Configuring the SLAPD Server

There are two daemons that come packaged with OpenLDAP: SLAPD server and SLURPD server. SLAPD, sometimes called the OpenLDAP server, handles client requests and directory management, while SLURPD manages replicating changes to other directories. SLURPD is now deprecated in favor of a newer, more robust replication process, and will be removed from future versions of OpenLDAP.

In the next chapter we will talk more about what these two daemons do. Right now we are only concerned with getting the SLAPD server up and running so we can start connecting to (and using) our directory.

SLAPD has one main configuration file and any number of auxiliary configuration files. In this section we are going to edit the main configuration file. It is called slapd.conf, and in Ubuntu's distribution it is located at /etc/ldap/ (if you built from source, the default location is /usr/local/etc/openldap/).

Tip

Use find . –type f –name slapd.conf or if the locate service is enabled, you can use locate slapd.conf.

While Ubuntu provides a good basic slapd.conf file that you can work with, if you choose, we will not use it. For our purpose, we will start with an empty file and create a slapd.conf configuration from scratch. You may want to make a backup copy of the original slapd.conf file before we begin. You can do this from a terminal by running:

  $ sudo mv /etc/ldap/slapd.conf /etc/ldap/slapd.conf.orig

This will rename the file from slapd.conf to slapd.conf.orig.

Tip

By default, Ubuntu does not activate the root account. Any time you want to perform a function as the superuser, you should use sudo. However, if you need to become root (to run, for instance, several commands in sequence), you can type sudo su.

Now we are ready to create our new slapd.conf file. Open the text editor and create a basic slapd.conf file:

# slapd.conf - Configuration file for LDAP SLAPD
##########
# Basics #
##########
include /etc/ldap/schema/core.schema
include /etc/ldap/schema/cosine.schema
include /etc/ldap/schema/inetorgperson.schema

pidfile /var/run/slapd/slapd.pid
argsfile /var/run/slapd/slapd.args
loglevel none

modulepath /usr/lib/ldap
# modulepath /usr/local/libexec/openldap
moduleload back_hdb

##########################
# Database Configuration #
##########################
database hdb
suffix "dc=example,dc=com"
rootdn "cn=Manager,dc=example,dc=com"
rootpw secret
directory /var/lib/ldap
# directory /usr/local/var/openldap-data
index objectClass,cn eq

########
# ACLs #
########
access to attrs=userPassword
       by anonymous auth
       by self write
       by * none

access to *
       by self write
       by * none

There are three headings in the file (Basics, Database Configuration, and ACLs), and we will now see each heading in detail.

Tip

If you built from source, the paths in the above file need to be adjusted (or, alternately, you can relocate files on your file system). Look in the /usr/local portion of your file system to locate the correct location (for example, modulepath is in /usr/local/libexex/openldap/).

Basics

The first section of the configuration file, labeled Basics, contains a variety of configuration parameters:

##########
# Basics #
##########
include /etc/ldap/schema/core.schema
include /etc/ldap/schema/cosine.schema
include /etc/ldap/schema/inetorgperson.schema
pidfile /var/run/slapd/slapd.pid
argsfile /var/run/slapd/slapd.args
loglevel none

modulepath /usr/lib/ldap
# modulepath /usr/local/libexec/openldap
moduleload back_hdb

First note that all lines that start with a hash (#) are treated as comments, and ignored by SLAPD.

The first three functional (non-comment) lines all begin with the include directive. The include directive should always be followed by a full path to a file on the file system. When SLAPD finds the include directive it will attempt to load the indicated file. Those files will then be treated as part of the current configuration file. So, when SLAPD reads these three lines, it will try to load the three schema files (core.schema, cosine.schema, and inetorgperson.schema).

The include directive can be used to load any configuration parameters (in the next chapter, we will use it to include a file that contains ACLs). Traditionally, the schema information is stored separately from other configuration directives, and loaded (using include directives) at server startup. This improves the readability of the code and helps prevent the accidental modification of the schema information.

Schemas

Schemas provide definitions of (amongst other things) the different object classes and attribute types that OpenLDAP should support. Using these, OpenLDAP can determine what entries it is allowed to store, whether any given entry is valid, and how entries should optimally be stored.

The three schemas loaded here contain the most frequently used options. core.schema contains all of the attribute and object class definitions from the LDAP v.3 specification. The cosine.schema and inteorgperson.schema files contain schema definitions for commonly used standardized extensions (see RFCs 4524 and 2798). There are a host of other schemas available with OpenLDAP, and we will look at some of those in Chapter 6.

