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Set up User Authentication and Authorization with LDAP >
Configure User Authentication and Authorization with Azure AD Domain Services

Configure User Authentication and Authorization with Azure AD Domain Services¶

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Limitations
Prerequisites
Procedures
Connect to your Cluster Using the mongo Shell
Troubleshoot LDAP Connection Issues

Feature unavailable in Free and Shared-Tier Clusters

This feature is not available for M0 (Free Tier), M2, and M5 clusters. To learn more about which features are unavailable, see Atlas M0 (Free Tier), M2, and M5 Limitations.

This guide shows you how to enable Atlas to authenticate and authorize database users (not Atlas users) from Azure AD Domain Services, a third-party LDAP provider.

You can enable LDAP authentication only or you can enable both LDAP authentication and authorization:

If you enable LDAP authentication only, you add individual users to Atlas and assign database access privileges to each user you add.
If you enable LDAP authentication and authorization, you add user groups to Atlas and assign database access privileges to each group. Users inherit the database access privileges from the LDAP group they belong to.

Atlas supports authenticating and authorizing database users from Azure AD Domain Services.

Limitations¶

You must deploy M10 or larger Atlas clusters to enable LDAP integration. LDAP integration is an Atlas Enterprise feature.
Atlas does not support single sign-on integration for database users. To learn about single-sign on integration for the Atlas administrative web interface, see Configure Federated Authentication.

Prerequisites¶

To integrate Azure AD Domain Services LDAP with Atlas, you must have:

An Azure subscription. To obtain a subscription, visit the Microsoft Azure portal.
Contributor privileges or greater for your Azure subscription to create the resources the LDAP integration requires.
An Azure AD tenant associated with your subscription. For information about setting up an Azure AD tenant, see the Azure AD Documentation.
Global Administrator privileges in your Azure AD tenant to enable Azure AD Domain Services.
A custom, routable domain name.

Procedures¶

Configure Azure AD Domain Services for Your Domain¶

1

Configure Azure AD Domain Services for your domain.¶

To configure Azure AD Domain Services, follow the Create an advanced managed domain tutorial in the Azure Documentation using the Custom domain names DNS name option.

When you configure your managed domain, make sure that you note the value you enter in the DNS domain name field. This value is your <managed-domain>. You must provide it in several places in this tutorial.

Example

aadds.example.com

2

Obtain an SSL certificate for secure LDAP.¶

Azure AD Domain Services uses SSL certificates to secure LDAP. Your certificate must adhere to the requirements outlined in the Azure Documentation.

To obtain a certificate, either:

Get one from the public or enterprise certificate authority (CA) your organization uses.
- You must obtain a wildcard certificate to ensure secure LDAP works properly with Azure AD Domain Services.
- The certificate’s subject name must match the <managed-domain> you used when you configured Azure AD Domain Services.
  
  Example
  
  *.aadds.example.com
Generate a self-signed certificate. Self-signed certificates are not recommended for production.

To generate a self-signed certificate on MacOS or Linux systems for testing purposes:

Note

If you are on macOS Catalina, install the latest version of openssl. Run the following command to install using Homebrew:

copy

brew install openssl

Generate a private key with openssl. The following command generates a private key file named <your-key-name>.key:
copy
```
openssl genrsa -out <your-key-name>.key 2048
```

Edit the following configuration file template. Update the attributes in the [dn-param] section with values that relate to your organization. Make sure the subject name (CN) matches the following template: *.<managed-domain>

Example

*.aadds.example.com

copy

# openssl x509 extfile params
extensions = extend

[req] # openssl req params
prompt = no
distinguished_name = dn-param

[dn-param] # DN fields
C = US
ST = NY
L  = New York
O = MongoDB
OU = Atlas
CN = *.aadds.example.com

[extend] # openssl extensions
subjectKeyIdentifier = hash
authorityKeyIdentifier = keyid:always
keyUsage = digitalSignature,keyEncipherment,keyCertSign
extendedKeyUsage=serverAuth,clientAuth

