How to configure NSS LDAP for SSL usage with PAM ?


This topic is related to the Linux client configuration for PAM, but in this article, we just want to configure the NSS library so that glibc can lookup user or group information into LDAP using SSL.

Please note that:

If you want to use startTLS, you need the non-secure port 389, if you only want SSL or TLS, then just use port 636. To add support for SSL in to nss_ldap on the clients, you will have to edit and modify the nss_ldap and pam_ldap configuration file, /etc/ldap.conf

Example, for SSL only:

Provide with the IP address of your ldap server

host 1.2.3.4    

Provide with the base to search in, and scope to search the entire subtree

base dc=sometest    
scope sub    

Provide using an uri with ldap over ssl

uri ldaps://<some-fully-qualified-hostname>/

LDAP protocol version and port for SSL

ldap_version 3    
port 636    

Provide with a root dn to bind with. The associated password in in /etc/ldap.secret by default, and with mode 0400

rootbinddn uid=<some-nss-ldap-bind-uid>,dc=<some-component>,dc=sometest    

Provide some time out values

timelimit 120    
bind_timelimit 120    
idle_timelimit 3600    

So, /etc/ldap.conf looks like this (note there is no pam info for this example, as we focus on SSL only in this article):

host 1.2.3.4
base dc=sometest
scope sub
uri ldaps://<some-fully-qualified-hostname>/
ldap_version 3
port 636
rootbinddn uid=<some-nss-ldap-bind-uid>,dc=<some-component>,dc=sometest
timelimit 120
bind_timelimit 120
idle_timelimit 3600

Ldapsearch command line example using SSL: Note: the CA cert was manually imported as described in http://directory.fedoraproject.org/wiki/Howto:SSL#Import_the_CA_cert_into_another_Fedora_DS

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/fedora-ds/shared/lib/
/opt/fedora-ds/shared/bin/ldapsearch -Z -W <some-key-file-password> -P /opt/fedora-ds/alias/slapd-<instance-name>-cert8.db \
-h <some-ldap-server> -D "uid=<some-nss-ldap-bind-uid>,dc=<some-component>,dc=sometest" -w <some-nss-ldap-bind-pw> \
-b dc=sometest "(&(objectClass=posixGroup))"

LDAP server access log example:

[17/Oct/2007:16:17:33 -0700] conn=30 fd=64 slot=64 SSL connection from 1.2.3.4 to 5.6.7.8    
[17/Oct/2007:16:17:33 -0700] conn=30 SSL 256-bit AES    
[17/Oct/2007:16:17:33 -0700] conn=30 op=0 BIND dn="uid=<some-nss-ldap-bind-uid>,dc=<some-component>,dc=sometest" method=128 version=3    
[17/Oct/2007:16:17:33 -0700] conn=30 op=0 RESULT err=0 tag=97 nentries=0 etime=0 dn="uid=<some-nss-ldap-bind-uid>,dc=<some-component>,dc=sometest"    
[17/Oct/2007:16:17:33 -0700] conn=30 op=1 SRCH base="dc=sometest" scope=2 filter="(&(objectClass=posixGroup))" attrs="cn userPassword memberUid uniqueMember gidNumber"    
[17/Oct/2007:16:17:33 -0700] conn=30 op=1 RESULT err=0 tag=101 nentries=51 etime=0    
Last modified on 31 July 2024