LDAP Configuration
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LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) is a standardized protocol for accessing and managing directory information services. It serves as a centralized authentication and authorization system, commonly used for:
User authentication (Single Sign-On)
Directory services
Access control management
Cybus Connectware supports user authentication and authorization through LDAP based on your existing local directory service like Active Directory or OpenLDAP.
This guide explains how to set up a connection and configure your LDAP users to access Connectware.
Connectware Enterprise license required. For more information, see .
Active Directory or OpenLDAP server
LDAP configuration according to this guide
Connectware supports the following LDAP authorization modes:
Group mode: Sets permissions based on LDAP group membership
Attribute mode: Sets permissions based on LDAP user attributes
Connectware roles can be associated with LDAP groups. When an LDAP user successfully logs in for the first time, a Connectware user is created. Depending on the LDAP group memberships of the LDAP user, corresponding roles will be assigned to the Connectware user automatically. In this way, permissions can be easily handled by adding or removing LDAP users to or from the related LDAP groups.
Example: You can link the Connectware role LDAP-Admin to an LDAP group cn=cw-admin,ou=connectware,dc=example,dc=org. Users in this group automatically get the role when logging in.
When the LDAP user successfully logs in for the first time, a Connectware user is created. A custom attribute in the LDAP user entry specifies which roles should be automatically assigned to the Connectware user. Authorization is controlled by adding or removing Connectware role names in the LDAP user's attributes.
Example: If the custom attribute employeeType contains the value connectware-admin, the admin role is assigned to the user.
Connectware provides the following methods for LDAP authentication:
Authentication with a dedicated bind user
Authentication without a dedicated bind user (direct user authentication)
You can authenticate without a dedicated bind user when your LDAP structure meets the following requirements:
All user entries are located in the same branch of the LDAP Directory Information Tree (DIT)
All users share the same base DN
Example: The base DN is cn=users,dc=example,dc=org and the DN of all users follow the pattern <RDN_OF_USER>,cn=users,dc=example,dc=org
Groups are not nested
Example of unsupported nesting: A user is member of group A, group A is member of group B, and group B is the group that is linked with a Connectware role.
When no dedicated bind user is used, Connectware takes the given bind DN, adds the user RDN, and binds with the user credentials to the LDAP server. Binding with user credentials is the actual authentication step with an LDAP server.
A dedicated bind user is required when your LDAP structure requires searches or involves complex group relationships. Configure this by setting the CYBUS_LDAP_BIND_PASSWORD environment variable.
You need this authentication method when:
User entries are distributed across different DIT locations
Example:
User 1: cn=user1,cn=foo,dc=example,dc=org
User 2: cn=user2,cn=bar,dc=example,dc=org
In this case, Connectware needs to search from a common base DN (dc=example,dc=org) to locate user entries
Your setup uses nested groups
The search base must be the common DN shared by all groups and users
CYBUS_LDAP_ENABLED
Enables LDAP integration when set to true. If false, LDAP is disabled and all other LDAP parameters are ignored.
CYBUS_LDAP_BIND_DN
Specifies the bind DN for LDAP authentication.
CYBUS_LDAP_BIND_PASSWORD
Required for dedicated bind user. If not set, CYBUS_LDAP_BIND_DN is used as base DN to generate a bind DN with user login credentials.
CYBUS_LDAP_SEARCH_BASE
Starting point for LDAP searches. Only used with dedicated bind user. Example: ou=tech,dc=cybus,dc=io.
CYBUS_LDAP_SEARCH_FILTER
Optional custom filter for user search requests. Only valid with dedicated user.
CYBUS_LDAP_URL
The URL of the LDAP/AD server.
CYBUS_LDAP_MODE
Specifies the LDAP mode: Either group or attribute.
CYBUS_LDAP_ROLES_ATTRIBUTE
LDAP attribute containing user roles. Only valid with CYBUS_LDAP_MODE=attribute.
CYBUS_LDAP_MEMBER_ATTRIBUTE
LDAP attribute for group memberships. Only valid with CYBUS_LDAP_MODE=group. Usually set to memberOf.
CYBUS_LDAP_USER_RDN
LDAP user property (e.g., cn) containing the username used for Connectware login.
CYBUS_LDAPS_TRUST_ALL_CERTS
When true, accepts all servers without certificate check for Secure LDAP. Default is false.
CYBUS_LDAPS_CA_FILE
Path to CA file for LDAP server validation. Used with Secure LDAP when CYBUS_LDAPS_TRUST_ALL_CERTS is false.
CYBUS_LDAP_AUTO_ENFORCE_MFA
When true, enforces MFA for LDAP users after their first login.
Navigate to your Connectware installation directory. If you have used the default values during installation, this is the installation folder: /opt/connectware.
The directory contains an .env file that is loaded when starting Connectware. Open the .env file in a text editor of your choice.
Locate the LDAP settings section in the .env file. By default, the settings looks like this:
Set the individual parameters according to your local directory service configuration.
Configuration with Direct Authentication (No Dedicated Bind User)
Example configuration for LDAP mode attribute:
Example configuration for LDAP mode group:
This configuration would look for users applicable to the LDAP query cn=username,ou=tech,dc=example,dc=org.
Do not use quotation marks to encapsule the variable values.
Configuration with Dedicated Bind User
Example configuration for LDAP mode attribute:
Example configuration for LDAP mode group:
Be aware to change the RDN prefix (cn) if needed for CYBUS_LDAP_BIND_DN=cn=<binduser>,ou=tech,dc=example,dc=org.
