Active Directory

ECE

If you use an Active Directory (AD) server to authenticate users, you can specify the servers, parameters, and the search modes that Elastic Cloud Enterprise uses to locate user credentials. To set up Active Directory authentication, perform the following steps:

1. Specify the general AD settings.
2. Optional: Prepare the trusted CA certificates.
3. Supply the bind credentials.
4. Select the search mode and group search settings.
5. Create role mappings, either to all users that match the profile or assign roles to specific groups.
6. Add any custom configuration advanced settings to the YAML file.

Begin the provider profile by adding the general settings:

1. Log into the Cloud UI.

2. Go to Users and then Authentication providers.

3. From the Add provider drop-down menu, select Active Directory.

4. Provide a unique profile name. This name becomes the realm ID, with any spaces replaced by hyphens.

   The name can be changed, but the realm ID cannot. The realm ID becomes part of the certificate bundle.

5. Add one or more LDAP URLs pointing to Active Directory domain controller servers. You can use LDAP or LDAPS, but you can’t use a mix of types.

   Example: ldaps://ad.domain.com:636

6. Choose how you want your load balancing to work:

   Failover

   The LDAP URLs are used in the order they were entered. The first server that we can connect to gets used for all subsequent connections. If the connection to that server fails, the next available will be used for all subsequent connections.

   DNS failover

   The request is sent to a DNS hostname and the associated server IP addresses are searched in the order they are listed by the DNS Server. Each request starts at the beginning of the retrieved IP address list, regardless of previous failures.

   Round robin

   Connections continuously iterate through the list of provided URLs until a connection can be made.

   DNS round robin

   The request is sent to a DNS hostname that is configured to with multiple IP addresses, rotating through until a connection is made.

7. Provide the top-level domain name.

You can add one or more certificate authorities (CAs) to validate the server certificate that the domain controller uses for SSL/TLS. Connecting through SSL/TLS ensures that the identity of the Active Directory server is authenticated before Elastic Cloud Enterprise transmits the user credentials and that the contents of the connection are encrypted.

1. Provide the URL to the ZIP file that contains a keystore with the CA certificate(s).

   The bundle should be a ZIP file containing a single keystore.ks file in the directory /active_directory/:id/truststore, where :id is the value of the Realm ID field created in the General settings. The keystore file can either be a JKS or a PKCS#12 keystore, but the name of the file should be keystore.ks.

   Important

   Don’t use the same URL to serve a new version of the ZIP file. If you do, the new version might not be picked up.

2. Select a keystore type.

3. If the keystore is password protected, add the password to decrypt the keystore.

You can either select Bind anonymously for user searches, or you must specify the distinguished name (DN) of the user to bind and the bind password.

When Bind anonymously is selected, all requests to Active Directory will be performed with the credentials of the authenticating user.

In the case that Bind DN and Bind Password are provided, requests are performed on behalf of this bind user. This can be useful in cases where the regular users can’t access all of the necessary items within Active Directory.

You can configure how Elastic Cloud Enterprise will search for users in the Active Directory

To configure the user search:

1. Provide the Base DN as the base context where users are located in the Active Directory.

2. Set the Search scope:

   Sub-tree

   Searches all entries at all levels under the base DN, including the base DN itself.

   One level

   Searches for objects one level under the Base DN but not the Base DN or entries in lower levels.

   Base

   Searches only the entry defined as Base DN.

3. Optional: Specify an additional LDAP filter, used to lookup a user given a username. The default filter looks up user objects in Active Directory where the username entered by the user matches sAMAccountName or userPrincipalName attributes.

You can configure how Elastic Cloud Enterprise will search for groups in Active Directory.

To configure the group search:

1. Provide the Base DN as the base context where groups are located in the Active Directory.
2. Set the Search scope:

   Sub-tree

   Searches all entries at all levels under the base DN, including the base DN itself.

   One level

   Searches for objects one level under the Base DN but not the Base DN or entries in lower levels.

   Base

   Searches only the entry defined as Base DN.

When a user is authenticated, the role mapping assigns them roles in Elastic Cloud Enterprise.

To assign all authenticated users a single role, select one of the Default roles.

To assign roles according to the User DN of the user or Group DN of the group they belong to, use the Add role mapping rule fields.

For a list of roles, refer to Available roles and permissions.

You can add any additional settings to the Advanced configuration YAML file. For example, if you need to ignore the SSL check for the SSL certificate of the domain controller in a testing environment, you might add ssl.verification_mode: none.