More Directives

After the schemas are included the next two directives, pidfile and argsfile, tell SLAPD where to store (and look for) files that contain information on:

The process ID for the SLAPD server process
The arguments that were passed into the slapd command at startup

Note

Since SLAPD needs to write to these files, the user that runs slapd needs to have permissions to read from and write to these files. Since the files are removed when the SLAPD server shuts down, the user that runs slapd will also need write permissions on the directory where these files are stored (/var/run/slapd/, in this case).

Next, the loglevel directive is set to none. The loglevel directive specifies how much information SLAPD should send to the system log (by way of syslogd). The loglevel directive accepts keywords (any, none, trace, and so on), integers (0, 128, 32768), and hexidecimal numbers (0x2, 0x80, 0x100).

Setting this to none will cause SLAPD to only log critical events. In order to turn off the logging altogether, use 0. To turn on all the logging, which will generate massive amounts of logging for every request, use any. The SLAPD man page (man slapd) provides a complete list of all the supported log levels.

Module Directives

The last few directives in the Basics section are modulepath and moduleload. These are instructions for loading OpenLDAP modules.

A module is a special type of library that can be loaded when SLAPD starts up. Instead of compiling all of SLAPD's code into one large binary, the modules make it possible to create smaller library files for discrete functional units of LDAP code.

Typically, there are two different kinds of modules:

Backends: The OpenLDAP server can use different storage backends, including BDB, SQL database, flat files (in LDIF format), or even another LDAP directory server. Each of these backends can be compiled into its own module. Then, during configuration, we have the option of only loading the module (or modules) that we need.
Overlays: OpenLDAP includes a number of optional extensions, called overlays, which can modify behavior of the server (we will look at several overlays in the course of this book). These, too, are stored in modules.

Let's have a look at the directives we have used in our slapd.conf file:

The modulepath directive provides the full path to the directory where the modules (the compiled libraries) are stored. By default, Ubuntu puts LDAP libraries in /usr/lib/ldap. If, for some reason, you have modules stored in multiple directories you can specify a list of paths, separated by colons:
```
  modulepath /usr/lib/ldap:/usr/local/lib/custom-ldap
```
The moduleload directive instructs OpenLDAP to load a particular module. The directive takes either the file name of the module to be loaded (such as back_hdb) or a full path (beginning with /) to a module file. If just the name is specified, SLAPD will look in the directories specified in modulepath. If the entire path is specified, it will attempt to load from exactly that path (it will not use modulepath at all).
moduleload back_hdb instructs SLAPD to load the module that provides services for storing the directory in the Hierarchical Database (HDB) backend. This is the database that we will configure in the Database Configuration section.

For now these are the only directives we need in the Basics section. There are other options though, and we will look at many of them in Chapters 4 and 5.

Database Configuration

The next section of our slapd.conf file is the database configuration section. This section handles the configuration of the database storage mechanisms. OpenLDAP is not limited to one database. More than one database can be used per server, where each database stores its own directory tree (or subtree). For example, a single OpenLDAP instance can serve a directory tree whose base is o=My Company,c=US from one database, and a directory tree whose root is dc=example,dc=com from a second database.

Note

As we saw in Chapter 1, the base DN for a directory tree is made up of attribute name/attribute value pairs. For example, the DN o=My Company, c=US indicates that the organization name (o) is My Company, and its country of origin (c) is United States (whose two-letter ISO code is US). Likewise, the second DN is composed of attribute name/value pairs, this time representing domain components (dc) from the organization's registered domain name, here, the fictitious Example.Com.

We will look at this option in Chapter 5. In our simple slapd.conf file, we are defining only one database:

##########################
# Database Configuration #
##########################
database hdb
suffix "dc=example,dc=com"
rootdn "cn=Manager,dc=example,dc=com"
rootpw secret
directory /var/lib/ldap
# directory /usr/local/var/openldap-data
index objectClass,cn eq

The first directive in the database configuration section is the database directive. This specifies which database backend will be used. In this case we will be using the Hierarchical Database (HDB), so we specify hdb.

index objectClass,cn eq

This means that we are creating an index that will support equality (eq) matching on the attributes objectClass and cn. When the server gets a request for all the entries with cn Rob or commonName Rob, the server can greatly expedite service by accessing the index instead of searching the entire database. However, if the request was for Rob* (note the * wildcard character), then the server would not be looking for a CN that equals "Rob*", but for any CN that starts with "Rob". In this case, the index we created would not be used.

