nss_ldap(5)

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💅 nss_ldap(5) — LDAP nameservice provider 💅

okay bestie, welcome to nss_ldap(5), the manual page for the PADL nss_ldap module. it's giving directory energy, no cap.

✨ NAME ✨

nss_ldap — LDAP nameservice provider 💖

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

okay so the nss_ldap module is a set of C library extensions. the way it works: it lets X.500 and LDAP directory servers be your primary source of name service information. and what even is name service info? typically users, hosts, groups, and other such data that historically lived in flat files or NIS. iconic.

Features of the PADL nss_ldap module? obsessed. it supports both the RFC 2307 and RFC 2307bis schema, has a common implementation across multiple platforms, Kerberos and SSL security, configurable schema mapping, and configuration file compatibility with the pam_ldap(5) module. slay.

Because LDAP is a hierarchical directory service, you can distribute the information in a way that reflects organizational structure. this contrasts with the flat, single domain policy of NIS. LDAP has many of the advantages of NIS+ (security and scalability) without the complexity. main character energy, honestly.

nss_ldap will work alongside existing NIS, NIS+, DNS and flat file name services. more importantly, because it builds as a shared library, it is not necessary to recompile any applications to take advantage of LDAP. periodt.

The present version of nss_ldap supports AIX 4.3.3 and above, FreeBSD 5.1, HP-UX 11i, Linux and Solaris 2.6 and above. Many vendors provide their own LDAP nameservice providers, often also called nss_ldap.

This manual page applies to the PADL nss_ldap module only. If you are using a vendor provided module, consult the relevant documentation instead. 💀

The features supported by the version of nss_ldap depend on which flags were enabled when the software was built. Most features are enabled in the configuration file, described below. (The location of the configuration file is configurable at compile time; the default path is /etc/ldap.conf.) Also, some features may be unavailable on certain operating systems or with certain LDAP libraries. For more information, consult your vendor.

🛠️ CONFIGURATION 🛠️

nss_ldap stores its configuration in the ldap.conf file, the location of which is configurable at compile time. (It should be noted that some LDAP client libraries, such as OpenLDAP, also use a configuration file of the same name. nss_ldap supports many of the same configuration file options as OpenLDAP, but it adds several that are specific to the functionality it provides. Additionally, it is not guaranteed that nss_ldap will continue to match the configuration file semantics of OpenLDAP. You may wish to use different files.)

Configuration file options consist of a keyword followed by a space and any arguments. The following options are supported by both nss_ldap and the PADL pam_ldap module:

