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I'm a total LDAP newbie, and am probably making some really stupid mistake, so hopefully somebody can point me in the correct direction. I'm running slapd from openldap 2.4.23, under Linux. The problem that I'm having is that, from the management account I set up in slapd.conf (cn=Manager,dc=example,dc=com), I can set an end user's password without any problems:

# ldappasswd -D 'cn=Manager,dc=example,dc=com' -W -S 'uid=tsuraan,ou=People,dc=example,dc=com'

However, from the end user's point of view, I can run searches and the like, but I cannot change the password:

$ ldapsearch -x -D "uid=tsuraan,ou=People,dc=example,dc=com" -W  
Enter LDAP Password:
$ ldappasswd -D 'uid=tsuraan,ou=People,dc=example,dc=com' -W -S 'uid=tsuraan,ou=People,dc=example,dc=com'
New password: 
Re-enter new password: 
Enter LDAP Password: 
Result: Insufficient access (50)

I've also tried using ldapmodify to directly change the userPassword attribute, and it gives the same Insufficient access (50) message. My slapd ACL section looks like this:

access to *
    by dn="uid=root,ou=People,dc=example,dc=com" write
    by users read
    by self write
    by anonymous auth

access to attrs=userPassword,gecos,description,loginShell
    by self write

access to attrs="userPassword"
    by anonymous auth
    by self write
    by * none

And, I have a non-root user whose LDIF looks like this:

dn: uid=tsuraan,ou=People,dc=example,dc=com
uid: tsuraan
cn: tsuraan
objectClass: account
objectClass: posixAccount
objectClass: top
userPassword: {crypt}x
loginShell: /bin/bash
uidNumber: 1000
gidNumber: 1000
homeDirectory: /home/tsuraan

Google isn't giving me any love today, and I can't see why my user cannot write to his own LDAP node, given that I have "by self write" all over the place, so hopefully somebody can give me a hand.

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up vote 3 down vote accepted
Lists  of  access  directives are evaluated in the order they appear in
slapd.conf.  When a <what> clause matches the  datum  whose  access  is
being evaluated, its <who> clause list is checked.  When a <who> clause
matches the accessor's properties, its <access> and  <control>  clauses
are evaluated.  Access control checking stops at the first match of the
<what> and <who> clause, unless otherwise  dictated  by  the  <control>

First matching <what> and <who> for attempt to change password is:

access to *
   by users read

If you move 'access to *' clause at end of list it should work fine. Or just swap order of "by users read" and "by self write".

ACLs is most tricky part of OpenLDAP configuration, so read slapd.access(5) carefully, and be sure that you completely understood how ACLs work before writing some non-trivial.

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And ACLs were the problem. Thanks for pointing me to that man page; that's by far the best OpenLDAP documentation I've been able to find. –  tsuraan Mar 25 '11 at 22:12
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