Multiple index directives can be used, and we could support faster CN searches for queries like Rob* by splitting the index directive into two different directives:

index objectClass eq
index cn eq,sub

In the given example, an equality (eq) index is maintained for objectClass attributes, while the cn attribute is indexed for equality matches (eq) and substring matches (sub).

Certain attributes do not support all index types. The objectClass attribute, for example, does not support substring (sub) index matching. When we will look at performance tuning in Chapter 5, we will see the indexing directive more carefully.

Once you have a database created, every time you modify the index directives in slapd.conf, you should rebuild the indexes with the slapindex command-line utility. Since we have not yet put any data in the database though, we don't need to run this command now.

Now we are ready to move on to the third and final section of our configuration file.

ACLs

The last section in the slapd.conf file is the ACL section. ACLs (Access Control Lists) determine which clients can access what data, and under what conditions. In Chapter 4, we will cover ACLs in much more detail. However, it is important to have some basic ACLs configured from the beginning, so we will briefly walk through two simple ACLs:

########
# ACLs #
########
access to attrs=userPassword
       by anonymous auth
       by self write
       by * none

access to *
       by self write
       by * none

ACLs are just fancy directives—directives with a complex syntax. They begin with the access directive, followed by a list of conditions. The conditions can span multiple lines as long as each continuation line begins with one or more white space characters (such as a tab or a space).

Tip

Line Continuations in slapd.conf file

Any directive, not just ACLs, can span multiple lines, as long as each continued line begins with a white space. For example, moduleload back_hdb can be written as:

moduleload

back_hdb

Let's look at the first access control in detail:

access to attrs=userPassword
       by anonymous auth
       by self write
       by * none

The purpose of this access control is to keep a user's password protected. Specifically, it allows anonymous users to request that the server perform an authentication comparison (during the process of logging on) on a password. Additionally, it grants a user permission to change his or her own password. Finally, it denies everyone else any access to the password. That's what this rule is supposed to do. Now, how do we get that?

Each line of code having by should be indented:

access to [resources]

by [who] [type of access granted]

Each access directive can have one to phrase, and any number of by phrases. Our first rule has three by phrases. Let's see these in more detail:

In access to attrs=userPassword, attrs indicates that a list of one or more attributes will follow. In our case there is only one attribute: userPassword. The userPassword attribute is used to store the value of a password for an object in the directory.
Note
While not just any object in the directory can have a userPassword, there are many objects in the directory that are not users, but can have passwords. The most frequent use of the userPassword attribute is for records that describe users.
In this access control there is no explicit mention of particular parts of the directory to which this rule applies. Given this, the ACL will be enforced for all instances of userPassword. So, the rule specifies access to the userPassword attribute. The next three phrases will indicate who has access to userPassword attributes, and what kind of access they have.
Next is by anonymous auth. This phrase grants an anonymous user (one who has not yet authenticated) permission to authenticate using a password. More accurately, it indicates that when a user submits a request for authentication, the directory server is allowed to perform an authentication operation (which amounts to comparing the submitted password with the value in the userPassword attribute for the corresponding user's entry).
The last part of the by phrase specifies what sort of permissions are granted to the record. The permissions level can be granted in a few ways, which is discussed in detail in Chapter 4.

For the time being, though, we will look at four keywords that can be used in ACLs to grant common permission levels:

auth: The server can perform an authentication operation using this resource.
read: The client can have auth access and can also read this resource, but cannot make any changes.
write: The client can have auth and read access to this resource and can also perform add, modify, and delete operations on whatever is specified by resource.
none: The server should not give the client any access at all to this resource.

In Chapter 4, when we look at ACLs in depth, we will look at other keywords and explore creating finer-grained permissions levels, such as allowing write access without granting read access.

So, the second by phrase, by self write, means that once a DN (usually a user) has successfully connected and authenticated to the LDAP server, it can change the value of userPassword.

Finally, the last by phrase says by * none. The * is a wildcard that will apply to everyone. And none, as we came to know, denies any sort of access to the userPassword attribute. This rule says that everyone should be denied access to the password attribute.

This third by phrase provides a good illustration of how ACLs are applied. The ACL is evaluated in order. In the rules above, as soon as the server finds a rule that applies to the current DN, it will stop processing the ACL. Consider an example. When an anonymous user tries to authenticate (bind) with a DN and password, the server will check the ACLs to see if the DN has the right to request an authentication comparison using the userPassword attribute.

As SLAPD evaluates this ACL, it will see that the first by phrase applies; use that rule and skip the other two. But, on the other hand, if an authenticated user tries to read userPassword of another DN, the server will search by phrases until it finds one that matches. It will evaluate and skip the first two before applying the third, which denies that user the access to another record's userPassword attribute.

