Connecting to an LDAP Server

URI (required)

Comma separated list of URIs of LDAP servers (Domain Controllers (DCs) in Active Directory). The order of listing defines the priority order. The URI with highest priority that has a good health status is used.

Specify each URI in the format <scheme>://<address>. <address> can be either a DNS name or an IP address.

Examples:

Port (required)

The port of the remote LDAP server. Typical values: 389, 636.

Authentication Method (required)

The authentication method the LDAP server uses to authenticate VAST Cluster as a client querying the LDAP database. Set the method according to how the LDAP server is configured to authenticate clients. The following options are available:

Base DN

The entry in the LDAP directory tree to use as a starting point for user queries. By default, this is also used as the starting point for group queries. Optionally, you can specify a different entry as the Group Base DN.

To maximize the speed of authentication queries, start the search in the lowest branch of the tree under which all users can be found. For example, if the entire directory must be queried, the search base must specify the root of the tree. However, if the search can be restricted to a specific organizational unit (OU), queries may be faster.

The format for base DN is a comma separated list of components. Each component is an attribute=value pair defining an object in the directory tree. The first component defines the object at the lowest part of the tree that you want to use as the starting point of the search, the next component is its container and so on up the tree, with the last component representing the top level domain.

The following attributes can be specified:

For example, supposing your user accounts are all located in a container called 'users' under a domain 'mydomain.local'. If you want to set the users container as the starting point for search queries, you would enter: ou=users,dc=mydomain,dc=local

To specify the full domain as your search base, you would enter: dc=mydomain,dc=local

Bind DN (required if Authentication Method = SImple)

Enter the bind DN for authenticating to the LDAP domain. You can specify any user account that has read access to the domain.

Format is as described for Base DN beginning with a cn attribute component specifying the user object.

For example, cn=admin,ou=users,dc=mydomain,dc=local specifies user 'admin' located in the 'users' container under the domain 'mydomain.local'.

Bind password (required if Authentication Method = SImple)

This field appears if Simple is selected in the Method field. This is the password used with the Bind DN to authenticate to the LDAP server.

Group Base DN

(Optional) The entry in the LDAP directory tree to use as a starting point for group queries. By default, the Base DN is used.

Use TLS

Enable to use TLS to secure communication between VAST Cluster and the LDAP server.

TLS Certificate

If Use TLS is enabled, use this field to provide a certificate if you want the cluster to verify the LDAP server's TLS certificate. The remote LDAP server's TLS certificate will be verified against the certificate you provide. If the certificate you provide does not list the certificate authority (CA) of the server's certificate, the cluster will fail to establish a connection with the LDAP server.

If you choose to leave this field blank, the VAST Cluster's TLS client will not request the LDAP server's TLS certificate and will ignore any certificate received. In this case, make sure that the TLS_REQCERT parameter on the LDAP server's TLS server is not set to demand. Otherwise, connection will fail.

gidNumber

The attribute of a group entry that contains the GID number of a group.

gidNumber

gidnumber

uid

The attribute of a user entry that contains the user name.

uid

sAMAccountname (common, use unless you know otherwise). Also can be uid (rare) or cn (rare).

uidNumber

The attribute of a user entry that contains the UID number.

uidNumber

uidNumber

memberUid

The attribute of the group entry that contains names of group members.

memberUid

member

posix Account

The object class that defines a user entry.

posixAccount

user

posix Group

The object class that defines a group entry.

posixGroup

group

Match User

The attribute to use when querying a provider for a user that matches a user that was already retrieved from another provider. A user entry that contains a matching value in this attribute will be considered the same user as the user previously retrieved.

Equal to the setting for uid.