Save the file as <your-config-name>.cfg.
Generate a certificate signing request using the key and configuration files you created. The following command generates a certificate signing request named <your-csr-name>.csr:
copy
```
openssl req -new -key <your-key-name>.key \
-out <your-csr-name>.csr -config <your-config-name>.cfg \
-extensions extend
```
Generate a self-signed certificate using key, configuration, and certificate signing request files you created. The following command generates a self-signed certificate file named <your-cert-name>.crt:
copy
```
openssl x509 -req -sha256 -days 365 -in <your-csr-name>.csr \
-signkey <your-key-name>.key -out <your-cert-name>.crt \
-extfile <your-config-name>.cfg
```

To generate a self-signed certificate on a Windows system for testing purposes, see the Azure documentation.

3

Obtain an SSL certificate that includes your private key.¶

Azure AD Domain Services uses private keys to decrypt secure LDAP traffic. Certificates that include private keys use the PKCS#12 format and use the .pfx file format. You must upload a certificate of this format to Azure AD Domain Services to decrypt secure LDAP traffic sent over the public internet.

To generate a .pfx certificate on MacOS or Linux systems:

Save your public key and SSL certificate to your local machine.

Note

Your certificate must use the PEM format.

If your certificate does not contain your private key, you can save your private key to a .key format file.
Generate a .pfx certificate using your private key and your certificate with openssl. The following command generates a .pfx certificate file named <your-cert-name>.pfx:
copy
```
openssl pkcs12 -export -out <your-cert-name>.pfx \
-inkey <your-key-name>.key -in <your-cert-name>.crt
```
When prompted, enter and verify a password to encrypt the file. You will enter this password to decrypt your private key when you upload the .pfx certificate to Azure AD Domain Services.

To generate a .pfx certificate on a Windows system, see the Azure documentation.

4

Enable secure LDAP on Azure AD Domain Services.¶

To enable secure LDAP on Azure AD Domain Services, see the Azure documentation.

5

Configure your DNS provider.¶

You must configure your DNS provider so that Atlas and the database nodes can connect to the LDAP server in the custom domain that Azure AD Domain Services manages.

Create a host record for LDAP traffic that resolves a subdomain of your <managed-domain> to the external IP address that the Azure AD Domain Services LDAP service uses:

LDAP IP Address	Subdomain for LDAP Traffic
`203.0.113.77`	`ldap.aadds.example.com`

To find the external IP address the Azure AD Domain Services LDAP service uses, see the Azure documentation.

6

Add your custom domain to Azure AD.¶

Add your custom domain name to Azure AD to create users that belong to your domain. After you add your domain, you must also add the Azure AD DNS information in a TXT record with your DNS provider and verify the configuration.

To add your custom domain to Azure AD, see the Azure documentation.

7

Configure Azure AD Domain Services for inbound LDAP traffic.¶

You must allow all traffic over all ports from the public internet to port 636 to use Azure AD Domain Services as an LDAP provider with Atlas.

To add an inbound security rule to allow inbound LDAP traffic on port 636, see the Azure documentation.

8

Create a bind user.¶

Create a bind user. The bind user is an Azure AD user that you use to query the account and to authenticate database users’ credentials when they connect to an Atlas database. The bind user must belong to the custom domain you added to Azure AD.

To create Azure AD users, see the Azure documentation.

9

Enable the bind user account for Azure AD Domain Services.¶

You must generate a password hash for the bind user for Kerberos and NTLM authentication before the bind user can use Azure AD Domain Services. The steps differ based on the the type of Azure AD user account.

To learn how to generate password hashes for your users, see the Azure documentation.

10

Add the bind user to the `AAD DC Administrators` group.¶

To query Azure AD, the bind user must belong to the AAD DC Administrators group.

To add users to the AAD DC Administrators group, see the Azure documentation.

