literal> attribute as it
stores any other data: in the clear. Most of the time it is base
64 encoded, which provides enough protection to keep an honest
administrator from knowing your password, but little else.</para>
<para>It is a good idea, then, to store passwords in a more secure
format, such as SSHA (salted SHA). This is done by whatever
program you use to change users' passwords.</para>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<appendix id="useful">
<title>Useful Aids</title>
<para>There are a few other programs that might be useful,
particularly if you have many users and do not want to configure
everything manually.</para>
<para><filename role="package">security/pam_mkhomedir</filename> is
a PAM module that always succeeds; its purpose is to create home
directories for users which do not have them. If you have dozens of
client servers and hundreds of users, it is much easier to use this
and set up skeleton directories than to prepare every home
directory.</para>
<para><filename role="package">sysutils/cpu</filename> is a
&man.pw.8;-like utility that can be used to manage users in the LDAP
directory. You can call it directly, or wrap scripts around it. It
can handle both TLS (with the <option>-x</option> flag) and
SSL (directly).</para>
<para><filename role="package">sysutils/ldapvi</filename> is a great
utility for editing LDAP values in an LDIF-like syntax. The
directory (or subsection of the directory) is presented in the
editor chosen by the <envar>EDITOR</envar> environment variable.
This makes it easy to enable large-scale changes in the directory
without having to write a custom tool.</para>
<para><filename role="package">security/openssh-portable</filename>
has the ability to contact an LDAP server to verify
<application>SSH</application> keys. This is extremely nice if you
have many servers and do not want to copy your public keys across
all of them.</para>
</appendix>
<appendix id="ssl-ca">
<title><application>OpenSSL</application> Certificates For LDAP</title>
<para>If you are hosting two or more LDAP servers, you will probably
not want to use self-signed certificates, since each client will
have to be configured to work with each certificate. While this is
possible, it is not nearly as simple as creating your own
certificate authority, and signing your servers' certificates with
that.</para>
<para>The steps here are presented as they are with very little
attempt at explaining what is going on&mdash;further explanation
can be found in &man.openssl.1; and its friends.</para>
<para>To create a certificate authority, we simply need a
self-signed certificate and key. The steps for this again
are</para>
<example id="make-cert">
<title>Creating a certificate</title>
<screen>&prompt.user; <userinput>openssl genrsa -out root.key 1024</userinput>
&prompt.user; <userinput>openssl req -new -key root.key -out root.csr</userinput>
&prompt.user; <userinput>openssl x509 -req -days 1024 -in root.csr -signkey root.key -out root.crt</userinput></screen>
</example>
<para>These will be your root CA key and certificate. You will
probably want to encrypt the key and store it in a cool, dry place;
anyone with access to it can masquerade as one of your LDAP
servers.</para>
<para>Next, using the first two steps above create a key
<filename>ldap-server-one.key</filename> and certificate signing
request <filename>ldap-server-one.csr</filename>. Once you sign the
signing request with <filename>root.key</filename>, you will be able
to use <filename>ldap-server-one.*</filename> on your LDAP
servers.</para>
<note>
<para>Do not forget to use the fully qualified domain name for the
<quote>common name</quote> attribute when generating the
certificate signing request; otherwise clients will reject a
connection with you, and it can be very tricky to diagnose.</para>
</note>
<para>To sign the key, use <option>-CA</option> and
<option>-CAkey</option> instead of
<option>-signkey</option>:</para>
<example id="ca-sign">
<title>Signing as a certificate authority</title>
<screen>&prompt.user; <userinput>openssl x509 -req -days 1024 \
-in ldap-server-one.csr -CA root.crt -CAkey root.key \
-out ldap-server-one.crt</userinput></screen>
</example>
<para>The resulting file will be the certificate that you can use on
your LDAP servers.</para>
<para>Finally, for clients to trust all your servers, distribute
<filename>root.crt</filename> (the <emphasis>certificate</emphasis>,
not the key!) to each client, and specify it in the
<literal>TLSCACertificateFile</literal> directive in
<filename>ldap.conf</filename>.</para>
</appendix>
</article>