The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) is an open, vendor-neutral, industry-standard application protocol for accessing and maintaining distributed directory information services over an Internet Protocol (IP) network.

LDAP integration allows you to connect the instance to catalog service server with LDAP (for example, Active Directory) and user it as a source of the user data. It provides the ability to connect to a directory service storing the authentication data, such as usernames, passwords, user home directories used for keeping business and other data, etc. The global objective of the LDAP engine is importing users into the system. And through this, synchronization with various corporate services can be achieved, and one account can be used to authorize in all corporate services, such as email, website, VoIP, and so on.

The RDN (relative distinguished name) is the attribute defining the search directory, like this: dc=instance,dc=com

In this client-server infrastructure scheme, the SimpleOne instance has to be a client connecting to the LDAP server.

The users can authorize with user.ldap_autoprovision property that enables automatic creation of users in the User table in case the user is created in LDAP but not created on the instance.

You can also use third-party authorization services on your instance. See the Single Sign-On article to learn more.

The system synchronizes with the LDAP server only via the Schedule Jobs – scheduled script that defines periods of synchronization (for example, every 3 hours). See the Scheduled Script article to learn more. Thus, the data is not updated automatically at authorization or other operations.

Establish an LDAP connection

To establish the connection between your SimpleOne instance and the LDAP server, complete the following steps:

1. Specify the LDAP server.
2. Define the LDAP URL.
3. (optional) Add a certificate to create a secure LDAP connection.
4. Set up the LDAP settings.
5. Check settings.
6. (optional) Data import.

Additional tools for setting up LDAP connection:

• LDAP log
• LDAP system properties

Specify an LDAP server

To configure an LDAP connection, complete the steps below:

1. Navigate to LDAP → LDAP Servers.
2. Click New and fill in the fields.
3. Click Save or Save and exit to apply changes.
4. Copy the current record ID.

LDAP Server form fields

Define an LDAP URL

In order to successfully connect to the server, the server and the current SimpleOne instance must be available for connection. Apart from that, the port to which you try to connect must be open.

The account used for connection must belong to the Domain User group. It means that the user must have the permission to read the catalog.

To create a URL, complete the steps below:

1. Navigate to LDAP → LDAP URL.
2. Click New and fill in the fields.
3. Click Save or Save and exit to apply the changes.

LDAP URL form fields

Add a certificate

If you need to establish a secure LDAP connection over SSL or LDAPS via port 636, provide the SSL certificate. If you do not have a valid certificate, the LDAP connection will be insecure. In this case, use port 389 (TCP/UDP).

To add an LDAP certificate, complete the steps below:

1. Navigate to LDAP → Certificates.
2. Click New to create a new record.

3. Attach the SSL-certificate file.

   To work correctly, the certificate must be a root one (CA). The supported PEM (Privacy Enhanced Mail) formats have the following extension: .pem, .crt, .cer. Files must be Base64 encoded and start with "----- BEGIN CERTIFICATE -----" and end with "----- END CERTIFICATE -----".

   
   

4. Specify the Name of the certificate and select the Active checkbox. You can also add Short description. The values for other fields are taken from the attached file.
5. Click Save or Save and exit to apply the changes.

Certificate form fields

LDAP settings 

After you configured an LDAP server and an LDAP URL and performed all necessary customer infrastructure preparations, set up an LDAP setting.

If you completed the steps above and performed all necessary customer infrastructure preparations, proceed to setting up an LDAP setting.

To configure the LDAP setting, complete the steps below:

1. Navigate to LDAP → LDAP Settings.
2. Click New and fill in the fields.
3. Click Save or Save and exit to apply the changes.

You can check the LDAP structure by clicking the Browse LDAP on the corresponding LDAP Server record.

Check settings 

Ensure that the connection is set up by performing the following steps:

1. Navigate to LDAP → LDAP Servers.
2. Open the record you need.
   1. Click Test connection to check the first URL connection defined by the order.
   2. Click Test all connections to check all defined connections.

If an error occurs, check LDAP Log records.

LDAP import

Import all necessary data from your LDAP server to the instance. 

To complete the data import using LDAP, set up the following system elements:

• LDAP Settings – specifies filters for retrieving data from a defined LDAP table.
• Import Source – loads row data for further processing and transformation.

The scheme below illustrates the process of data import from an LDAP server.

See the LDAP Import Source article to learn more.

Example of the integration with AD

The "out-of-the-box" solution contains an example of the connection to the Active Directory (AD) service. 

Check out the examples mentioned below before setting up the LDAP import on an instance. The settings of the examples are protected from changes. In the hamburger menu of each record, click Make a copy to copy the example setting and change their values.

The following records are created and configured:

• the Demo_Active_Directory LDAP Server with the LDAP URL example. In your copy, specify the parameters of the server.

• the SimpleOneCourses1 and SimpleOneCourses2 LDAP Settings. Use one of these definitions as an example to create a working connection with the AD service.
  

  Field Value Description Filter (&  (objectClass=person) (sn=*) ) (&  (objectClass=person,top) (sn=*) ) The defined filter selects user records with any username to import from the AD service.  Query Field sAMAccountName The field that is used for connecting with the AD and querying the records. Attribute List samaccountname,sn,givenname,distinguishedname,msDS-cloudExtensionAttribute6,telephonenumber, mobile,mail,manager,company,useraccountcontrol,thumbnailphoto The attributes the LDAP query returns.

  
  

• the LDAP Users Import Source. Use one import source for the same LDAP settings.
• the Daily Import SimpleOne Employees and Daily Import SimpleOne Employees 2 scheduled imports. The AD data is imported daily at a specific time. Use one of the imports as an example to create your scheduled import.
• the Daily Deletion of Obsolete Import Sets scheduled script. The script deletes inactive import sets. When an import set is deleted, a cascading deletion occurs for the Import Set column of the Import Set Row table.

To connect and import the users from the AD service, complete the following steps:

1. Create a local pack in the Simple application for the LDAP import settings.
2. Create copies of records mentioned above and set up the LDAP integration by changing the field values to the required ones.
3. Click Test connection in the LDAP Server record. If the connection is established successfully, click Browse LDAP to check the LDAP structure.
4. After you checked the structure, go to the LDAP Setting you need and open the related import source.
5. (optional) Click Test Load (20 records) to create a test import set.
6. Click Load all records.
7. Click View Transform Map to create a Transform Map record. The Target Table value should match the value of the Table field in the LDAP Settings record.
8. On the Transform Map create Field Maps through the related list. The Login and Email field map records should have the selected Coalesce checkbox. The parameter defines the fields of the target table that will be used to search for the records based on the imported data. If a record is found in the target table, it will be updated. Otherwise, a new record will be created.
9. Go back to the Import Source record and open the Import Set record via the related list.
10. Click Transform to import data from the AD service. 
11. Configure the copy of the Daily Import SimpleOne Employees scheduled import. Add the reference to the created Import Source.
12. Configure the copy of the Daily Deletion of Obsolete Import Sets scheduled script and select the Active checkbox. Copy the ID of the Import Source to the import_source_id variable of the script.

LDAP log

If an error occurred in the system, you can check the log messages to find the cause. In the LDAP Log, you can find records of failed authorization attempts or attempts to bypass authorization policy. In fact, all these messages are recorded into the Main Logs (sys_log) table.

To see the LDAP logs, navigate to LDAP → LDAP log.

LDAP Log form fields

LDAP system properties

Some LDAP features can be configured on the client side using system properties. Available properties can be found in the LDAP Properties article.