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Configure User Authentication and Authorization with Okta LDAP Interface

On this page

  • Limitations
  • Required Access
  • Procedures
  • Configure Okta for LDAP Authentication
  • Configure Atlas for LDAP Authentication
  • Configure Okta for LDAP Authorization
  • Configure Atlas for LDAP Authorization
  • Connect to your Cluster Using mongosh
  • Connect to your cluster with the 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

Note

  • This feature is not available for M0 free clusters, M2, and M5 clusters. To learn more, see Atlas M0 (Free Cluster), M2, and M5 Limits.

  • This feature is not supported on Serverless instances at this time. To learn more, see Serverless Instance Limitations.

This guide shows you how to enable Atlas to authenticate and authorize database users (not Atlas users) from Okta, 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 database users from Okta Active Directory synchronization.

  • Authenticating database users from Okta.

  • Authorizing database users in Okta groups.

  • You must deploy M10 or larger Atlas clusters to enable LDAP integration. LDAP integration is an Atlas Enterprise feature.

  • Atlas does not support authorizing database users in Okta Active Directory synchronization groups.

  • 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.

To manage LDAP users or groups, you must have Organization Owner or Project Owner access to Atlas.

The following procedure configures Okta for authentication with Atlas:

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  1. To learn more about setting up the Okta LDAP interface, see the Okta documentation.

  2. Note your <okta-instance-id>. You must provide it in several places during the configuration process.

    The instance name is located in the URL you use to sign in to your Okta account:

    https://<okta-instance-id>.admin.okta.com
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  1. Create a new Okta user to use as the Atlas bind user. The bind user is an Okta user that you use to query the account and to authenticate database users' credentials when they connect to an Atlas database.

    Important

    Don't use your own user account for the bind user.

  2. Use the following template to determine the full Distinguished Name (DN) of your bind user:

    uid=<bind-user-email>,dc=<okta-instance-id>,dc=okta,dc=com

    For example, if your <bind-user-email> is bind@example.com and your <okta-instance-id> is mdb-example, your bind user's DN is:

    uid=bind@example.com,ou=users,dc=mdb-example,dc=okta,dc=com
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If they don't exist already, create users in Okta that you want to grant database access to:

  1. Navigate to your Okta People page.

  2. Click Add Person.

  3. Enter the user's details. Use email addresses for usernames.

    Note

    Avoid entering email addresses with plus symbols (+). The Atlas LDAP integration may encounter issues with email addresses containing plus symbols.

  4. Click Save.

The following procedure enables Atlas to authenticate database users from Okta LDAP:

1
2
  1. If it is not already displayed, select the organization that contains your desired project from the Organizations menu in the navigation bar.

  2. If it is not already displayed, select your desired project from the Projects menu in the navigation bar.

  3. Click Advanced in the sidebar.

3

Note

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

4
  • Server Hostname:

    <okta_instance_id>.ldap.okta.com
  • Server Port: 636

  • Bind Username:

    uid=<bind-user-email>,ou=users,dc=<okta-instance-id>,dc=okta,dc=com
5

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

[
{
"match": "(.+)",
"substitution": "uid={0},ou=users,dc=<okta_instance_id>,dc=okta,dc=com"
}
]
6

You may provide self-signed certificates.

7

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

8

Note

Skip this step if you want to enable LDAP authorization.

Add users managed in the Okta LDAP to Atlas.

  1. In the Security section of the left navigation, click Database Access.

  2. Click Add New Database User.

  3. Click LDAP User.

  4. 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:

      uid=<user-name>,ou=users,dc=<okta-instance-id>,dc=okta,dc=com

      For example, if your <user-name> is jane@example.com and your <okta-instance-id> is mdb-example, your user's DN is:

      uid=jane@example.com,ou=users,dc=mdb-example,dc=okta,dc=com
    2. If you entered a User to DN Mapping, enter the username or email address that your mapping requires.

  5. Select the database access level to grant to the user.

  6. Click Add User.

Note

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

The following procedure configures Atlas to authorize users who belong to Okta LDAP database access groups.

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.

1

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

Create separate Okta 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.

  1. Navigate to your Okta Groups page by clicking Directory, then Groups.

  2. Click Add Group.

  3. Enter a group name, for example db-read.

  4. Click Add Group.

2

Assign users to groups based on the level of access each user requires.

  1. Click the group you want to add users to.

  2. Click Manage People.

  3. Add users to the group, and then click Save.

3

The bind user must have Read Only Administrator privileges to authorize users against specific Okta groups and to perform LDAP searches. To assign the bind user Read Only Administrator privileges:

  1. Navigate to your Okta Administrators page by clicking Security, then Administrators.

  2. Click Add Administrator.

  3. Search for your bind user, then select the Read Only Administrator role.

  4. Click Add Administrator.

Note

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

The following procedure adds the Okta database access groups to Atlas and enables database user authorization in Atlas:

1

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

  1. In the Security section of the left navigation, click Database Access.

  2. Click Add New Database User.

  1. 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:

    cn=<group-name>,ou=groups,dc=<okta-instance-id>,dc=okta,dc=com

    For example, if your <group-name> is db-read and your <okta-instance-id> is mdb-example, your bind user's DN is:

    cn=db-read,ou=groups,dc=mdb-example,dc=okta,dc=com
  1. Select the database access level to grant to users in this group.

  2. Click Add User.

2
  1. If it is not already displayed, select the organization that contains your desired project from the Organizations menu in the navigation bar.

  2. If it is not already displayed, select your desired project from the Projects menu in the navigation bar.

  3. Click Advanced in the sidebar.

3
4
5

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 following Query Template:

ou=groups,dc=<okta-instance-id>,dc=okta,dc=com?dn?sub?(&(objectClass=groupofUniqueNames)(uniqueMember={USER}))

Note

Other query templates may also work. Using the default template of {USER}?memberOf?base may result in longer search times.

6

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.

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 mongosh to connect to your cluster. To copy the connection string:

  1. Click Database in the top-left corner of Atlas.

  2. Click Connect on the Database Deployments page.

  3. Click LDAP, and then click Copy.

  4. 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.

2

Note

In Okta, the bind user must have Read Only Administrator privileges 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:

ldapsearch -H 'ldaps://<okta-instance-id>.ldap.okta.com' -D "<bind-user-dn>" -w "<bind-user-pwd>" -b 'ou=groups,dc=<okta-instance-id>,dc=okta,dc=com' '(&(objectClass=groupofUniqueNames)(uniqueMember=<bind-user-dn or group-dn>))

For example, if your bind-user-dn is uid=jane@example.com,ou=users,dc=mdb-example,dc=okta,dc=com and your <okta-instance-id> is mdb-example, use the following command:

ldapsearch -H 'ldaps://mdb-example.ldap.okta.com' -D "uid=jane@example.com,dc=mdb-example,dc=okta,dc=com" -w "REDACTED" -b 'ou=groups,dc=mdb-example,dc=okta,dc=com' '(&(objectClass=groupofUniqueNames)(uniqueMember=uid=jane@example.com,ou=users,dc=mdb-example,dc=okta,dc=com))'

Note

Other query templates may also work. Using the default template of {USER}?memberOf?base may result in longer search times.

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