Tip

The Default by Phrase

When processing an ACL, SLAPD denies access by default. This means that every access directive ends with an implicit by phrase of by * none. So, to save space, we could have omitted the last phrase from both of our ACLs.

Now that we understand the first ACL, the second should be a breeze. Let's see the second one:

access to *
       by self write
       by * none

This last ACL becomes our default rule for the directory. It can be paraphrased this way: for any object and all its attributes (to *), if the currently connected DN is the DN of this object, it can write to the object (by self write). Otherwise, the currently connected DN has no access whatsoever (by * none). In short, it lets objects write to themselves, but denies everyone else all the permissions to the object.

Tip

Restricting the Manager

It should be noted that ACLs cannot be used to restrict the special directory manager account named in the rootdn directive.

Keep in mind that ACLs are processed sequentially. So this second rule will only apply if the earlier rule did not apply.

These access controls are very strict and will prevent directory users from getting much out of the directory. In Chapter 5 we will create some more rules which will make the directory more accessible, but for now these simple rules will suffice.

Verifying a Configuration File

We are now done working through the configuration file. The last thing to do before we start the server is to verify that the configuration file is valid.

OpenLDAP includes a tool for testing the configuration file to make sure that it is well-formed and that the directives are all used correctly. It also checks elements of the OpenLDAP environment to ensure that the requisite files are in the correct locations. The testing tool is called slaptest and it appears as:

  $ sudo slaptest -v -f /etc/ldap/slapd.conf

Since the file system permissions on slapd.conf are very restrictive, we used sudo to execute the test as the root user. The slaptest command needs to know where the slapd.conf file is. This is specified with the -f parameter followed by the path to the configuration file. We also used the -v flag to require verbose output. Since nothing was wrong with slapd.conf, only one line was printed:

config file testing succeeded

But if anything is incorrect, slaptest will provide diagnostic information. Let's look at a misconfigured slapd.conf file:

# slapd.conf - Configuration file for LDAP SLAPD
##########
# Basics #
##########
include /etc/ldap/schema/core.schema
include /etc/ldap/schema/cosine.schema
include /etc/ldap/schema/inetorgperson.schema

pidfile /var/run/slapd/slapd.pid
argsfile /var/run/slapd/slapd.args
loglevel none
modulepath /usr/lib/ldap
# modulepath /usr/local/libexec/openldap
moduleload back_hdb

##########################
# Database Configuration #
##########################
database hdb
suffix "dc=example,dc=com"
rootdn "cn=Manager,dc=example,dc=com"
rootpw secret
directory /var/lib/ldap
# directory /usr/local/var/openldap-data
index objectClass sub,eq
index cn sub,eq

########
# ACLs #
########
access to attrs=userPassword
       by anonymous auth
       by self write
       by * none

access to *
       by self write
       by * none

This configuration file is a minor variation of the one we have been examining throughout this section. The problem is that the objectClass attribute cannot handle substring matches. The reason for this (explained in more detail in Chapter 6) is that the schema does not allow substring matching on the objectClass attribute.

Having made the above change, we run the slaptest command:

  $ sudo slaptest -v -f slapd.conf

The following messages appear:

slapd.conf: line 48: substr index of attribute 
                       "objectClass" disallowed
slaptest: bad configuration file!

As you can see this information is useful for quickly finding and fixing problems before attempting to start the server.

Tip

An Ubuntu Oversight

Due to a configuration oversight by Ubuntu packager maintainers, the slaptest program does not issue a warning if an unknown directive is found. As a result, a mistaken directive name may slip through the verification stage unnoticed. For example, misspelling index as idnex will not result in an error.

Tip

Testing slapd.conf with slapd

The slaptest command is actually nothing more than a symbolic link to slapd, the command used to start the server. While there are no distinct advantages to doing so, you can use the slapd program to test slapd.conf:

$ slapd -T dest -f /etc/ldap/slapd.conf

Once the configuration file passes muster with the slaptest program, we are ready to start our server.

At this point, we have walked through our basic slapd.conf configuration file. This configuration will get our directory up and running, and in later chapters of this book we will cover some more advanced settings that can be included here in the configuration file.

Note

If you are interested in reading more about configuration options for slapd.conf, you may want to take a look at the manual (man) pages. The man pages for OpenLDAP provide a thorough (though sometimes tersely worded) reference. In particular, the slapd.conf page is very useful.

$ man slapd.conf

At the bottom of that page there is a list of other related manual pages, such as slapd-hdb, which lists directives specific to the HDB database.