1SLAPD-LDAP(5) File Formats Manual SLAPD-LDAP(5)
2
3
4
6 slapd-ldap - LDAP backend to slapd
7
9 /etc/openldap/slapd.conf
10
12 The LDAP backend to slapd(8) is not an actual database; instead it acts
13 as a proxy to forward incoming requests to another LDAP server. While
14 processing requests it will also chase referrals, so that referrals are
15 fully processed instead of being returned to the slapd client.
16
17 Sessions that explicitly Bind to the back-ldap database always create
18 their own private connection to the remote LDAP server. Anonymous ses‐
19 sions will share a single anonymous connection to the remote server.
20 For sessions bound through other mechanisms, all sessions with the same
21 DN will share the same connection. This connection pooling strategy can
22 enhance the proxy's efficiency by reducing the overhead of repeatedly
23 making/breaking multiple connections.
24
25 The ldap database can also act as an information service, i.e. the
26 identity of locally authenticated clients is asserted to the remote
27 server, possibly in some modified form. For this purpose, the proxy
28 binds to the remote server with some administrative identity, and, if
29 required, authorizes the asserted identity. See the idassert-* rules
30 below. The administrative identity of the proxy, on the remote server,
31 must be allowed to authorize by means of appropriate authzTo rules; see
32 slapd.conf(5) for details.
33
34 The proxy instance of slapd(8) must contain schema information for the
35 attributes and objectClasses used in filters, request DNs and request-
36 related data in general. It should also contain schema information for
37 the data returned by the proxied server. It is the responsibility of
38 the proxy administrator to keep the schema of the proxy lined up with
39 that of the proxied server.
40
41
42 Note: When looping back to the same instance of slapd(8), each connec‐
43 tion requires a new thread; as a consequence, slapd(8) must be compiled
44 with thread support, and the threads parameter may need some tuning; in
45 those cases, one may consider using slapd-relay(5) instead, which per‐
46 forms the relayed operation internally and thus reuses the same connec‐
47 tion.
48
49
51 These slapd.conf options apply to the LDAP backend database. That is,
52 they must follow a "database ldap" line and come before any subsequent
53 "backend" or "database" lines. Other database options are described in
54 the slapd.conf(5) manual page.
55
56
57 Note: In early versions of back-ldap it was recommended to always set
58
59 lastmod off
60
61 for ldap and meta databases. This was required because operational
62 attributes related to entry creation and modification should not be
63 proxied, as they could be mistakenly written to the target server(s),
64 generating an error. The current implementation automatically sets
65 lastmod to off, so its use is redundant and should be omitted.
66
67
68 uri <ldapurl>
69 LDAP server to use. Multiple URIs can be set in a single lda‐
70 purl argument, resulting in the underlying library automatically
71 calling the first server of the list that responds, e.g.
72
73 uri "ldap://host/ ldap://backup-host/"
74
75 The URI list is space- or comma-separated. Whenever the server
76 that responds is not the first one in the list, the list is
77 rearranged and the responsive server is moved to the head, so
78 that it will be first contacted the next time a connection needs
79 to be created.
80
81 acl-bind bindmethod=simple|sasl [binddn=<simple DN>]
82 [credentials=<simple password>] [saslmech=<SASL mech>]
83 [secprops=<properties>] [realm=<realm>] [authcId=<authentication
84 ID>] [authzId=<authorization ID>] [starttls=no|yes|critical]
85 [tls_cert=<file>] [tls_key=<file>] [tls_cacert=<file>]
86 [tls_cacertdir=<path>] [tls_reqcert=never|allow|try|demand]
87 [tls_cipher_suite=<ciphers>]
88 [tls_protocol_min=<major>[.<minor>]]
89 [tls_crlcheck=none|peer|all]
90 Allows to define the parameters of the authentication method
91 that is internally used by the proxy to collect info related to
92 access control, and whenever an operation occurs with the
93 identity of the rootdn of the LDAP proxy database. The identity
94 defined by this directive, according to the properties
95 associated to the authentication method, is supposed to have
96 read access on the target server to attributes used on the proxy
97 for ACL checking.
98
99 There is no risk of giving away such values; they are only used
100 to check permissions. The default is to use simple bind, with
101 empty binddn and credentials, which means that the related
102 operations will be performed anonymously. If not set, and if
103 idassert-bind is defined, this latter identity is used instead.
