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Configure Ops Manager Users for LDAP Authentication and Authorization

On this page

  • Overview
  • Prerequisites
  • Procedure
  • Troubleshooting

Overview

You can use a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) service to manage Ops Manager user authentication and authorization. Users log in through Ops Manager, then Ops Manager searches the LDAP directory for the user and synchronizes the user's name and email addresses in the Ops Manager user records with the values in the LDAP user records.

To configure Ops Manager to use LDAP, go to: Admin > General > Ops Manager Config > User Authentication.

Note

This tutorial describes authenticating users of the Ops Manager web interface.

If your MongoDB deployments also use LDAP, you must separately create MongoDB users for the MongoDB Agents, as described in Configure MongoDB Agent for LDAP.

This tutorial describes how to:

  • Configure LDAP authentication for Ops Manager

  • Map LDAP groups to both Ops Manager Organization Roles and Project Roles

User Authentication

When a user attempts to log in, Ops Manager searches for a matching user and the user's groups using an LDAP query.

  • Ops Manager logs into LDAP as the search user, using the credentials specified in the LDAP Bind Dn and LDAP Bind Password fields.

  • Ops Manager searches under the base distinguished name specified in the LDAP User Base Dn field and matches the user according to the LDAP attribute specified in the LDAP User Search Attribute field.

  • Ops Manager searches under the base distinguished name specified in the LDAP Group Base Dn field and matches the user's groups according to the LDAP attribute specified in the LDAP Group Member Attribute field. If no value is provided for the LDAP Group Base Dn, Ops Manager uses the value of LDAP User Base Dn to search for LDAP group memberships.

  • If a matching user is found, Ops Manager authenticates the supplied password against the LDAP password for the provided user.

Authorization/Access Control

LDAP groups let you control access to Ops Manager. You associate LDAP groups with organization and project Ops Manager roles and assign the LDAP groups to the users who should have those roles.

LDAP entries map to Ops Manager records as follows:

LDAP

Ops Manager

User
User
Group
Organization/Project Role

To use LDAP groups effectively, create additional projects within Ops Manager to control access to specific deployments in your organization, such as creating separate Ops Manager projects for development and production environments. You can then map an LDAP group to a role in the Ops Manager project to provide access to a deployment.

Note

  • Changes made to LDAP groups can take up to an hour to take effect in Ops Manager. Changes take effect immediately for users in affected groups when they log out and log back in to Ops Manager.

  • If an LDAP user does not belong to any LDAP group, Ops Manager does not assign any roles, organization or project, to the user.

  • If an LDAP user is assigned a project role but no organization role, Ops Manager automatically assigns the user the Organization Member Role.

If you have multiple departments with their own billing needs, alert settings, and project members, create a new organization for each department.

LDAP Over SSL

If you use LDAP over an SSL connection (LDAPS), complete these fields:

Field
Needed Value
LDAP SSL CA File
The path to a PEM key file for a trusted certificate authority.
LDAP SSL PEM Key File
The path to a PEM key file containing a client certificate and private key.
LDAP SSL PEM Key File Password
The password to decrypt it if the LDAP SSL PEM Key File is encrypted.

Prerequisites

The LDAP server must:

  • Be installed, configured and accessible to Ops Manager.

  • Embed each user's group memberships as an attribute of each user's LDAP Entry.

    Important

    Use the member LDAP user attribute if you want to include nested LDAP groups in Ops Manager group memberships.

    For example, if LDAP user jsmith belongs to LDAP group B and LDAP Group B belongs to LDAP group A, then Ops Manager recognizes jsmith as a member of groups A and B.

  • Include a user that can search the base DN that includes Ops Manager users and groups.

  • Include a group for Global Owners.

    • You must enter this group into the LDAP Global Role Owner field when you configure LDAP in Ops Manager.

      Example

      If LDAP has an admin group for use by Ops Manager administrators, enter admin in the LDAP Global Role Owner field.

    • After you enable LDAP authentication, you must first log in to Ops Manager as a user who belongs to this group to create the initial Ops Manager project (if applicable) and map LDAP groups to project and organization roles.