11

Create Azure AD Users.¶

If they don’t exist already, create users in Azure AD Domain Services that you want to grant database access to. Users must belong to the custom domain you added to Azure AD.

To create Azure AD users, see the Azure documentation.

Configure Atlas for LDAP Authentication¶

The following procedure enables Atlas to authenticate database users from Azure AD Domain Services LDAP:

1

Log into Atlas.¶

2

Navigate to the Advanced page for your project.¶

If it is not already displayed, select the organization that contains your desired project from the office icon Organizations menu in the navigation bar.
If it is not already displayed, select your desired project from the Projects menu in the navigation bar.
Click Advanced in the sidebar.

3

Toggle the button next to LDAP Authentication to On.¶

Note

You might incur additional costs when you enable this feature. See Advanced Security.

4

Enter the server details and bind credentials for your LDAP server in the Configure Your LDAP Server panel.¶

Server Hostname:
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```
ldap.<managed-domain>.com
```
Server Port: 636
Bind Username:
copy
```
CN=<bind-username>,OU=AADDC Users,DC=<managed-domain>,DC=com
```
Note

For Azure AD Domain Services, the attributes in distinguished names must be upper case.

If your <managed-domain> consists of one or more subdomains, you must add a DC (domainComponent) attribute to the distinguished name for each.

Example

If your <managed-domain> is aadds.example.com, the domain components are:

DC=aadds,DC=example,DC=com

5

Optional: Add a User to DN Mapping.¶

Add a User to DN mapping similar to the following example to allow clients to provide their username instead of full DNs when they connect to Atlas databases:

copy

[
  {
      "match":"(.+)",
      "substitution":"CN={0},OU=AADDC Users,DC=<managed-domain>,DC=com"
  }
]

Note

For Azure AD Domain Services, the attributes in distinguished names must be upper case.

If your <managed-domain> consists of one or more subdomains, you must add a DC (domainComponent) attribute to the distinguished name for each.

Example

If your <managed-domain> is aadds.example.com, the domain components are:

DC=aadds,DC=example,DC=com

6

Optional: Enter a certificate issued from a Certificate Authority (CA) for your LDAP server in the CA Root Certificate field.¶

If you generated a self-signed certificate, you must provide it.

7

Click Verify and Save.¶

Wait for Atlas to deploy your changes. Atlas verifies that your clusters can connect to, authenticate with, and query your LDAP server using the configuration details that you provide.

8

Add LDAP users to Atlas.¶

Note

Skip this step if you want to enable LDAP authorization.

Add users managed in the Azure AD to Atlas.

In the Security section of the left navigation, click Database Access.
Click plus icon Add New Database User.
Click LDAP User.
Perform one of the following:
1. If you have not entered a User to DN Mapping, enter the full DN of the LDAP user. Follow this template:
  copy
  CN=<user-name>,OU=AADDC Users,DC=<managed>,DC=<domain>,DC=com
  For example, if your <user-name> is Jane Doe and your <managed-domain> is aadds.example.com, your user’s DN is:
  CN=Jane Doe,ou=AADDC Users,DC=aadds,DC=example,DC=com
2. If you entered a User to DN Mapping, enter the username that your mapping requires.
Select the database access level to grant to the user.
Click Add User.

Add the Database Access LDAP Groups to Atlas¶

Note

Skip this section if you don’t want to enable LDAP authorization.

Important

You must enable authentication with LDAP before enabling authorization.
When you enable and configure LDAP authorization, database users who are only configured for LDAP authentication will no longer be able to access databases.

Atlas LDAP authorization uses LDAP groups to determine if users are authorized to perform database actions.

Create separate Azure AD groups for each level of access that you want to grant to users. For example, you create one group for read access to one database, another for read and write access, and so on. Assign users to groups based on the level of access each user requires.