After saving the new configuration it has to be loaded by running the Connectware instance by executing docker compose up -d from within the installation folder. If the Connectware instance is running as system service, restart by executing systemctl restart connectware instead.
The new configuration is now loaded. The next step is to supply your directory service users with Connectware roles (LDAP mode attribute) or link LDAP groups with Connectware roles (LDAP mode group).
In order to assign permissions to Connectware users by grouping their LDAP user entries with LDAP groups, you need to perform the following steps:
Defining LDAP Groups According to Connectware Roles
In this example, additional groups are created and associated with Connectware roles. This is not a mandatory practice, but is intended to demonstrate the concept.
We assume that we have the following DIT:
Create the groups cw-admin and cw-minimal as follows:
Now add user1 to cw-minimal.
Run the following command to retrieve and display all attributes for user1. Make sure to change PASSWORD to the password of user1.
Result of the command:
If you are using OpenLDAP and you do not see the attribute memberOf, run the following command:
If you can see the memberOf attribute, your LDAP is correctly configured for group operations. You can proceed with the next configuration steps.
If the memberOf attribute is not visible, your OpenLDAP installation lacks the required memberOf module. In this case, your OpenLDAP instance needs additional configuration.
Configuring Connectware with LDAP Parameters
Edit the .env file as follows:
Be aware of adjusting the LDAP url, the given example uses an Active Directory service that runs on the local machine.
Linking LDAP Groups with Connectware Roles
Login into Connectware as administrator and select User > User Management. Select the Roles tab and click Add Role.
In the Create Role dialog, do the following:
In the Name field, enter LDAP-Admin.
To associate this role with the LDAP group cw-minimal, you have to copy the DN of that LDAP group to the field DN of AD Group. In this example, this will be CN=cw-admin,OU=connectware,DC=example,DC=org.
In the Copy Permissions field, select connectware-admin and click Add.
Click Create to add your new role.
Click Add Role again to add another role with the following configuration:
In the Name field, enter LDAP-Minimal.
In the DN of AD Group field, add the DN of the related LDAP group (CN=cw-minimal,OU=connectware,DC=example,DC=org).
In the Copy Permissions field, select minimum-access and click Add.
Click Create to add your new role.
Assigning LDAP Users to LDAP Groups
Now you could assign different Connectware roles to your users user1 user2 user3 by adding them to, or removing them from the groups cw-minimal or cw-admin.
When you add user1 to the group cw-admin and login at Connectware, the user1 will be created (if it is the first login) and the role LDAP-Admin will be assigned automatically.
Now logout from Connectware, remove user1 from group cw-admin and add it to cw-minimal.
Login at Connectware with user1 again. You’ll realize, that user1 has limited access and you can’t navigate to the user section. Permissions of user1 changed according to the LDAP group membership.
If you login as user2 and user2 is not assigned to any LDAP group yet, the user2 will be created but you’ll see an error dialog saying that no permission was added and thus you will be forced to logout again.
LDAP Setup
The following examples assume to have an LDAP DIT like the following:
This structure is not mandatory but be aware to adjust the following examples according to your LDAP setup in the next steps.
Configuring Connectware with LDAP Parameters
Edit your .env file as follows:
Make sure to replace the CYBUS_LDAP_URL with your actual LDAP server address and port.
Assigning Roles to LDAP User Entry
To assign roles to LDAP users you have to add the Connectware role names as values to the users CYBUS_LDAP_ROLES_ATTRIBUTE that you defined in the .env file. In our example, we will use the attribute name employeeType.
To add the Connectware role connectware-admin to the LDAP user user1, add the attribute employeeType (defined as roles attribute in the .env file) with the value connectware-admin to the LDAP user user1
Add the Connectware role minimum-access to the user2 by adding the attribute employeeType with the value minimum-access to the LDAP user user2.
Check if the attributes have been set correctly by running the following command:
Result of the command:
If you now log into Connectware as user1, the Connectware role connectware-admin will be assigned to the user user1.
To revoke access to Connectware for a certain user, the Connectware roles just have to be removed from the LDAP user again by deleting the corresponding attribute employeeType.
Connectware comes with predefined user roles like connectware-admin and minimum-access but additional roles can be created and assigned to users in the same way.
You can use LDAP to connect to your local user directory service to authenticate and authorize Connectware users during login to verify credentials and synchronize with assigned roles.
When using LDAP authentication, Connectware user management differs from regular local user accounts in several aspects. The following sections detail these differences and explain how LDAP users are handled within Connectware.
You can not add or remove roles from within Connectware. All roles have to be assigned in the user details of the directory user. Modified user roles are synched to the Connectware user on each successful login.
Every LDAP user is defaulting to token authentication. This property is not modifiable.
You can not change the password from within Connectware as it uses the LDAP directory service for authentication.
You can still remove LDAP users from the Connectware user database. Note that this only deletes the Connectware internal user information. Deleting these local user information will not restrict the user from logging into Connectware again.
To fully revoke access, you must either remove their Connectware roles in LDAP or remove them from LDAP groups associated with Connectware roles, depending on your integration mode.
In order to enable the LDAP feature, the following must be configured:
These instructions are specific to Docker Compose deployments. For Kubernetes deployments, refer to the Kubernetes documentation on .
For a list of all environment variables for Docker Compose, see .
The LDAP search filter values must follow RFC4515 standards, requiring hex notation encoding for special characters. All non-basic UTF-8 characters used as filter values need proper encoding according to the RFC4515 specifications. See the for detailed encoding requirements.
For a list of valid UTF-8 characters and their respective hex value, see .
