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Integrate with sssd

Support level: Community

What is sssd​

SSSD is an acronym for System Security Services Daemon. It is the client component of centralized identity management solutions such as FreeIPA, 389 Directory Server, Microsoft Active Directory, OpenLDAP and other directory servers. The client serves and caches the information stored in the remote directory server and provides identity, authentication and authorization services to the host machine.

-- https://sssd.io/

Note that authentik supports only user and group objects. As a consequence, it cannot be used to provide automount or sudo configuration nor can it provide netgroups or services to nss. Kerberos is also not supported.

Preparation​

The following placeholders are used in this guide:

  • authentik.company is the FQDN of the authentik LDAP outpost installation.
  • ldap.baseDN is the Base DN you configure in the LDAP provider.
  • ldap.domain is (typically) an FQDN for your domain. Usually it is just the components of your base DN. For example, if ldap.baseDN is dc=ldap,dc=goauthentik,dc=io then the domain might be ldap.goauthentik.io.
  • ldap.searchGroup is the "Search Group" that can can see all users and groups in authentik.
  • sssd.serviceAccount is a service account created in authentik
  • sssd.serviceAccountToken is the service account token generated by authentik.
note

This documentation lists only the settings that you need to change from their default values. Be aware that any changes other than those explicitly mentioned in this guide could cause issues accessing your application.

warning

The provider configuration assumes that connections to the outpost use LDAPS, with properly configured certificates on both authentik and the host running sssd. LDAPS is the recommended protocol for secure communication. For details on setting up SSL and StartTLS on the outpost, refer to authentik’s LDAP provider documentation.

authentik configuration​

Follow official documentation to create an LDAP outpost. If you already have an LDAP outpost configured, you can use it without additional setup. No further configuration in authentik is needed.

sssd configuration​

First, install the necessary sssd packages on your host. Very likely the package is just sssd.

note

This guide well help you configure the sssd.conf for LDAP only. You will likely need to perform other tasks for a usable setup like setting up automounted or autocreated home directories that are beyond the scope of this guide. See the "additional resources" section for some help.

Create a file at /etc/sssd/sssd.conf with contents similar to the following:

[nss]
filter_groups = root
filter_users = root
reconnection_retries = 3

[sssd]
config_file_version = 2
reconnection_retries = 3
domains = ${ldap.domain}
services = nss, pam, ssh

[pam]
reconnection_retries = 3

[domain/${ldap.domain}]
cache_credentials = True
id_provider = ldap
chpass_provider = ldap
auth_provider = ldap
access_provider = ldap
ldap_uri = ldaps://${authentik.company}:636

ldap_schema = rfc2307bis
ldap_search_base = ${ldap.baseDN}
ldap_user_search_base = ou=users,${ldap.baseDN}
ldap_group_search_base = ${ldap.baseDN}

ldap_user_object_class = user
ldap_user_name = cn
ldap_group_object_class = group
ldap_group_name = cn

# Optionally, filter logins to only a specific group
#ldap_access_order = filter
#ldap_access_filter = memberOf=cn=authentik Admins,ou=groups,${ldap.baseDN}

ldap_default_bind_dn = cn=${sssd.serviceAccount},ou=users,${ldap.baseDN}
ldap_default_authtok = ${sssd.serviceAccountToken}

You should now be able to start sssd; however, the system may not yet be setup to use it. Depending on your platform, you may need to use authconfig or pam-auth-update to configure your system. See the additional resources section for details.

note

You can store SSH authorized keys in LDAP by adding the sshPublicKey attribute to any user with their public key as the value.

Additional Resources​

The setup of sssd may vary based on Linux distribution and version, here are some resources that can help you get this setup:

note

authentik is providing a simple LDAP server, not an Active Directory domain. Be sure you're looking at the correct sections in these guides.