104 See idassert-bind for details.
105
106 The connection between the proxy database and the remote server
107 associated to this identity is cached regardless of the lifespan
108 of the client-proxy connection that first established it.
109
110 This identity is not implicitly used by the proxy when the
111 client connects anonymously. The idassert-bind feature,
112 instead, in some cases can be crafted to implement that
113 behavior, which is intrinsically unsafe and should be used with
114 extreme care. This directive obsoletes acl-authcDN, and
115 acl-passwd.
116
117 The TLS settings default to the same as the main slapd TLS
118 settings, except for tls_reqcert which defaults to "demand".
119
120
121 cancel {ABANDON|ignore|exop[-discover]}
122 Defines how to handle operation cancellation. By default,
123 abandon is invoked, so the operation is abandoned immediately.
124 If set to ignore, no action is taken and any further response is
125 ignored; this may result in further response messages to be
126 queued for that connection, so it is recommended that long
127 lasting connections are timed out either by idle-timeout or
128 conn-ttl, so that resources eventually get released. If set to
129 exop, a cancel operation (RFC 3909) is issued, resulting in the
130 cancellation of the current operation; the cancel operation
131 waits for remote server response, so its use may not be
132 recommended. If set to exop-discover, support of the cancel
133 extended operation is detected by reading the remote server's
134 root DSE.
135
136
137 chase-referrals {YES|no}
138 enable/disable automatic referral chasing, which is delegated to
139 the underlying libldap, with rebinding eventually performed if
140 the rebind-as-user directive is used. The default is to chase
141 referrals.
142
143
144 conn-ttl <time>
145 This directive causes a cached connection to be dropped and
146 recreated after a given ttl, regardless of being idle or not.
147
148
149 idassert-authzFrom <authz-regexp>
150 if defined, selects what local identities are authorized to
151 exploit the identity assertion feature. The string <authz-
152 regexp> follows the rules defined for the authzFrom attribute.
153 See slapd.conf(5), section related to authz-policy, for details
154 on the syntax of this field.
155
156
157 idassert-bind bindmethod=none|simple|sasl [binddn=<simple DN>]
158 [credentials=<simple password>] [saslmech=<SASL mech>]
159 [secprops=<properties>] [realm=<realm>] [authcId=<authentication
160 ID>] [authzId=<authorization ID>] [authz={native|proxyauthz}]
161 [mode=<mode>] [flags=<flags>] [starttls=no|yes|critical]
162 [tls_cert=<file>] [tls_key=<file>] [tls_cacert=<file>]
163 [tls_cacertdir=<path>] [tls_reqcert=never|allow|try|demand]
164 [tls_cipher_suite=<ciphers>] [tls_protocol_min=<version>]
165 [tls_crlcheck=none|peer|all]
166 Allows to define the parameters of the authentication method
167 that is internally used by the proxy to authorize connections
168 that are authenticated by other databases. Direct binds are
169 always proxied without any idassert handling.
170
171 The identity defined by this directive, according to the
172 properties associated to the authentication method, is supposed
173 to have auth access on the target server to attributes used on
174 the proxy for authentication and authorization, and to be
175 allowed to authorize the users. This requires to have
176 proxyAuthz privileges on a wide set of DNs, e.g.
177 authzTo=dn.subtree:"", and the remote server to have
178 authz-policy set to to or both. See slapd.conf(5) for details
179 on these statements and for remarks and drawbacks about their
180 usage. The supported bindmethods are
181
182 none|simple|sasl
183
184 where none is the default, i.e. no identity assertion is
185 performed.
186
187 The authz parameter is used to instruct the SASL bind to exploit
188 native SASL authorization, if available; since connections are
189 cached, this should only be used when authorizing with a fixed
190 identity (e.g. by means of the authzDN or authzID parameters).
191 Otherwise, the default proxyauthz is used, i.e. the proxyAuthz
192 control (Proxied Authorization, RFC 4370) is added to all
193 operations.
194
195 The supported modes are:
196
197 <mode> := {legacy|anonymous|none|self}
198
199 If <mode> is not present, and authzId is given, the proxy always
200 authorizes that identity. <authorization ID> can be
201
202 u:<user>
203
204 [dn:]<DN>
205
206 The former is supposed to be expanded by the remote server
207 according to the authz rules; see slapd.conf(5) for details. In
208 the latter case, whether or not the dn: prefix is present, the
209 string must pass DN validation and normalization.
