Use specific directory servers as the LDAP server

This topic describes considerations for using particular directory server products for WebSphere security.

Use OS/400 Directory Services as the LDAP server

OS/400 Directory Services is included in the base operating system beginning in V5R1, and option 32 is no longer available, beginning with V5R2. Directory Services is part of the IBM Directory Server family of products and services and is sometimes referred to as Directory Server (formerly SecureWay Directory) for iSeries.

For V5R1, if you are using Directory Services, select SecureWay as the directory type. For V5R2, select either SecureWay or IBM_Directory_Server as the directory type.

Note: If you select IBM_Directory_Server as the LDAP directory type, upgrade Directory Services to LDAP 4.1. With LDAP 4.1, Directory Services is programmed to use the new group membership attributes to improve the performance of group membership searches. For information regarding the PTFs that are required for LDAP 4.1, see iSeries Directory Services (LDAP): New V5R2 Enhancements. (http://www.ibm.com/servers/eserver/iseries/ldap/whatsnew41.htm)

Note: Support for groups that contain other groups (nested groups) depends on specific versions of WebSphere Application Server and LDAP. For more information, see Use nested groups in user registries.

Use IBM Directory Server as the LDAP server

You can choose the directory type of either IBM_Directory_Server or SecureWay for the IBM Directory Server. The difference between these two types is group membership lookup. It is recommended that you choose the IBM Directory Server for optimum performance during run time. In the IBM Directory Server, the group membership is an operational attribute. An entry can be a member directly by the member (uniqueMember). With this attribute, a group membership lookup is done by enumerating the ibm-allGroups attribute for the entry, rather than selecting a group and browsing through the members list. To utilize this attribute in a security authorization application, use case-insensitive match so that attribute values returned by ibm-allGroups are all in upper case. Lower-case values are stored in the directory server.

Note: Support for groups that contain other groups (nested groups) depends on specific versions of WebSphere Application Server and LDAP. For more information, see Use nested groups in user registries.

Use iPlanet Directory Server as the LDAP server

You can choose the iPlanet Directory Server or Netscape for your iPlanet Directory Server system. The difference between the two directory server types is group membership lookup. The iPlanet Directory Server directory is selected to use with the iPlanet Directory Server new grouping mechanism only. The new grouping mechanism is called roles in the iPlanet Directory Server, and the attribute is nsRole. Roles unify entries. Roles are designed to be more efficient and easier to use for applications. For example, an application can locate the role of an entry by enumerating all the roles possessed by a given entry, rather than selecting a group and browsing through the members list. With the iPlanet Directory Server directory, WebSphere Application Server security only supports groups defined by nsRole. If you plan to use traditional grouping methods to group entries in the iPlanet Directory Server, select Netscape as the directory type.

Use Sun ONE Directory Server as the LDAP server

You can choose Sun ONE Directory Server for your Sun ONE Directory Server system. In Sun ONE Directory Server, the default object class is groupOfUniqueName when you create a group. For better performance, WebSphere Application Server uses the user object to locate the user group membership from the nsRole attribute. Thus, create the group from the role. If you want to use groupOfUniqueName to search groups, specify your own filter setting. Roles unify entries. Roles are designed to be more efficient and easier to use for applications. For example, an application can locate the role of an entry by enumerating all the roles possessed by a given entry, rather than selecting a group and browsing through the members list.

Use MS Active Directory server as the LDAP server

To use Microsoft Active Directory as the LDAP server for authentication with WebSphere Application Server, there are specific steps take. By default, Microsoft Active Directory does not permit anonymous LDAP queries. To create LDAP queries or browse the directory, an LDAP client must bind to the LDAP server using the distinguished name (DN) of an account that belongs to the administrator group of the Windows system. Group membership search in the Active Directory is done by enumerating the memberof attribute possessed by a given user entry, rather than browsing through the member list in each group. If you change this default behavior to browse each group, you can change the Group Member ID Map field from memberof:member to group:member.

To set up Microsoft Active Directory as your LDAP server, complete the following steps.

1. Determine the full distinguished name and password of an account in the administrators group.

   For example, if the Active Directory administrator creates an account in the Users folder of the Active Directory Users and Computers Windows NT or Windows 2000 systems control panel and the DNS domain is ibm.com, the resulting DN has the following structure:

   cn=adminUsername, cn=users, dc=ibm, dc=com

2. Determine the short name and password of any account in the Microsoft Active Directory.

   This password does not have to be the same account as used in the previous step.

3. Use the WebSphere administrative console to set up the information needed to use Microsoft Active Directory:
   1. Start the administrative server for the domain, if necessary.
   2. In the administrative console, click Security --> User Registries --> LDAP.
   3. Enter the following information in the LDAP settings fields:
      • Security Server ID: The short name of the account.
      • Security Server Password: The password of the account.
      • Directory Type: Active Directory.
      • Host: The DNS name of the machine running Microsoft Active Directory.
      • Base Distinguished Name: The domain components of the distinguished name of the account. For example: dc=ibm, dc=com Bind
      • Distinguished Name: The full distinguished name of the account. For example: cn=adminUsername, cn=users, dc=ibm, dc=com
      • Bind Password: the password of the account.

   4. Click OK to save the changes.
   5. Stop and restart the administrative server so that changes take effect.

Use a Lotus Domino Server as the LDAP server

If you choose the Lotus Domino LDAP server Version 6, and the attribute shortname is not defined in the schema, you can do either of the following:

• Change the schema to add the shortname attribute.
• Change the user ID map filter to replace the shortname with any other defined attribute (preferably to uid). For example, change person:shortname to person:uid.

The userID map filter has been changed to use the uid attribute instead of the shortname attribute because the current version of Lotus Domino does not create the shortname attribute by default. If you want to use the shortname attribute, define the attribute in the schema and change the userID map filter to the following:

User ID Map:  person:shortname