Skip to main content

Create an LDAP provider

Creating an authentik LDAP provider requires the following steps:

  1. Create an LDAP authentication flow (optional)
  2. Create an LDAP application and provider
  3. Create a service account and assign the LDAP search permission
  4. Create an LDAP Outpost

Create an LDAP authentication flow (optional)​

The default-authentication-flow validates MFA by default. Duo, TOTP, and static authenticators are supported by the LDAP provider. WebAuthn and SMS are not supported.

If you plan to use only dedicated service accounts to bind to LDAP, or only use LDAP supported MFA authenticators, then you can use the default authentication flow and skip this section and continue with the Create an LDAP application and provider section.

Refer to Code-Based MFA support for more information on LDAP and MFA.

Create custom stages​

You'll need to create the stages that make up the flow.

  1. Log in to authentik as an administrator and open the authentik Admin interface.
  2. Navigate to Flows and Stages > Stages, and click Create.

Password Stage​

First, you'll need to create a Password Stage.

  1. Select Password Stage as the stage type, click Next, and set the following required configurations:
    • Provide a Name for the stage (e.g. ldap-authentication-password-stage).
    • For Backends, leave the default settings.
  2. Click Finish

Identification Stage​

Next, you'll need to create an Identification Stage.

  1. On the Stages page, click Create.
  2. Select Identification Stage as the stage type, click Next, and set the following required configurations:
    • Provide a Name for the stage (e.g. ldap-identification-stage).
    • For User fields, select Username and Email (and UPN if it is relevant to your setup).
    • Set Password stage to the Password Stage created in the previous section (e.g. ldap-authentication-password-stage)
  3. Click Finish

User Login Stage​

Finally, you'll need to create a User Login Stage.

  1. On the Stages page, click Create.
  2. Select User Login Stage as the stage type, click Next, and set the following required configurations:
    • Provide a Name for the stage (e.g. ldap-authentication-login-stage).
  3. Click Finish

Create an LDAP authentication flow​

Now you'll need to create the LDAP authentication flow and bind the previously created stages.

  1. Log in to authentik as an administrator and open the authentik Admin interface.
  2. Navigate to Flows and Stages > Flows, click Create, and set the following required configurations:
    • Provide a Name, Title and Slug for the flow (e.g. ldap-authentication-flow).
    • Set Designation to Authentication.
  3. Click Create.
  4. Click the name of the newly created flow, open the Stage Bindings tab, and click Bind existing stage.
  5. Select the previously created LDAP Identification Stage (e.g.ldap-identification-stage), set the order to 10, and click Create.
  6. Click Bind existing stage.
  7. Select the previously created LDAP User Login Stage (e.g.ldap-authentication-login-stage), set the order to 30, and click Create.

Create an LDAP application and provider​

The LDAP application and provider can now be created.

  1. Log in to authentik as an administrator and open the authentik Admin interface.
  2. Navigate to Applications > Applications, click Create with Provider to create an application and provider pair.
  3. On the New application page, define the application details, and then click Next.
  4. Select LDAP Provider as the Provider Type, and then click Next.
  5. On the Configure LDAP Provider page, provide the configuration settings and then click Submit to create both the application and the provider.
info

If you followed the optional Create an LDAP authentication flow section, ensure that you set Bind flow to newly created authentication flow (e.g. ldap-authentication-flow).

Create a service account​

Create a service account to bind to LDAP with.

  1. Log in to authentik as an administrator and open the authentik Admin interface.
  2. Navigate to Directory > Users and click New User.
  3. Provide a name for the service account (e.g. ldapservice) and click Create.
  4. Click the name of the newly created service account.
  5. Under Recovery, click Set password, provide a secure password for the account, and click Update password.
Default DN of service account

The default DN of this user will be cn=ldapservice,ou=users,dc=ldap,dc=goauthentik,dc=io

Assign the LDAP search permission to the service account​

The service account needs permissions to search the LDAP directory.

  1. Log in to authentik as an administrator and open the authentik Admin interface.
  2. Navigate to Applications > Providers
  3. Click on the name of the newly created LDAP provider, then open the Permissions tab.
  4. Click Assign to new user
  5. For User, select a user to assign the full directory search permission to (e.g. ldapservice).
  6. Enable the Search full LDAP directory permission and click Assign

Create an LDAP Outpost​

The LDAP provider requires the deployment of an LDAP Outpost.

  1. Log in to authentik as an administrator and open the authentik Admin interface.

  2. Navigate to Applications > Outposts, click Create and set the following required configurations:

    • Provide a Name for the outpost (e.g. `LDAP Outpost').
    • Set the Type as LDAP.
    • Set Integration to match your deployment method or manually deploy an outpost via Docker-Compose or Kubernetes. For more information, refer to the Outpost documentation.
    • Under Applications, select the LDAP application created in the previous section.
    • Under Advanced settings, set the required outpost configurations. For more information, refer to Outpost Configuration

  3. Click Create.

Multiple LDAP providers

The LDAP Outpost selects different providers based on their Base DN. Adding multiple providers with the same Base DN will result in inconsistent access.

Configuration verification​

You can test the LDAP provider by using the ldapsearch tool on Linux and macOS, or the dsquery tool on Windows.

To install the ldapsearch tool, use one of the following commands:

sudo apt-get install ldap-utils -y # Debian-based systems
sudo yum install openldap-clients -y # CentOS-based systems
brew install openldap #macOS based systems (requires Homebrew to be installed)

To search the LDAP directory using the previously created ldapservice service account, use the following command:

ldapsearch \
  -x \
  -H ldap://<LDAP outpost IP address>:389 \
  -D 'cn=ldapservice,ou=users,DC=ldap,DC=goauthentik,DC=io' \
  -w '<ldapuserpassword>' \
  -b 'DC=ldap,DC=goauthentik,DC=io' \
  '(objectClass=user)'

This example query will return all users and log the first successful attempt in an event in Events > Logs. Subsequent successful logins from the same user are not logged by default, as they are cached in the outpost. For more details see Bind modes.

LDAPS

In production it is recommended to use LDAPS, which requires ldaps:// as the protocol, and port number 636 rather than 389. See LDAPS for more information.