210
211 The default mode is legacy, which implies that the proxy will
212 either perform a simple bind as the authcDN or a SASL bind as
213 the authcID and assert the client's identity when it is not
214 anonymous. The other modes imply that the proxy will always
215 either perform a simple bind as the authcDN or a SASL bind as
216 the authcID, unless restricted by idassert-authzFrom rules (see
217 below), in which case the operation will fail; eventually, it
218 will assert some other identity according to <mode>. Other
219 identity assertion modes are anonymous and self, which
220 respectively mean that the empty or the client's identity will
221 be asserted; none, which means that no proxyAuthz control will
222 be used, so the authcDN or the authcID identity will be
223 asserted. For all modes that require the use of the proxyAuthz
224 control, on the remote server the proxy identity must have
225 appropriate authzTo permissions, or the asserted identities must
226 have appropriate authzFrom permissions. Note, however, that the
227 ID assertion feature is mostly useful when the asserted
228 identities do not exist on the remote server.
229
230 Flags can be
231
232 override,[non-]prescriptive,proxy-authz-[non-]critical
233
234 When the override flag is used, identity assertion takes place
235 even when the database is authorizing for the identity of the
236 client, i.e. after binding with the provided identity, and thus
237 authenticating it, the proxy performs the identity assertion
238 using the configured identity and authentication method.
239
240 When the prescriptive flag is used (the default), operations
241 fail with inappropriateAuthentication for those identities whose
242 assertion is not allowed by the idassert-authzFrom patterns. If
243 the non-prescriptive flag is used, operations are performed
244 anonymously for those identities whose assertion is not allowed
245 by the idassert-authzFrom patterns.
246
247 When the proxy-authz-non-critical flag is used (the default),
248 the proxyAuthz control is not marked as critical, in violation
249 of RFC 4370. Use of proxy-authz-critical is recommended.
250
251 The TLS settings default to the same as the main slapd TLS
252 settings, except for tls_reqcert which defaults to "demand".
253
254 The identity associated to this directive is also used for
255 privileged operations whenever idassert-bind is defined and
256 acl-bind is not. See acl-bind for details.
257
258 This directive obsoletes idassert-authcDN, idassert-passwd,
259 idassert-mode, and idassert-method.
260
261
262 idassert-passthru <authz-regexp>
263 if defined, selects what local identities bypass the identity
264 assertion feature. Those identities need to be known by the
265 remote host. The string <authz-regexp> follows the rules
266 defined for the authzFrom attribute. See slapd.conf(5), section
267 related to authz-policy, for details on the syntax of this
268 field.
269
270
271
272 idle-timeout <time>
273 This directive causes a cached connection to be dropped an
274 recreated after it has been idle for the specified time.
275
276
277 keepalive <idle>:<probes>:<interval>
278 The keepalive parameter sets the values of idle, probes, and
279 interval used to check whether a socket is alive; idle is the
280 number of seconds a connection needs to remain idle before TCP
281 starts sending keepalive probes; probes is the maximum number of
282 keepalive probes TCP should send before dropping the connection;
283 interval is interval in seconds between individual keepalive
284 probes. Only some systems support the customization of these
285 values; the keepalive parameter is ignored otherwise, and
286 system-wide settings are used.
287
288
289 network-timeout <time>
290 Sets the network timeout value after which poll(2)/select(2)
291 following a connect(2) returns in case of no activity. The
292 value is in seconds, and it can be specified as for
293 idle-timeout.
294
295
296 norefs <NO|yes>
297 If yes, do not return search reference responses. By default,
298 they are returned unless request is LDAPv2.
299
300
301 noundeffilter <NO|yes>
302 If yes, return success instead of searching if a filter is
303 undefined or contains undefined portions. By default, the
304 search is propagated after replacing undefined portions with
305 (!(objectClass=*)), which corresponds to the empty result set.
306
307
308 onerr {CONTINUE|stop}
309 This directive allows to select the behavior in case an error is
310 returned by the remote server during a search. The default,
311 continue, consists in returning success. If the value is set to
312 stop, the error is returned to the client.