      Important

      Once Ops Manager is converted to LDAP Authentication, only the user with the Global Owner role who changes the authentication method remains logged in. All other users are logged out and need to log back in to Ops Manager using their LDAP username and password. Users without an LDAP username and password can no longer log in to Ops Manager.

Procedure

To configure LDAP authentication:

1

Define your user records in the LDAP system of your choice.

To find a description of standard LDAP object classes and attribute types, see Lightweight Directory Access Protocol Schema for User Applications.

2

Navigate to the User Authentication tab of the Ops Manager Config page.

  1. Click Admin link at the upper right corner of the page.

  2. Click the General tab.

  3. Click the Ops Manager Config page.

  4. Click User Authentication tab.

3

Type LDAP configuration settings.

  1. Enter values for the following required LDAP configuration fields:

    Field
    Action
    Example
    User Authentication Method
    Select LDAP.
    LDAP
    LDAP URI

    Type the hostname and port of the LDAP server.

    If you are using multiple LDAP servers for load balancing, separate each URI with a space. Each LDAP server must be a replica of the others or Ops Manager LDAP authentication won't work as expected.

    IMPORTANT: Ops Manager does not support hostnames that contain an underscore character (_) in the LDAP URI field.

    ldap://ldap.example.com:389
    LDAP SSL CA File
    Type the path to a PEM key file containing the certificate for the CA who signed the certificate used by the LDAPS server. This optional field is used by the Ops Manager application to verify the identify of the LDAPS server and prevent man-in- the-middle Attacks. If this configuration is not provided, Ops Manager uses the default root CA certificate bundle that comes with the Java Runtime Environment (JRE). If your LDAPS server certificate cannot be verified by a root CA (i.e. if it is self-signed), requests to the LDAPS server fail.
    /opt/cert/ca.pem
    LDAP SSL PEM Key File
    Type the path to a PEM key file containing a client certificate and private key. This field is optional and should be used only if your LDAPS server requires client certificates be passed by client applications. This is used to sign requests sent from the Ops Manager application server to the LDAPS server. This allows the LDAPS server to verify the identify of Ops Manager application server.
    /opt/cert/ldap.pem
    LDAP SSL PEM Key File Password
    Type the password that decrypts the LDAP SSL PEM Key File. If your client certificates specified in the LDAP SSL PEM Key File field are required by the LDAPS server and if the client certificate specified in LDAP SSL PEM Key File is stored encrypted on the file system, this field is required.
    <encrypted-password>
    LDAP Bind Dn
    Type a credentialed user on the LDAP server that can conduct searches for users.
    cn=admin, dc=example, dc=com
    LDAP Bind Password
    Type the password for the Bind Dn user on the LDAP server.
    <password>
    LDAP User Base Dn
    Type the Distinguished Name that Ops Manager uses to search for users on the LDAP server.
    dc=example, dc=com
    LDAP User Search Attribute
    Type the LDAP field in the LDAP server that specifies the username.
    uid
    LDAP Group Base Dn
    Type the Distinguished Name that Ops Manager uses to search for groups on the LDAP server.
    ou=othergroups, dc=example, dc=com
    LDAP Group Member Attribute
    Type the LDAP group attribute that specifies the list of LDAP users who belong to that group.
    member
    LDAP User Group
    Type the LDAP user attribute that specifies the LDAP groups to which the user belongs. The LDAP attribute can use any format to list the groups, including Common Name (cn) or Distinguished Name (dn). All Ops Manager settings that specify groups must match the chosen format.
    memberOf
    LDAP Global Role Owner
    Type the LDAP group to which Ops Manager Global Owners belong.
    cn=global-owner, ou=groups, dc=example, dc=com

    Note

    Each Global Role group provides the members of its associated LDAP group or groups with an Ops Manager global role. Global roles provide access to all the Ops Manager projects in the Ops Manager deployment.

  2. Type values for the following Optional LDAP Configuration fields if needed.

    Important

    You must use the fully qualified distinguished name for each group. If multiple LDAP or SAML groups correspond to the same role, separate them with two semicolons (;;). Remove a group from a role's field to revoke the group's access for that role.

