Custom LDAP schemas

The debops.slapd role by default configures a set of custom LDAP schemas on top of the default ones enabled during slapd installation. The schemas included in a LDAP directory cannot be removed without issues, therefore it's best to select the ones you want to use at the database initialization.

You can find more details about managing the LDAP schemas using cn=config configuration in the Zytrax LDAP guide.

General notes

The slapd__*_schemas variables define a list of LDAP schemas to import by the role. The list is not merged via custom Ansible filter plugins and is only additive. You can define different sets of schemas on different Ansible inventory levels.

The schema files need to already be present on the remote host to be imported by the role. The default schemas included by the role are installed via APT packages, you can see the available set of schemas by running the command:

apt-cache search fusiondirectory plugin schema

The Debian/Ubuntu archive also contains a smaller set of APT packages for the GOsa² application which contain LDAP schemas, however the gosa-* and fusiondirectory-* packages conflict with each other.

You can use the debops.resources role to copy custom *.schema or *.ldif files to the remote host before importing them. The *.ldif files can be imported automatically, but the *.schema import relies on the fusiondirectory-insert-schema command which is available in the fusiondirectory-schema APT package.

If you are using clustered OpenLDAP, for example in N-Way Multi Master replication mode, you should import the schemas only on one node at a time. Execution of the import command on multiple remote hosts at once will result in an error when one replication host already has a schema defined with a specific X-ORDERED index number, but the other nodes don't. The schema will be replicated automatically between all of the OpenLDAP masters.

The rfc2307bis schema

The rfc2307bis LDAP schema is a proposed replacement of the RFC 2307 document that defines the nis LDAP schema. Main improvement over the old nis schema is the modified posixGroup LDAP object, which in the new schema has an AUXILIARY type instead of the STRUCTURAL type. Notably, the posixAccount LDAP object has an AUXILIARY type in the original nis scheme; the change makes both objects work similarly by allowing an UNIX-based attributes to be combined with LDAP-based directory entries.

Without this change, LDAP directories that are used in UNIX-like environments for group authentication require two sets of groups stored in the directory - one for LDAP entities based on DN attributes, and another for UNIX entities based on GID attributes. The new schema enables the posixGroup object type to combine with other LDAP object types, namely groupOfNames or groupOfUniqueNames. This allows the two sets of data to be combined in one object - allowing both the UID and DN attributes to be used as group members. This of course depends on the client-side support - both nslcd and sssd daemons should be able to use the combined data sets correctly.

Support in Debian

Some of the Linux-based distributions provide the slapd package with the new rfc2307bis schema enabled by default. Unfortunately, Debian's slapd APT package includes the original nis schema which conflicts with the new rfc2307bis schema because both define the same LDAP objects and their attributes. The nis schema is loaded by default during the slapd package installation and removing it from the already initialized directory can be difficult.

Fortunately, there's a clean way to avoid this issue and enable the rfc2307bis schema on slapd installation. The Debian Archive contains two packages that provide it: fusiondirectory-schema and gosa-schema. Both packages conflict with each other, therefore only one can be installed at a time. In the debops.slapd role, the fusiondirectory-schema has been selected because FusionDirectory project seems to be an actively maintained fork of GOsa² and will be more likely to be selected for installation; another reason is more fusiondirectory-plugin-*-schema APT packages available in Debian.

The role still works fine with gosa-schema APT package installed, however this will not be detected automatically; the user should redefine the slapd__rfc2307bis_packages list the Ansible inventory to select this APT package.

Before the installation of the slapd APT package, the debops.slapd role will install the fusiondirectory-schema package, divert the /etc/ldap/schema/nis.(ldif,schema) files aside using the dpkg-divert tool and create a symlink to the /etc/ldap/fusiondirectory/rfc2307bis.(ldif,schema) files in their place. With this modification, when the slapd APT package is installed, it will automatically include the modified rfc2307bis schema.

The automatic installation of the rfc2307bis schema can be disabled by setting the slapd__rfc2307bis_enabled boolean variable to False. This allows usage of the LDAP directories that use the old nis schema without modifications to the directory contents.

The initial LDAP schemas

During installation of the slapd Debian package, the postinstall script creates a new OpenLDAP configuration using the /usr/share/slapd/slapd.init.ldif LDIF configuration file. The default LDAP schemas imported at that time are:

  • core.schema
  • cosine.schema
  • nis.schema (replaced by the rfc2307bis.schema before installation)
  • inetorgperson.schema

You can find the schema files in the /etc/ldap/schema/ directory on the OpenLDAP server host.

The debops schema

This schema provides the basic LDAP object identifiers (OIDs) for other LDAP schemas that are created by DebOps project - the Private Enterprise Number assigned to the project by IANA and the separate namespace designated to be used for LDAP schemas. These object identifiers are in a separate "schema" so that they can be re-used in multiple LDAP schemas imported after this schema without creating conflicts in the OpenLDAP cn=schema subtree.