To create Azure AD database access groups and assign users, see the Azure documentation.

Configure Atlas for LDAP Authorization¶

Note

Skip this section if you don’t want to enable LDAP authorization.

The following procedure adds the Azure AD Domain Services database access groups to Atlas and enables database user authorization in Atlas:

1

Add the database access LDAP groups to Atlas.¶

Add each of the Azure database groups you created to Atlas. Members of groups that you add are authorized to perform database actions granted to the group.

In the Security section of the left navigation, click Database Access.
Click plus icon Add New Database User.

Click LDAP Group, and then enter the full DN of the group containing your database users, even if you enabled User to DN Mapping. Follow this template:
copy
```
CN=<group-name>,OU=AADDC Users,DC=<managed-domain>,DC=com
```
Note

For Azure AD Domain Services, the attributes in distinguished names must be upper case.

If your <managed-domain> consists of one or more subdomains, you must add a DC (domainComponent) attribute to the distinguished name for each.

Example

If your <managed-domain> is aadds.example.com, the domain components are:

DC=aadds,DC=example,DC=com

For example, if your <group-name> is Atlas read only and your <managed-domain> is aadds.example.com, your user’s DN is:
```
CN=Atlas read only,OU=AADDC Users,DC=aadds,DC=example,DC=com
```

Select the database access level to grant to users in this group.
Click Add User.

2

Navigate to the Advanced page for your project.¶

If it is not already displayed, select the organization that contains your desired project from the office icon Organizations menu in the navigation bar.
If it is not already displayed, select your desired project from the Projects menu in the navigation bar.
Click Advanced in the sidebar.

3

Toggle the button next to LDAP Authorization to On.¶

4

Verify the server details and bind credentials for your LDAP server are correct in the Configure Your LDAP Server panel.¶

5

Enter a query template in Query Template.¶

When a user attempts to perform an action, Atlas executes the LDAP query template to obtain the LDAP groups to which the authenticated user belongs. Atlas permits the action if the query returns at least one group that is authorized to perform the action. Atlas does not permit the action if the query returns no groups that are authorized to perform the action.

Atlas substitutes the authenticated username in the {USER} placeholder when it runs the query. The query is relative to the host specified in Server Hostname.

The formatting for the query must conform to RFC4515

If you want to identify what group a user is a member of, you can use the default Query Template:

copy

{USER}?memberOf?base

Note

Other query templates may also work.

6

Click Verify and Save.¶

Wait for Atlas to deploy your changes. Atlas verifies that your clusters can connect to, authenticate with, and query your LDAP server using the configuration details that you provide.

Connect to your Cluster Using the `mongo` Shell¶

The following procedure verifies that LDAP authentication (and LDAP authorization, if enabled) is configured correctly:

Note

When LDAP authentication is enabled, database users must override the following parameters in the connection string for their clients:

authSource must be $external
authenticationMechanism must be PLAIN

1

Use the `mongo` shell to connect to your cluster with user credentials that you added to Atlas.¶

To copy the connection string:

Click Connect on the Clusters page.
Click LDAP, and then click Copy.
Paste and edit the string with your User DN and password.

Note

Connect to your cluster with a user’s full DN if User to DN Mapping is not enabled.

Note

For Azure AD Domain Services, the attributes in distinguished names must be upper case.

If your <managed-domain> consists of one or more subdomains, you must add a DC (domainComponent) attribute to the distinguished name for each.

Example

If your <managed-domain> is aadds.example.com, the domain components are:

DC=aadds,DC=example,DC=com

Escape spaces in user or group names in the user’s full DN:

copy

--username CN=Jane\ Doe,OU=AADDC\ Users,DC=aadds,DC=example,DC=com