313
314
315 protocol-version {0,2,3}
316 This directive indicates what protocol version must be used to
317 contact the remote server. If set to 0 (the default), the proxy
318 uses the same protocol version used by the client, otherwise the
319 requested protocol is used. The proxy returns
320 unwillingToPerform if an operation that is incompatible with the
321 requested protocol is attempted.
322
323
324 proxy-whoami {NO|yes}
325 Turns on proxying of the WhoAmI extended operation. If this
326 option is given, back-ldap will replace slapd's original WhoAmI
327 routine with its own. On slapd sessions that were authenticated
328 by back-ldap, the WhoAmI request will be forwarded to the remote
329 LDAP server. Other sessions will be handled by the local slapd,
330 as before. This option is mainly useful in conjunction with
331 Proxy Authorization.
332
333
334 quarantine <interval>,<num>[;<interval>,<num>[...]]
335 Turns on quarantine of URIs that returned LDAP_UNAVAILABLE, so
336 that an attempt to reconnect only occurs at given intervals
337 instead of any time a client requests an operation. The pattern
338 is: retry only after at least interval seconds elapsed since
339 last attempt, for exactly num times; then use the next pattern.
340 If num for the last pattern is "+", it retries forever;
341 otherwise, no more retries occur. The process can be restarted
342 by resetting the olcDbQuarantine attribute of the database entry
343 in the configuration backend.
344
345
346 rebind-as-user {NO|yes}
347 If this option is given, the client's bind credentials are
348 remembered for rebinds, when trying to re-establish a broken
349 connection, or when chasing a referral, if chase-referrals is
350 set to yes.
351
352
353 session-tracking-request {NO|yes}
354 Adds session tracking control for all requests. The client's IP
355 and hostname, and the identity associated to each request, if
356 known, are sent to the remote server for informational purposes.
357 This directive is incompatible with setting protocol-version to
358 2.
359
360
361 single-conn {NO|yes}
362 Discards current cached connection when the client rebinds.
363
364
365 t-f-support {NO|yes|discover}
366 enable if the remote server supports absolute filters (see RFC
367 4526 for details). If set to discover, support is detected by
368 reading the remote server's root DSE.
369
370
371 timeout [<op>=]<val> [...]
372 This directive allows to set per-operation timeouts. Operations
373 can be
374
375 <op> ::= bind, add, delete, modrdn, modify, compare, search
376
377 The overall duration of the search operation is controlled
378 either by the timelimit parameter or by server-side enforced
379 time limits (see timelimit and limits in slapd.conf(5) for
380 details). This timeout parameter controls how long the target
381 can be irresponsive before the operation is aborted. Timeout is
382 meaningless for the remaining operations, unbind and abandon,
383 which do not imply any response, while it is not yet implemented
384 in currently supported extended operations. If no operation is
385 specified, the timeout val affects all supported operations.
386
387 Note: if the timelimit is exceeded, the operation is cancelled
388 (according to the cancel directive); the protocol does not
389 provide any means to rollback operations, so the client will not
390 be notified about the result of the operation, which may
391 eventually succeeded or not. In case the timeout is exceeded
392 during a bind operation, the connection is destroyed, according
393 to RFC4511.
394
395 Note: in some cases, this backend may issue binds prior to other
396 operations (e.g. to bind anonymously or with some prescribed
397 identity according to the idassert-bind directive). In this
398 case, the timeout of the operation that resulted in the bind is
399 used.
400
401
402 tls {[try-]start|[try-]propagate|ldaps} [tls_cert=<file>]
403 [tls_key=<file>] [tls_cacert=<file>] [tls_cacertdir=<path>]
404 [tls_reqcert=never|allow|try|demand]
405 [tls_cipher_suite=<ciphers>] [tls_crlcheck=none|peer|all]
406 Specify the use of TLS when a regular connection is initialized.
407 The StartTLS extended operation will be used unless the URI
408 directive protocol scheme is ldaps://. In that case this keyword
409 may only be set to "ldaps" and the StartTLS operation will not
410 be used. propagate issues the StartTLS operation only if the
411 original connection did. The try- prefix instructs the proxy to
412 continue operations if the StartTLS operation failed; its use is
413 not recommended.