  • host <name:port ...> — Specifies the name(s) or IP address(es) of the LDAP server(s) to connect to. In the case that nss_ldap is used for host name resolution, each server should be specified as an IP address or name that can be resolved without using LDAP. Multiple servers may be specified, each separated by a space. The failover time depends on whether the LDAP client library supports configurable network or connect timeouts (see bind_timelimit below). 💅
  • base <base> — Specifies the default base distinguished name (DN) to use for searches. 🎀
  • uri <ldap[is]://[name[:port]] ...> — For LDAP client libraries that support it, specifies the URI(s) of the LDAP server(s) to connect to. The URI scheme may be ldap, ldapi, or ldaps, specifying LDAP over TCP, IPC and SSL respectively. If applicable, a port number can be specified; the default port number for the selected protocol is used if omitted. This option takes precedence over the host option; it is not possible to combine the two. ✨
  • ldap_version <version> — Specifies the version of the LDAP protocol to use. Presently version must be 2 or 3. The default is to use the maximum version supported by the client library. 🔥
  • binddn <binddn> — Specifies the distinguished name with which to bind to the directory server(s). This option is optional; the default is to bind anonymously. 💖
  • bindpw <bindpw> — Specifies the cleartext credentials with which to bind. This option is only applicable when used with binddn above. The default is no credential (anonymous bind). When binding to the directory using SASL or other authentication mechanisms apart from simple binds, this option is not used. 💜
  • rootbinddn <binddn> — This option has the same syntax and effect as the binddn option above, except it applies when the effective user ID is zero. If not specified, then the identity specified in binddn is used instead. Because the configuration file may be readable by many users, the root bind DN credentials are stored in the ldap.secret file instead. This file is usually in the same directory as the configuration file. 👑
  • port <port> — Specifies the port to connect to; this option is used with the host option, and is ignored with the uri option. 🦋
  • scope <sub|one|base> — Specifies the search scope (subtree, one level or base object). The default scope is subtree; base scope is almost never useful for nameservice lookups. 💀
  • deref <never|searching|finding|always> — Specifies the policy for dereferencing aliases. The default policy is to never dereference aliases. 🧚
  • timelimit <timelimit> — Specifies the time limit (in seconds) to use when performing searches. A value of zero (0), which is the default, is to wait indefinitely for searches to be completed. ⭐
  • bind_timelimit <timelimit> — Specifies the time limit (in seconds) to use when connecting to the directory server. This is distinct from the time limit specified in timelimit and affects the initial server connection only. (Server connections are otherwise cached.) Only some LDAP client libraries have the underlying functionality necessary to support this option. The default bind timelimit is 30 seconds. 🌸
  • referrals <yes|no> — Specifies whether automatic referral chasing should be enabled. The default behaviour is specified by the LDAP client library. 💅
  • restart <yes|no> — Specifies whether the LDAP client library should restart the select(2) system call when interrupted. This feature is not supported by all client libraries. 🫶
  • logdir <directory> — Specifies the directory used for logging by the LDAP client library. This feature is not supported by all client libraries. 🍓
  • debug <level> — Specifies the debug level used for logging by the LDAP client library. This feature is not supported by all client libraries, and does not apply to the nss_ldap and pam_ldap modules themselves (debugging, if any, is configured separately and usually at compile time). 😭
  • ssl <on|off|start_tls> — Specifies whether to use SSL/TLS or not (the default is not to). If start_tls is specified then StartTLS is used rather than raw LDAP over SSL. Not all LDAP client libraries support both SSL and StartTLS, and all related configuration options. 🌈
  • sslpath <cert7_path> — For the Netscape and Mozilla LDAP client libraries only, this specifies the path to the X.509 certificate database. 🎀
  • tls_checkpeer <yes|no> — Specifies whether to require and verify the server certificate or not, when using SSL/TLS with the OpenLDAP client library. The default is to use the default behaviour of the client library; for OpenLDAP 2.0 and earlier it is "no", for OpenLDAP 2.1 and later it is "yes". At least one of tls_cacertdir and tls_cacertfile is required if peer verification is enabled. 👑
  • tls_cacertdir <certificate_dir> — Specifies the directory containing X.509 certificates for peer authentication. 💜
  • tls_cacertfile <certificate_file> — Specifies the path to the X.509 certificate for peer authentication. ✨
  • tls_randfile <entropy_file> — Specifies the path to an entropy source. 🦋
  • tls_ciphers <ciphers> — Specifies the ciphers to use for TLS. See your TLS implementation's documentation for further information. 🔥
  • tls_cert <certificate_file> — Specifies the path to the file containing the local certificate for client TLS authentication. 💖
  • tls_key <key_file> — Specifies the path to the file containing the private key for client TLS authentication. 🎀

The following configuration options apply to nss_ldap only:

