LDAP integration with i-doit

The connection of a directory service to i-doit provides many advantages. Whether Active Directory, OpenLDAP or Novell Directory Services: Almost every common directory service is supported. Users, groups and computers are regularly imported and updated in i-doit through the connection via LDAP/LDAPS. Since we receive questions about Active Directory time and again, here we summarise the most important information and best-practice configurations for you.

What are the advantages of a connection?

If you maintain your AD anyway, the connection saves you from double maintenance of the master data. The more users you have in your AD, the more time you save.

In addition, groups can also be taken from your AD or mapped to groups in i-doit. This allows permissions to be granted based on AD group membership. If a user is assigned to a different group in AD, this also affects his or her permissions in i-doit. This is helpful, for example, when hiring new employees: By creating the new employee in the respective AD group, they automatically receive access to the information they need for their tasks.

Create LDAPS certificate

A certificate is required for the use of LDAPS. This must meet the requirements in order to be used for communication between i-doit and the AD server.

Depending on which certificates you are already using, the export differs here.

After the export, we need to upload the certificate to the i-doit server in the following directory.

/usr/local/share/ca-certificates

Install LDAPS Certificate

The certificate must now be changed from the file extension .cer to .crt. After the certificate has been uploaded, we need to update the certificate in the ca certificates.

update-ca-certificates

Test certificate

To test the certificate, you can use gnuTLS, for example. You can install this under Debian, for example, with the following command:

apt-get install gnutls-bin

Afterwards, it can be checked whether the certificate on port 636 is valid for the specified domain name (dcbw1.i-doit.com).

gnutls-cli –print-cert -p 636 –x509cafile /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt dcbw1.i-doit.com

As a result, the certificate should be issued with a message:

– Status: The certificate is trusted.
– Successfully sent 0 certificate(s) to server.
– Description: (TLS1.2)-(ECDHE-SECP384R1)-(RSA-SHA256)-(AES-256-GCM)
– Session ID: 3A:4C:00:00:7E:DB:D4:D0:8E:AC:4B:E5:EA:14:4F:EA:71:8B:46:E1:49:65:8A:F5:A3:05:BD:43:0B:66:21:E8
– Options: extended master secret, safe renegotiation,
– Handshake was completed

Otherwise you will get an error message like this.

signed using RSA-SHA1 (broken!)
Status: The certificate is NOT trusted. The certificate chain uses insecure algorithm.

In this case, you must create a secure certificate that meets the requirements.

Testing LDAPS on Windows Server

On the Windows server side, you can check whether connections are accepted. To do this, right-click on the Windows icon and then click on Run. Enter “LDP” to open the LDP tool.

The DC on port 636 SSL is specified here as the server.

Testing LDAPS in the web interface

The LDAP server must be created under Administration -> Interface / External Data -> LDAP -> Server. Port 636 should be specified for LDAPS and “LDAPS” under TLS.

User and group filters

You do not always want to find all users and groups from the AD in i-doit. Often it is sufficient to select the users and explicitly specify the user groups, for example, or to filter by OU.

Various filters can be used for this purpose in the LDAP server configuration.

Example:Configure the groups via distinguishedName to specify them explicitly.

Create a separate user: ldapsync

For tracking changes, a separate user should be created via the web interface. This user will then be displayed as the user in the i-doit logbook for all changes. Especially when using several interfaces and automations, it should always be considered that the changes remain traceable. If the same user is used for all interfaces, it is difficult to determine the cause of errors that can occur.

Via the web interface we create a new user and assign a password. In this example we call the user “ldapsync”.

This user does not have admin rights. It will only have the authorisation to execute the SyncCommand under Administration -> Authorisation system -> Rights -> Administration.

We have to enter this user data later in the upper part of the configuration files so that it is used during sync.

The changes are then clearly visible in the i-doit logbook. Everything that is changed via the LDAP interface is assigned to the “ldapsync” user.

Up to 8 additional attribute fields can be addressed and imported from the AD via the category extensions.

Create configuration file

On the shell, navigate to the installation directory of i-doit. This is usually located under /var/www/html/. Here we navigate to the directory:

/src/handler/config/

Important:
When the .ini file is created in the i-doit folder, this code must be added in the .htaccess file. It is also possible to place the .ini file outside the web directory. 

## Deny access to all ini files…
<Files "*.ini">
Require all denied
</Files>

Now we create a new configuration file with the name ldap-sync.ini.

nano /var/www/html/src/handler/config/ldap-sync.ini

Our configuration file should have the appropriate parameters to map the attributes from the AD.