The posixgroupid schema

This is a custom LDAP schema maintained by DebOps. It can be found in the ansible/roles/debops.slapd/files/etc/ldap/schema/debops/ directory of the DebOps monorepo.

The rfc2307bis schema fixes one issue with POSIX groups in LDAP - the posixGroup object attributes can be added to any object type. But there's one other problem not fixed by this schema - the name of the group is taken from the cn attribute. This causes an issue when LDAP group names are in a human-readable form, instead of a short string form preferred in POSIX environments, for example: UNIX Administrators vs admins.

Another issue shows up with different User Private Group implementations in LDAP - because the cn attribute in the LDAP objects that define people is used for the person's full name, for example "John Smith", personal UNIX groups cannot be defined in the same LDAP object, even though the gidNumber attribute is required by the posixAccount object type.

There are different solutions to this problem - create a separate posixGroup object for each person and put it either in a separate directory subtree, or as a child entry of the person's object, but these solutions are cumbersome and require hard to implement ACL rules. A different solution is adding a new attribute that would define the UNIX group name separate from the common name.

This is what the posixgroupid.schema LDAP schema does - it adds the gid or groupid attribute, either in a separate gidObject object type, or in the posixGroupId object which is a subclass of the posixGroup object. With the gid attribute, LDAP clients that are configured to use it, can use a different LDAP attribute as the UNIX group name instead of the human-readable cn name. Similarly, LDAP objects that represent people can have a gid attribute that contains the name of the Private User Group, usually the same as the uid attribute. This requires that the LDAP clients look for the gid attribute instead of the cn attribute as the UNIX group name, but it's usually a simple configuration change.

The nextuidgid schema

The nexuidgid schema defines a set of simple LDAP objects (uidNext, gidNext), which can be used to store uidNumber and gidNumber values, respectively. These objects are used in DebOps to keep track of the next available UID/GID values, but can be used for other purposes, for example to split the UID/GID range used in the LDAP directory into subranges.

The orgstructure schema

The orgstructure schema defines an additional LDAP object, organizationalStructure. This object is meant to replace the use of the organizationalUnit object class in the base LDAP directory entries, such as ou=People, ou=Groups, and so on. The new object contains attributes selected to help manage the access control for specific LDAP directory subtrees.

The ppolicy schema

The ppolicy schema provides LDAP object and attribute definitions required by the Password Policy overlay.

The ldapns schema

The ldapns schema provides a set of LDAP objects and attributes that can be used for granular access control to services and hosts that use the LDAP directory. The host attribute can be used to define a list of FQDN names, or hostnames to which a given user or application has access. The authorizedService attribute can contain a list of services accessible to an user or application. LDAP clients can use these attributes in LDAP filters to grant access only to specific people or applications.

The openssh-lpk schema

The openssh-lpk schema allows the LDAP directory to hold SSH public keys, which combined with OpenSSH AuthorizedKeysCommand configuration can allow SSH authentication via LDAP directory. An example openssh-ldap-publickey script shows how this can be configured with OpenSSH and OpenLDAP.

The debops.sshd Ansible role already contains support for SSH public key lookup in OpenLDAP, see its documentation for more details about enabling the support.

The sudo schema

The sudo service can be configured to use LDAP directory as a backend for its rules. The debops.sudo Ansible role will enable the LDAP support when the debops.ldap configuration is detected (not implemented yet).

The rules in the LDAP directory are meant to be used with LDAP-based users and groups; local accounts should still rely on local /etc/sudoers contents to ensure service availability in case of an issue with connection to the LDAP service.

Manual pages: sudoers.ldap(5)

The eduPerson schema

The eduPerson and eduOrg are Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) schema designed to include widely-used person and organizational attributes in higher education. The eduPerson object class provides a common list of attributes and definitions, drawing on the existing standards in higher education. The schema were developed by the Internet2 project and are commonly used in academic institutions.

The schema is available in Debian in the fusiondirectory-plugin-supann-schema APT package, however that version is slightly outdated and does not include object and attribute descriptions. Because of that, DebOps contains its own copy of the schema, cleaned up and updated, which will be imported by default to OpenLDAP directory server.

The nextcloud schema

The nextcloud schema provides a set of LDAP objectClasses and attributes that can be used to control LDAP integration with Nextcloud application. Using these attributes, administrators can define disk quotas for Nextcloud users stored in the LDAP directory, as well as define which user groups present in LDAP are available in the Nextcloud user interface.

The mailservice schema

The mailservice schema is based on several draft RFCs and includes a set of LDAP objects and attributes useful for mail services. The mailRecipient object class provides attributes for "final destination" mail recipient accounts, like mail aliases, Sieve filtering rules, mail storage location, quota. The mailDistributionList object class allows for creation of simple mailing lists or distribution lists which can be used to distribute e-mail messages to multiple recipients with basic access controls.

With this schema installed, the mail attribute should not be used for mail services, but should be relegated to user authentication only.