Before you begin
To use Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) as the user
registry, you must know a valid user name (ID), the user password, the server
host and port, the base distinguished name (DN) and, if necessary, the bind
DN and the bind password. You can choose any valid user in the user registry
that is searchable. In some LDAP servers, administrative users are not searchable
and cannot be used (for example, cn=root in SecureWay). This user is referred
to as WebSphere Application Server security server ID, server ID, or server
user ID in the documentation. Being a server ID means a user has special privileges
when calling some protected internal methods. Normally, this ID and password
is used to log into the administrative console after you turn on security.
You can use other users to log in if those users are part of the administrative
roles.
Review the article on Lightweight Directory Access Protocol user
registries (LDAP) before beginning this task.
- In the administrative console, click Security
> Global security.
- Under User registries, click LDAP.
- Enter a valid user name in the Server user
ID field. You can either enter the complete distinguished name
(DN) of the user or the short name of the user, as defined by the user filter
in the Advanced LDAP settings panel. For example, enter the user ID for Netscape
browsers. This ID is the security server ID, which is only used for WebSphere
Application Server security and is not associated with the system process
that runs the server. The server calls the local OS registry to authenticate
and obtain privilege information about users by calling the native application
programming interfaces (API) in that particular registry.
- Enter the password of the user in the Server
user password field.
- Select the type of LDAP server that is used from the Type list.
The type of LDAP server determines the default filters that are used
by WebSphere Application Server. These default filters change the Type field
to Custom, which indicates that custom filters are used. This action
occurs after you click OK or Apply in the Advanced LDAP settings
panel. Choose the Custom type from the list and modify the user and
group filters to use other LDAP servers, if required.
IBM Tivoli Directory
Server users can choose either IBM Tivoli Directory Server or SecureWay as
the directory type. Use the IBM Tivoli Directory Server directory type for
better performance. For a list of supported LDAP servers, see Supported directory services.
- Enter the fully qualified host name of the LDAP server in the Host
field. You can enter either the IP address or domain name system
(DNS) name.
- Enter the LDAP server port number in the Port field. The
host name and the port number represent the realm for this LDAP server in
the WebSphere Application Server cell. So, if servers in different cells are
communicating with each other using Lightweight Third Party Authentication
(LTPA) tokens, these realms must match exactly in all the cells.
The default
value is 389. If multiple WebSphere Application Servers are installed and
configured to run in the same single signon domain, or if the WebSphere Application
Server interoperates with a previous version of the WebSphere Application
Server, then it is important that the port number match all configurations.
For example, if the LDAP port is explicitly specified as 389 in a Version
5.x configuration, and a WebSphere Application Server at Version 6.0.x is
going to interoperate with the Version 5.x server, then verify that port 389
is specified explicitly for the Version 6.0.x server.
- Enter the base distinguished name (DN) in the Base distinguished
name field. The base DN indicates the starting point for searches
in this LDAP directory server. For example, for a user with a DN of cn=John
Doe, ou=Rochester, o=IBM, c=US, specify the base DN as any of the following
options assuming a suffix of c=us): ou=Rochester, o=IBM, c=us
or o=IBM c=us or c=us. For authorization purposes, this field
is case sensitive by default. Match the case in your directory server. If
a token is received (for example, from another cell or Lotus Domino) the base
DN in the server must match exactly the base DN from the other cell or Domino.
If case sensitivity is not a consideration for authorization, enable the Ignore
case for authorization option.
In WebSphere Application Server, the
distinguished name is normalized according to the Lightweight Directory Access
Protocol (LDAP) specification. Normalization consists of removing spaces in
the base distinguished name before or after commas and equal symbols. An example
of a non-normalized base distinguished name is o = ibm, c = us or o=ibm, c=us.
An example of a normalized base distinguished name is o=ibm,c=us. To interoperate
between WebSphere Application Server Version 5 and later versions, you must
enter a normalized base distinguished name in the Base Distinguished Name
field. In WebSphere Application Server, Version 5.0.1 or later, the normalization
occurs automatically during run time.
This field is required for all
LDAP directories except the Lotus Domino Directory. The Base DN field is optional
for the Domino server.
- Optional: Enter the bind DN name in the Bind distinguished
name field. The bind DN is required if anonymous binds are not
possible on the LDAP server to obtain user and group information. If the LDAP
server is set up to use anonymous binds, leave this field blank. If a name
is not specified, the application server binds anonymously. See the Base Distinguished
Name field description for examples of distinguished names.
- Optional: Enter the password corresponding to the bind
DN in the Bind password field.
- Optional: Modify the Search time out value. This
timeout value is the maximum amount of time that the LDAP server waits to
send a response to the product client before stopping the request. The default
is 120 seconds.
- Ensure that the Reuse connection option is selected.
This option specifies that the server should reuse the LDAP connection.
Clear this option only in rare situations where a router is used to send requests
to multiple LDAP servers and when the router does not support affinity. Leave
this option selected for all other situations.
- Optional: Verify that the Ignore case for authorization option
is enabled. When you enable this option, the authorization check
is case insensitive. Normally, an authorization check involves checking the
complete DN of a user, which is unique in the LDAP server and is case sensitive.
However, when you use either the IBM Directory Server or the iPlanet Directory
Server LDAP servers, you must enable this option because the group information
that is obtained from the LDAP servers is not consistent in case. This inconsistency
affects the authorization check only.
Otherwise, this field is optional
and can be enabled when a case sensitive authorization check is required.
For example, you might select this option when you use certificates and the
certificate contents do not match the case of the entry in the LDAP server.
You can also enable the Ignore case for authorization option when you
are using single signon (SSO) between the product and Lotus Domino. The default
is enabled.
- Optional: Select the SSL enabled option if you
want to use Secure Sockets Layer communications with the LDAP server.
If you select the SSL enabled option,
select the appropriate SSL alias configuration from the list in the SSL configuration
field. For more information on setting up LDAP for SSL, see Configuring Secure Sockets Layer for the Lightweight Directory Access
Protocol client.
- Optional: In the SSL configuration
field, select the Secure Sockets Layer configuration to use for the LDAP connection.
This configuration is used only when SSL is enabled for LDAP. The default
is DefaultSSLSettings. To modify or create a new SSL configuration,
click Security > SSL.
- Click OK. The validation of the user, password,
and the setup do not take place in this panel. Validation is only done when
you click OK or Apply in the Global Security panel. If
you are enabling security for the first time, complete the remaining steps
and go to the Global Security panel. Select LDAP as the active
user registry. If security is already enabled, but information on this panel
changes, go to the Global Security panel and click OK or Apply to
validate your changes. If your changes are not validated, the server might
not start.