[commandArguments]
[commandOptions]
user=ldapsync
password=password123
tenantId=1

[additional]

import_rooms=true
defaultCompany=“
deletedUsersBehaviour=disable_login
disabledUsersBehaviour=disable_login

; LDAP Attributes are individual. This default configuration is prepared for Active Directory:

attributes[department]=department
attributes[phone_company]=telephoneNumber
attributes[phone_home]=homephone
attributes[phone_mobile]=mobile
attributes[fax]=facsimileTelephoneNumber
attributes[description]=info
attributes[personnel_number]=initials
attributes[organization]=company
attributes[street]=streetAddress
attributes[city]=city
attributes[zip_code]=postalCode
attributes[function]=title
attributes[service_designation]=title

;category extension for persons

attributes[custom_1]=objectSid
attributes[custom_2]=sn
attributes[custom_3]=homePhone
attributes[custom_4]=mobile
attributes[custom_5]=info
attributes[custom_6]=manager
attributes[custom_7]=physicaldeliveryofficename
attributes[custom_8]=company
autoReactivateUsers=false
ignoreUsersWithAttributes[]=“sn“
ignoreUsersWithAttributes[]=“givenName“
syncEmptyAttributes=true
ignoreFunction=empty

If you use a ldap-sync.ini for the import as described above, you must define the attributes there accordingly. Set the following entries in ldap-sync.ini:

attributes[custom_7]=physicaldeliveryofficename attributes[custom_8]=company

Now we have to execute the LDAP-sync so that the new attributes are transferred. We can do this on the CLI via the Console.

/usr/bin/php /var/www/html/console.php ldap-sync –config /var/www/html/src/handler/config/ldap-sync.ini

or without configuration file:

/usr/bin/php /var/www/html/console.php ldap-sync –user ldapsync –password password123 –tenantId 1 –ldapServerId 1

Map security groups from AD to groups of persons in i-doit

In addition to the pure import of users and groups, security groups from the AD can also be mapped to groups of people in i-doit. There can be very different use cases for this, e.g.

• The IT administrators of the IT department should also automatically receive corresponding authorisation in i-doit.
• A certain department should have read-only access to i-doit.

For this use case, we will map the employees from accounting into the group “reader” from i-doit.

In our OU “Backoffice” there are 2 users and a security group for the back office. This group also includes “Birte Neuling”, who works in sales but often takes on tasks in the back office.

We will now map this security group to the “reader” group in i-doit.

To do this, we change to the person group and go to the master data. Here we find the field LDAP group (mapping) in which we now enter the name of the group from the AD. Instead of the name, the objectSID of the group can also be used.

After the LDAP-sync has been executed, the users are added to the specified groups. This gives you the permissions of the people group in i-doit.

Map people to locations

A somewhat complicated matter is to map people to locations. For example, the company building or a certain room could be interesting as a location. With a little programming work, you could put together an array via the i-doit API. This first creates all user data and then writes to the location.

However, it can also be done much more simply and without any programming knowledge.

Let’s proceed here in a structured way. First of all, it must be identified in which attribute field the future location was entered with the users. This can be, for example, the attribute “office” or “company”.

Important:DThe location name must be identical to the object names in i-doit. Do you want the user to be automatically assigned to your room “EG-002” later? Then the entry in the AD must be exactly the same as the object title in i-doit.

We enter these attribute values in the ldapsync.ini or in the administration under CMDB Settings -> Category Extensions in fields 7 and 8. This way, the corresponding attributes are taken over from the AD during the next ldap-sync.

Important: By using an INI configuration file, the category extensions from the web interface are not used.

Create a report

The data from the AD is now in the CMDB. Here, it can now be processed further in an automated way. We would now like to achieve that the user location in the master data in the field Custom_7 is transferred to the category “Location”. If you have not yet activated this, open the “Quick Configuration Wizard” under Administration -> CMDB Settings and activate the category “Location” for the object type “Persons”.

Note: You could of course use the same principle to assign a workstation to a user, to specify a logical location or to assign a device to the user.

We now switch to the Report Manager and create a new category for automations. Via this category, we can later control which groups of people/users should have access to it via the rights system.

“Normal” users should not be given access to the reports to prevent careless changes. Permissions can be granted or revoked for users or groups.

In this category we now create a new report. This report should provide us with the object title and the “physicaldeliveryofficename” from the master data as outputs. As a condition, we specify that only objects of the type “persons” are to be an output.

Export report as CSV file

We now want to export this report regularly. There is also a function on the console that does this work for us.

Important:
When the .ini file is created in the i-doit folder, this code must be added in the .htaccess file. It is also possible to place the .ini file outside the web directory. 

## Deny access to all ini files…
<Files "*.ini">
Require all denied
</Files>

We create a new INI file via the CLI.

sudo nano /var/www/html/src/handler/config/isys_handler_report-export.ini

Here we have to specify the access data just like in the ldap-sync.ini. In addition, we must also specify which report is to be exported.

[commandArguments]
[commandOptions]
user = ldapsync
password = password123
tenantId = 1
reportId = 55
exportPath = /var/www/html/automation
exportFilename = personenstandorte
exportFileType = csv