Note

If you’re using a user’s full DN, include only the AADDC Users OU (Organizational Unit). Don’t include other Azure AD groups the user is a member of.

2

After connecting to your cluster, run commands to verify the user has the read or write privileges you assigned them.¶

Troubleshoot LDAP Connection Issues¶

Note

In Azure AD Domain Services, the bind user the AAD DC Administrators group to perform LDAP searches. Make sure that your bind user has these privileges before running ldapsearch.

Use ldapsearch to determine if the query template you configured Atlas to use returns user DNs the way you expect. The query template may not be returning the correct user DNs if LDAP authentication works but LDAP authorization doesn’t.

Use the following ldapsearch template:

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ldapsearch -H 'ldaps://ldap.<managed-domain>.com' -b 'DC=<managed>,DC=<domain>,DC=com' -s sub -D 'CN=<bind-user-dn>,OU=AADDC Users,DC=<managed>,DC=<domain>,DC=com' -w '<REDACTED>' '(&(objectCategory=user)(memberOf=CN=<group-name>,OU=AADDC Users,DC=<managed-domain>,DC=com))'

Note

For Azure AD Domain Services, the attributes in distinguished names must be upper case.

If your <managed-domain> consists of one or more subdomains, you must add a DC (domainComponent) attribute to the distinguished name for each.

Example

If your <managed-domain> is aadds.example.com, the domain components are:

DC=aadds,DC=example,DC=com

For example, if your bind-user-dn is CN=LDAP Bind User,OU=AADDC Users,DC=aadds,DC=example,DC=com, your <managed-domain> is aadds.example.com, and your group-name is Atlas read only, use the following command:

ldapsearch -H 'ldaps://ldap.aadds.example.com' -b 'DC=aadds,DC=example,DC=com' -s sub -D 'CN=LDAP Bind User,OU=AADDC Users,DC=aadds,DC=example,DC=com' -w '<REDACTED>' '(&(objectCategory=user)(memberOf=CN=Atlas read only,OU=AADDC Users,DC=aadds,DC=example,DC=com))'

Note

Other query templates may also work.

← Set up User Authentication and Authorization with LDAP Configure User Authentication and Authorization with Okta LDAP Interface →

Configure User Authentication and Authorization with Azure AD Domain Services¶

Limitations¶

Prerequisites¶

Procedures¶

Configure Azure AD Domain Services for Your Domain¶

Configure Azure AD Domain Services for your domain.¶

Obtain an SSL certificate for secure LDAP.¶

Obtain an SSL certificate that includes your private key.¶

Enable secure LDAP on Azure AD Domain Services.¶

Configure your DNS provider.¶

Add your custom domain to Azure AD.¶

Configure Azure AD Domain Services for inbound LDAP traffic.¶

Create a bind user.¶

Enable the bind user account for Azure AD Domain Services.¶

Add the bind user to the AAD DC Administrators group.¶

Create Azure AD Users.¶

Configure Atlas for LDAP Authentication¶

Log into Atlas.¶

Navigate to the Advanced page for your project.¶

Toggle the button next to LDAP Authentication to On.¶

Enter the server details and bind credentials for your LDAP server in the Configure Your LDAP Server panel.¶

Optional: Add a User to DN Mapping.¶

Optional: Enter a certificate issued from a Certificate Authority (CA) for your LDAP server in the CA Root Certificate field.¶

Click Verify and Save.¶

Add LDAP users to Atlas.¶

Add the Database Access LDAP Groups to Atlas¶

Configure Atlas for LDAP Authorization¶

Add the database access LDAP groups to Atlas.¶

Navigate to the Advanced page for your project.¶

Toggle the button next to LDAP Authorization to On.¶

Verify the server details and bind credentials for your LDAP server are correct in the Configure Your LDAP Server panel.¶

Enter a query template in Query Template.¶

Click Verify and Save.¶

Connect to your Cluster Using the mongo Shell¶

Use the mongo shell to connect to your cluster with user credentials that you added to Atlas.¶

After connecting to your cluster, run commands to verify the user has the read or write privileges you assigned them.¶

Troubleshoot LDAP Connection Issues¶

Add the bind user to the `AAD DC Administrators` group.¶

Connect to your Cluster Using the `mongo` Shell¶

Use the `mongo` shell to connect to your cluster with user credentials that you added to Atlas.¶