Setting Secure LDAP and Authenticating client with Secure LDAP Server

Hello boys,

follow All the post of my previous 2 blogs it will help you to setup LDAP server and authenticating client using LDAP now lets move 1 step ahead and start making our ldap server secure.

Enable SSL in OpenLDAP Server

Using encrypted sessions we can secure LDAP communication.  Transport Layer Security (TLS) is used for this purpose. Recent releases of  slapd  in Ubuntu is compiled with support for GnuTLS instead of OpenSSL, there for we need to install following packages now.

$sudo apt-get install gnutls-bin

After that we need to create certificate authority(CA) for this purpose.

#certtool --generate-privkey > /etc/ssl/private/cakey.pem

After that create a template file(/etc/ssl/ca.info) to assist the creation of self-sign CA.

cn = Example Company
ca
cert_signing_key

Now sign the generated CA.

#certtool --generate-self-signed \
--load-privkey /etc/ssl/private/cakey.pem \ 
--template /etc/ssl/ca.info \
--outfile /etc/ssl/certs/cacert.pem

Now create the key for slapd and sign it using generated CA.

#certtool --generate-privkey \
--outfile /etc/ssl/private/slapd01_key.pem

Create a template file.(/etc/ssl/slapd01.info)

organization = Example
cn = ldap01.example.com
tls_www_server
encryption_key
signing_key
expiration_days = 3650

Create a certificate and sign it with previously created CA.

#certtool --generate-certificate \
--load-privkey /etc/ssl/private/slapd01_key.pem \
--load-ca-certificate /etc/ssl/certs/cacert.pem \
--load-ca-privkey /etc/ssl/private/cakey.pem \
--template /etc/ssl/slapd01.info \
--outfile /etc/ssl/certs/slapd01.pem

Once the certificate is generated , now we need to tell LDAP about the created SSL certificate, for that we  need to create a LDIF file as below. (/etc/ssl/certinfo.ldif)

dn: cn=config
add: olcTLSCACertificateFile
olcTLSCACertificateFile: /etc/ssl/certs/cacert.pem
-
add: olcTLSCertificateFile
olcTLSCertificateFile: /etc/ssl/certs/slapd01.pem
-
add: olcTLSCertificateKeyFile
olcTLSCertificateKeyFile: /etc/ssl/private/slapd01_key.pem

Now add it to the LDAP.

$sudo ldapmodify -Y EXTERNAL -H ldapi:/// -f /etc/ssl/certinfo.ldif

Also make sure to grant read access to openldap user to each of below files and locations.

$chown openldap:openldap /etc/ssl/private/cakey.pem \
/etc/ssl/private/slapd01_key.pem  /etc/ssl/certs/cacert.pem   /etc/ssl/certs/slapd01.pem 

$chown -R openldap:openldap /etc/ssl/private 

Now enable SSL in /etc/default/slapd as below and restart the slapd daemon.(add ldaps:/// entry additionally.)

SLAPD_SERVICES="ldap:/// ldapi:/// ldaps:///"

/etc/init.d/slapd  restart

Now lets see how to access the secured LDAP server.

Configure DHCP server to access secured LDAP 

In http://mageconfig.blogspot.com/2014/10/configure-isc-dhcp-server-with-openldap.html  post I have already configured ISC DHCP to communicate with OpenLDAP server, therefor in here I will only show the extra steps required to communicate with secured OpenLDAP server.

In the DHCP server configuration file, change as below and restart the DHCP server.
/etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf

ldap-server                 "localhost";
ldap-port 636;
ldap-ssl ldaps;
ldap-tls-reqcert never; #Telling Not to verify certificates as we have used self sign certs
ldap-base-dn                "ou=dhcp,dc=example,dc=com";
ldap-method                 static;
ldap-debug-file             "/var/log/dhcp-ldap-startup.log";
ldap-dhcp-server-cn         "server"

Configure Ubuntu Server to Authenticate with Secured LDAP

As I have explained the procedure above I will only show you the extra configurations needed. As I have used self sign certificates in here also I will disable certificate checks.

/etc/ldap.conf

.
.
uri ldaps://IpAddressOfLDAPServer:636/
.
.
ssl on
.
.

TLS_REQCERT never 
tls_checkpeer no
.
.

  
Now  on client machine I hope you have followed the previous blogs for setup ldap auth .now copy the cacaert.pem from server to client machine as it will required to validate the server certificate.

# scp /etc/ssl/certs/cacert.pem  root@<ip-address-of-client-mahine>:/etc/ssl/certs/




After that on client machine  add the below line

TLS_REQCERT allow #Which tells not to validate self sign certs




now Its a time for testing guys.




$ldapsearch -x  -H ldaps://ldap.example.com -b dc=example,dc=com

if its promts for password that means every thing is ok and now we can reconfigure the ldap-auth-config

$sudo dpkg-reconfigure ldap-auth-config

• LDAP server Uniform Resource Identifier: ldaps://LDAP-server-IP-Address
  • Change the initial string from "ldapi:///" to "ldap://" before inputing your server's information
• Distinguished name of the search base:
  • This should match the value you put in your LDAP server's /etc/phpldapadmin/config.phpfile.
  • Search for: " 'server','base',array " within the file.
  • Our example was "dc=test,dc=com"
• LDAP version to use: 3
• Make local root Database admin: Yes
• Does the LDAP database require login? No
• LDAP account for root:
  • This should also match the value in your /etc/phpldapadmin/config.php.
  • Search for: " 'login','bind_id' " within the file
  • Our example was "cn=admin,dc=test,dc=com"
• LDAP root account password: Your-LDAP-root-password

and we are done. if you are still not getting authenticated then restart the nscd service as it may happen that connection timeout has happen if its still not working then check into the 

/var/log/authlog

Thanks guys let me know if you still have any questions...