docs/source/security/ad-ldap-external-identity-management/configure-ad-ldap-external-identity-management.rst

Configure MinIO for Authentication using Active Directory / LDAP

minio

Table of Contents

Overview

MinIO supports using an Active Directory / LDAP Connect for external management of user identities. The procedure on this page provides instructions for:

• Configuring a MinIO cluster for an external AD/LDAP provider.
• Logging into the cluster using the MinIO Console and AD/LDAP credentials.
• Using the MinIO AssumeRoleWithLDAPIdentity Security Token Service (STS) API to generate temporary credentials for use by applications.

This procedure is generic for AD/LDAP services. Defer to the documentation for the AD/LDAP provider of your choice for specific instructions or procedures on configuration of user identities.

Prerequisites

Active Directory / LDAP Compatible IDentity Provider

This procedure assumes an existing Active Directory or LDAP service. Instructions on configuring AD/LDAP are out of scope for this procedure.

MinIO requires a read-only service account with which it binds <minio-external-identity-management-ad-ldap-lookup-bind> to perform authenticated user and group queries.

Ensure each AD/LDAP user and group intended for use with MinIO has a corresponding policy <minio-external-identity-management-ad-ldap-access-control> on the MinIO deployment. An AD/LDAP user with no assigned policy and with membership in groups with no assigned policy has no permission to access any action or resource on the MinIO cluster.

MinIO Cluster

This procedure assumes an existing MinIO cluster running the latest stable MinIO version <minio/releases/latest>. This procedure may work as expected for older versions of MinIO.

Install and Configure mc with Access to the MinIO Cluster

This procedure uses mc for performing operations on the MinIO cluster. Install mc on a machine with network access to the cluster. See the mc Installation Quickstart <mc-install> for instructions on downloading and installing mc.

This procedure assumes a configured alias <mc alias> for the MinIO cluster.

Procedure

1) Set the Active Directory / LDAP Configuration Settings

You can configure the AD/LDAP provider using either environment variables or server runtime configuration settings. Both methods require starting/restarting the MinIO deployment to apply changes. The following tabs provide a quick reference of all required and optional environment variables and configuration settings respectively:

Environment Variables

MinIO supports specifying the AD/LDAP provider settings using environment variables <minio-server-envvar-external-identity-management-ad-ldap>. The minio server process applies the specified settings on its next startup. For distributed deployments, specify these settings across all nodes in the deployment using the same values consistently.

The following example code sets all environment variables related to configuring an AD/LDAP provider for external identity management. The minimum required variable are:

• MINIO_IDENTITY_LDAP_SERVER_ADDR
• MINIO_IDENTITY_LDAP_LOOKUP_BIND_DN
• MINIO_IDENTITY_LDAP_LOOKUP_BIND_PASSWORD
• MINIO_IDENTITY_LDAP_USER_DN_SEARCH_BASE_DN
• MINIO_IDENTITY_LDAP_USER_DN_SEARCH_FILTER

export MINIO_IDENTITY_LDAP_SERVER_ADDR="ldaps.example.net:636"
export MINIO_IDENTITY_LDAP_LOOKUP_BIND_DN="CN=xxxxx,OU=xxxxx,OU=xxxxx,DC=example,DC=net"
export MINIO_IDENTITY_LDAP_USER_DN_SEARCH_BASE_DN="dc=example,dc=net"
export MINIO_IDENTITY_LDAP_USER_DN_SEARCH_FILTER="(&(objectCategory=user)(sAMAccountName=%s))"
export MINIO_IDENTITY_LDAP_LOOKUP_BIND_PASSWORD="xxxxxxxxx"
export MINIO_IDENTITY_LDAP_GROUP_SEARCH_FILTER="(&(objectClass=group)(member=%d))"
export MINIO_IDENTITY_LDAP_GROUP_SEARCH_BASE_DN="ou=MinIO Users,dc=example,dc=net"

For complete documentation on these variables, see minio-server-envvar-external-identity-management-ad-ldap

Configuration Settings

MinIO supports specifying the AD/LDAP provider settings using configuration settings <identity_ldap>. The minio server process applies the specified settings on its next startup. For distributed deployments, the mc admin config command applies the configuration to all nodes in the deployment.