414
415 The TLS settings default to the same as the main slapd TLS
416 settings, except for tls_reqcert which defaults to "demand".
417
418
419 use-temporary-conn {NO|yes}
420 when set to yes, create a temporary connection whenever
421 competing with other threads for a shared one; otherwise, wait
422 until the shared connection is available.
423
424
426 The LDAP backend has been heavily reworked between releases 2.2 and
427 2.3, and subsequently between 2.3 and 2.4. As a side-effect, some of
428 the traditional directives have been deprecated and should be no longer
429 used, as they might disappear in future releases.
430
431
432 acl-authcDN <administrative DN for access control purposes>
433 Formerly known as the binddn, it is the DN that is used to query
434 the target server for acl checking; it is supposed to have read
435 access on the target server to attributes used on the proxy for
436 acl checking. There is no risk of giving away such values; they
437 are only used to check permissions.
438
439 The acl-authcDN identity is by no means implicitly used by the
440 proxy when the client connects anonymously. The idassert-*
441 feature can be used (at own risk) for that purpose instead.
442
443 This directive is obsoleted by the binddn arg of acl-bind when
444 bindmethod=simple, and will be dismissed in the future.
445
446
447 acl-passwd <password>
448 Formerly known as the bindpw, it is the password used with the
449 above acl-authcDN directive. This directive is obsoleted by the
450 credentials arg of acl-bind when bindmethod=simple, and will be
451 dismissed in the future.
452
453
454 idassert-authcDN <administrative DN for proxyAuthz purposes>
455 DN which is used to propagate the client's identity to the
456 target by means of the proxyAuthz control when the client does
457 not belong to the DIT fragment that is being proxied by back-
458 ldap. This directive is obsoleted by the binddn arg of
459 idassert-bind when bindmethod=simple, and will be dismissed in
460 the future.
461
462
463 idassert-passwd <password>
464 Password used with the idassert-authcDN above. This directive
465 is obsoleted by the crendentials arg of idassert-bind when
466 bindmethod=simple, and will be dismissed in the future.
467
468
469 idassert-mode <mode> [<flags>]
470 defines what type of identity assertion is used. This directive
471 is obsoleted by the mode arg of idassert-bind, and will be
472 dismissed in the future.
473
474
475 idassert-method <method> [<saslargs>]
476 This directive is obsoleted by the bindmethod arg of
477 idassert-bind, and will be dismissed in the future.
478
479
480 port <port>
481 this directive is no longer supported. Use the uri directive as
482 described above.
483
484
485 server <hostname[:port]>
486 this directive is no longer supported. Use the uri directive as
487 described above.
488
489
490 suffixmassage, map, rewrite*
491 These directives are no longer supported by back-ldap; their
492 functionality is now delegated to the rwm overlay. Essentially,
493 add a statement
494
495 overlay rwm
496
497 first, and prefix all rewrite/map statements with rwm- to obtain
498 the original behavior. See slapo-rwm(5) for details.
499
500
502 The ldap backend does not honor all ACL semantics as described in
503 slapd.access(5). In general, access checking is delegated to the
504 remote server(s). Only read (=r) access to the entry pseudo-attribute
505 and to the other attribute values of the entries returned by the search
506 operation is honored, which is performed by the frontend.
507
508
510 The LDAP backend provides basic proxying functionalities to many
511 overlays. The chain overlay, described in slapo-chain(5), and the
512 translucent overlay, described in slapo-translucent(5), deserve a
513 special mention.
514
515 Conversely, there are many overlays that are best used in conjunction
516 with the LDAP backend. The proxycache overlay allows caching of LDAP
517 search requests (queries) in a local database. See slapo-pcache(5) for
518 details. The rwm overlay provides DN rewrite and attribute/objectClass
519 mapping capabilities to the underlying database. See slapo-rwm(5) for
520 details.
521
522
524 /etc/openldap/slapd.conf
525 default slapd configuration file
526
528 slapd.conf(5), slapd-config(5), slapd-meta(5), slapo-chain(5),
529 slapo-pcache(5), slapo-rwm(5), slapo-translucent(5), slapd(8), ldap(3).
530
532 Howard Chu, with enhancements by Pierangelo Masarati
533
534
535
536OpenLDAP 2.4.44 2016/02/05 SLAPD-LDAP(5)