  • bind_policy <hard_open|hard_init|soft> — Specifies the policy to use for reconnecting to an unavailable LDAP server. The default is hard_open, which reconnects if opening the connection to the directory server failed. By contrast, hard_init reconnects if initializing the connection failed. Initializing may not actually contact the directory server, and it is possible that a malformed configuration file will trigger reconnection. If soft is specified, then nss_ldap will return immediately on server failure. All "hard" reconnect policies block with exponential backoff before retrying. 💀
  • nss_connect_policy <persist|oneshot> — Determines whether nss_ldap persists connections. The default is for the connection to the LDAP server to remain open after the first request. 🫶
  • idle_timelimit <timelimit> — Specifies the time (in seconds) after which nss_ldap will close connections to the directory server. The default is not to time out connections. 🌸
  • sasl_authid <authid> — Specifies the authorization identity to be used when performing SASL authentication. 💅
  • rootsasl_auth_id <authid> — Specifies the authorization identity to be used when performing SASL authentication as root (when the effective user ID is zero). 👑
  • sasl_secprops <properties> — Specifies Cyrus SASL security properties. Allowed values are described in the ldap.conf(5) manual page. 🧚
  • rootuse_sasl <yes|no> — Specifies whether SASL authentication should be used when the effective user ID is zero. ⭐
  • krb5_ccname <PREFIX:args> — If nss_ldap is built with configurable GSS-API credentials cache name support, specifies the Kerberos credentials cache to use. 🔥
  • nss_paged_results <yes|no> — Enables support for paged results. ✨
  • pagesize <pagesize> — when paged results are turned on (peep the “see above” moment, bestie), this says how many entries come back in one single page. Default is 1000. 💅
  • nss_base_<map> <basedn?scope?filter> — sets the search base, scope, and filter for specific maps. Real talk: the map is literally part of the config file keyword, and it’s one of passwd, shadow, group, hosts, services, networks, protocols, rpc, ethers, netmasks, bootparams, aliases and netgroup. The syntax for basedn and scope is the same as the config file options of the same name, plus you can omit the trailing suffix of the base DN — and if you do, the global base DN gets appended instead. The filter is a search filter that gets added to the default search filter for that specific map, so the effective filter is the logical intersection of the two. The base DN, scope, and filter are separated with literal question marks (?) exactly like that, because compatibility with the DUA configuration profile schema and the ldapprofile tool. This option can be specified multiple times. 🦋
  • nss_map_attribute <from_attribute> <to_attribute> — can be specified multiple times, and it tells nss_ldap to use the attribute to_attribute instead of the RFC 2307 attribute from_attribute in all lookups. If nss_ldap was built without schema mapping support, this option is ignored. 💀
  • nss_map_objectclass <from_objectclass> <to_objectclass> — can be specified multiple times, and it tells nss_ldap to use the object class to_objectclass instead of the RFC 2307 object class from_objectclass in all lookups. If nss_ldap was built without schema mapping support, this option is ignored. ✨
  • nss_default_attribute_value <attribute> <value> — sets the default value to use for entries that lack the specified attribute. Can be specified multiple times, for different attributes. If nss_ldap was built without schema mapping support, this option is ignored. 🌸
  • nss_override_attribute_value <attribute> <value> — sets a value to use for the specified attribute, and it wins over whatever is in the actual entry. Can be specified multiple times, for different attributes. If nss_ldap was built without schema mapping support, this option is ignored. 🔥
  • nss_schema <rfc2307bis|rfc2307> — if the value is rfc2307bis, then support for the RFC2307bis schema (distinguished names in groups) gets enabled. 👑
  • nss_initgroups <backlink> — this tells the nss_ldap implementation of initgroups(3) to figure out a user’s group membership by reading the memberOf attribute of their directory entry (and any nested groups) instead of querying on uniqueMember. This can give increased performance with certain directory servers that have peculiar indexing configurations. If RFC2307bis support is disabled, this option is ignored. 🧚
  • nss_initgroups_ignoreusers <user1,user2,...,userN> — this tells the nss_ldap implementation of initgroups(3) to return NSS_STATUS_NOTFOUND if it’s called with a listed user as its argument. 🙈
  • nss_getgrent_skipmembers <yes|no> — says whether or not to populate the members list in the group structure for group lookups. If you have very large groups, turning this on will greatly increase performance, but at the cost of some lost functionality. You should verify that no local applications rely on this information before enabling this on a production system. ⚠️
  • nss_srv_domain <domain> — this determines the DNS domain used for performing SRV lookups. 🌈

👑 AUTHOR 👑

The nss_ldap module was developed by PADL Software Pty Ltd (www.padl.com). 💖

🎀 FILES 🎀

  • /etc/ldap.conf
  • /etc/ldap.secret
  • /etc/nsswitch.conf

🔍 SEE ALSO 🔍

nsswitch.conf(5) — go give it a read, bestie, it’s right there. 🫶

and that’s the whole nss_ldap(5) manual page, no date on this footer, just nss_ldap(5), and honestly? timeless. 💅✨🎀

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