The following example code sets all configuration settings related to configuring an AD/LDAP provider for external identity management. The minimum required setting are:

• identity_ldap server_addr <identity_ldap.server_addr>
• identity_ldap lookup_bind_dn <identity_ldap.lookup_bind_dn>
• identity_ldap lookup_bind_password <identity_ldap.lookup_bind_password>
• identity_ldap user_dn_search_base_dn <identity_ldap.user_dn_search_base_dn>
• identity_ldap user_dn_search_filter <identity_ldap.user_dn_search_filter>

mc admin config set ALIAS/ identity_ldap \
   server_addr="ldaps.example.net:636" \
   lookup_bind_dn="CN=xxxxx,OU=xxxxx,OU=xxxxx,DC=example,DC=net" \
   lookup_bind_password="xxxxxxxx" \
   user_dn_search_base_dn="DC=example,DC=net" \
   user_dn_search_filter="(&(objectCategory=user)(sAMAccountName=%s))" \
   group_search_filter= "(&(objectClass=group)(member=%d))" \
   group_search_base_dn="ou=MinIO Users,dc=example,dc=net" 

For more complete documentation on these settings, see identity_ldap.

2) Restart the MinIO Deployment

You must restart the MinIO deployment to apply the configuration changes. Use the mc admin service restart command to restart the deployment.

mc admin service restart ALIAS

Replace ALIAS with the alias <alias> of the deployment to restart.

3) Use the MinIO Console to Log In with AD/LDAP Credentials

The MinIO Console supports the full workflow of authenticating to the AD/LDAP provider, generating temporary credentials using the MinIO minio-sts-assumerolewithldapidentity Security Token Service (STS) endpoint, and logging the user into the MinIO deployment.

Starting in RELEASE.2021-07-08T01-15-01Z, the MinIO Console is embedded in the MinIO server. You can access the Console by opening the root URL for the MinIO cluster. For example, https://minio.example.net:9000.

From the Console, click BUTTON to begin the Active Directory / LDAP authentication flow.

Once logged in, you can perform any action for which the authenticated user is authorized <minio-external-identity-management-ad-ldap-access-control>.

You can also create service accounts <minio-idp-service-account> for supporting applications which must perform operations on MinIO. Service accounts are long-lived credentials which inherit their privileges from the parent user. The parent user can further restrict those privileges while creating the service account.

4) Generate S3-Compatible Temporary Credentials using AD/LDAP Credentials

MinIO requires clients authenticate using AWS Signature Version 4 protocol <sig-v4-authenticating-requests.html> with support for the deprecated Signature Version 2 protocol. Specifically, clients must present a valid access key and secret key to access any S3 or MinIO administrative API, such as PUT, GET, and DELETE operations.

Applications can generate temporary access credentials as-needed using the minio-sts-assumerolewithldapidentity Security Token Service (STS) API endpoint and AD/LDAP user credentials. MinIO provides an example Go application ldap.go <minio/blob/master/docs/sts/ldap.go> with an example of managing this workflow.

POST https://minio.example.net?Action=AssumeRoleWithLDAPIdentity
&LDAPUsername=USERNAME
&LDAPPassword=PASSWORD
&Version=2011-06-15
&Policy={}

• Replace the LDAPUsername with the username of the AD/LDAP user.
• Replace the LDAPPassword with the password of the AD/LDAP user.
• Replace the Policy with an inline URL-encoded JSON policy <minio-policy> that further restricts the permissions associated to the temporary credentials. Omit to use the policy whose name matches <minio-external-identity-management-ad-ldap-access-control> the Distinguished Name (DN) of the AD/LDAP user.

The API response consists of an XML document containing the access key, secret key, session token, and expiration date. Applications can use the access key and secret key to access and perform operations on MinIO.

See the minio-sts-assumerolewithldapidentity for reference documentation.