    Field
    Action
    LDAP User First Name
    Type the attribute of LDAP users that specifies the user's first name.
    LDAP User Last Name
    Type the attribute of LDAP users that specifies the user's last name.
    LDAP User Email
    Type the attribute of LDAP users that specifies the user's email address.
    LDAP Global Role Automation Admin
    Type the LDAP group(s) to which Ops Manager Global Automation Administrators belong. You can type multiple LDAP groups into this field if they are separated by two semicolons (;;).
    LDAP Global Role Backup Admin
    Type the LDAP group(s) to which Ops Manager Global Backup Administrators belong. You can type multiple LDAP groups into this field if they are separated by two semicolons (;;).
    LDAP Global Role Monitoring Admin
    Type the LDAP group(s) to which Ops Manager Global Monitoring Administrators belong. You can type multiple LDAP groups into this field if they are separated by two semicolons (;;).
    LDAP Global Role User Admin
    Type the LDAP group(s) to which the Ops Manager Global User Administrators belong. You can type multiple LDAP groups into this field if they are separated by two semicolons (;;).
    LDAP Global Role Read Only
    Type the LDAP group(s) to which Ops Manager Global Read Only Users belong. You can type multiple LDAP groups into this field if they are separated by two semicolons (;;).
4

Click Save.

5

Log in as a global owner.

Log into Ops Manager as an LDAP user that is part of the LDAP group specified in the Ops Manager LDAP Global Role Owner field.

Upon successful login, Ops Manager displays your projects page.

6

Associate LDAP groups with project roles.

To associate LDAP groups with roles in a new project:

Note

You must have any global role to create a new project.

  1. Click Admin > General > Projects.

  2. Click Create a New Project.

  3. In Project Name, type a name for the new Ops Manager project.

  4. Enter the LDAP groups that correspond to each project role.

    Important

    You must use the fully qualified distinguished name for each group. If multiple LDAP or SAML groups correspond to the same role, separate them with two semicolons (;;). Remove a group from a role's field to revoke the group's access for that role.

  5. Click Add Project.

To update the association of LDAP groups with roles in an existing project:

  1. Click Admin > General > Projects.

  2. In the Actions column for a project, click , then click Edit LDAP Settings.

  3. Enter the LDAP groups that correspond to each project role.

    Important

    You must use the fully qualified distinguished name for each group. If multiple LDAP or SAML groups correspond to the same role, separate them with two semicolons (;;). Remove a group from a role's field to revoke the group's access for that role.

  4. Click Save Changes.

7

Optional: Associate LDAP groups with organization roles.

To associate LDAP groups with roles for a new organization:

Note

You must have any global role to create a new organization.

  1. Click Admin > General > Organizations.

  2. Click Create a New Organization.

  3. In Organization Name, type a name for the new Ops Manager organization.

  4. Enter the LDAP groups that correspond to each organization role.

    Important

    You must use the fully qualified distinguished name for each group. If multiple LDAP or SAML groups correspond to the same role, separate them with two semicolons (;;). Remove a group from a role's field to revoke the group's access for that role.

  5. Click Add Organization.

To update the association of LDAP groups with roles for an existing organization:

  1. Click Admin > General > Organizations.

  2. Click the Edit Org button.

  3. Enter the LDAP groups that correspond to each organization role.

    Important

    You must use the fully qualified distinguished name for each group. If multiple LDAP or SAML groups correspond to the same role, separate them with two semicolons (;;). Remove a group from a role's field to revoke the group's access for that role.

  4. Click Save Changes.

8

Add your MongoDB deployments.

Specify the LDAP authentication settings when adding a MongoDB deployment.

Troubleshooting

Ops Manager enables endpoint detection by default in the JDK. You must use trusted server certificates for your Ops Manager hosts.

If you can't use trusted certificates:

  1. Disable endpoint identification. Add the -Dcom.sun.jndi.ldap.object.disableEndpointIdentification=true to the JAVA_MMS_UI_OPTS property in the mms.conf.

  2. Restart all Ops Manager services after this change.

Warning

Disabling this functionality impacts Ops Manager security. You should configure a valid and trusted certificate instead.

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