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LDAP Organizational Data

The Backstage catalog can be set up to ingest organizational data - users and groups - directly from an LDAP compatible service. The result is a hierarchy of User and Group kind entities that mirror your org setup.

Supported vendors​

Backstage in general supports OpenLDAP compatible vendors, as well as Active Directory and FreeIPA. If you are using a vendor that does not seem to be supported, please file an issue.

Installation​

The provider is not installed by default, therefore you have to add a dependency to @backstage/plugin-catalog-backend-module-ldap to your backend package.

From your Backstage root directory
yarn --cwd packages/backend add @backstage/plugin-catalog-backend-module-ldap

Next add the basic configuration to app-config.yaml

app-config.yaml
catalog:
  providers:
    ldapOrg:
      default:
        target: ldaps://ds.example.net
        bind:
          dn: uid=ldap-reader-user,ou=people,ou=example,dc=example,dc=net
          secret: ${LDAP_SECRET}
        schedule:
          frequency: PT1H
          timeout: PT15M

Finally, updated your backend by adding the following line:

packages/backend/src/index.ts
backend.add(import('@backstage/plugin-catalog-backend'));
backend.add(import('@backstage/plugin-catalog-backend-module-ldap'));

Configuration​

The following configuration is a small example of how a setup could look for importing groups and users from a corporate LDAP server.

Users and Groups can be configured for multiple dn entries as an array.

catalog:
  providers:
    ldapOrg:
      default:
        target: ldaps://ds.example.net
        bind:
          dn: uid=ldap-reader-user,ou=people,ou=example,dc=example,dc=net
          secret: ${LDAP_SECRET}
        users:
          - dn: ou=people,ou=example,dc=example,dc=net
            options:
              filter: (uid=*)
            map:
              description: l
            set:
              metadata.customField: 'hello'
        groups:
          - dn: ou=access,ou=groups,ou=example,dc=example,dc=net
            options:
              filter: (&(objectClass=some-group-class)(!(groupType=email)))
            map:
              description: l
            set:
              metadata.customField: 'hello'

These config blocks have a lot of options in them, so we will describe each "root" key within the block separately.

NOTE:

If you want to import users and groups from different LDAP servers, you can define multiple providers with different names. If they should come from the same server, you can define multiple users and groups blocks within the same provider using an array of users / groups. Entries coming from the same block will be able to detect group memberships based on the memberOf attribute.

If you want only to import users or groups, you can omit the groups or users block.

target​

This is the URL of the targeted server, typically on the form ldaps://ds.example.net for SSL enabled servers or ldap://ds.example.net without SSL.

target.tls.keys​

keys in TLS options specifies location of a file, that contains private keys to establish connection with your LDAP server, in PEM format. See an example for Google Secure LDAP Service below.

target.tls.certs​

certs in TLS options specifies location of a file, that contains certificate chains to establish connection with your LDAP server, in PEM format. See an example for Google Secure LDAP Service below.

bind​

The bind block specifies how the plugin should bind (essentially, to authenticate) towards the server. It has the following fields.

dn: uid=ldap-reader-user,ou=people,ou=example,dc=example,dc=net
secret: ${LDAP_SECRET}

The dn is the full LDAP Distinguished Name for the user that the plugin authenticates itself as. At this point, only regular user based authentication is supported.

The secret is the password of the same user. In this example, it is given in the form of an environment variable LDAP_SECRET, that has to be set when the backend starts.

users​

The users block defines the settings that govern the reading and interpretation of users. Its fields are explained in separate sections below.

users.dn​

The DN under which users are stored, e.g. ou=people,ou=example,dc=example,dc=net.

users.options​

The search options to use when sending the query to the server, when reading all users. All the options are shown below, with their default values, but they are all optional.

options:
  # One of 'base', 'one', or 'sub'.
  scope: one
  # The filter is the one that you commonly will want to specify explicitly. It
  # is a string on the standard LDAP query format. Use it to select out the set
  # of users that are of actual interest to ingest. For example, you may want
  # to filter out disabled users.
  filter: (uid=*)
  # The attribute selectors for each item, as passed to the LDAP server.
  attributes: ['*', '+']
  # This field is either 'false' to disable paging when reading from the
  # server, or an object on the form '{ pageSize: 100, pagePause: true }' that
  # specifies the details of how the paging shall work.
  paged: false

users.set​

This optional piece lets you specify a number of JSON paths (on a.b.c form) and hard coded values to set on those paths. This can be useful for example if you want to hard code a namespace or similar on the generated entities.

set:
  # Just an example; the key and value can be anything
  metadata.namespace: 'ldap'

users.map​

Mappings from well known entity fields, to LDAP attribute names. This is where you are able to define how to interpret the attributes of each LDAP result item, and to move them into the corresponding entity fields. All the options are shown below, with their default values, but they are all optional.

If you leave out an optional mapping, it will still be copied using that default value. For example, even if you do not put in the field displayName in your config, the provider will still copy the attribute cn into the entity field spec.profile.displayName.

map:
  # The name of the attribute that holds the relative
  # distinguished name of each entry.
  rdn: uid
  # The name of the attribute that shall be used for the value of
  # the metadata.name field of the entity.
  name: uid
  # The name of the attribute that shall be used for the value of
  # the metadata.description field of the entity.
  description: description
  # The name of the attribute that shall be used for the value of
  # the spec.profile.displayName field of the entity.
  displayName: cn
  # The name of the attribute that shall be used for the value of
  # the spec.profile.email field of the entity.
  email: mail
  # The name of the attribute that shall be used for the value of
  # the spec.profile.picture field of the entity.
  picture: <nothing, left out>
  # The name of the attribute that shall be used for the values of
  # the spec.memberOf field of the entity.
  memberOf: memberOf

groups​

The groups block defines the settings that govern the reading and interpretation of groups. Its fields are explained in separate sections below.

groups.dn​

The DN under which groups are stored, e.g. ou=people,ou=example,dc=example,dc=net.

groups.options​

The search options to use when sending the query to the server, when reading all groups. All the options are shown below, with their default values, but they are all optional.

options:
  # One of 'base', 'one', or 'sub'.
  scope: one
  # The filter is the one that you commonly will want to specify explicitly. It
  # is a string on the standard LDAP query format. Use it to select out the set
  # of groups that are of actual interest to ingest. For example, you may want
  # to filter out disabled groups.
  filter: (&(objectClass=some-group-class)(!(groupType=email)))
  # The attribute selectors for each item, as passed to the LDAP server.
  attributes: ['*', '+']
  # This field is either 'false' to disable paging when reading from the
  # server, or an object on the form '{ pageSize: 100, pagePause: true }' that
  # specifies the details of how the paging shall work.
  paged: false

groups.set​

This optional piece lets you specify a number of JSON paths (on a.b.c form) and hard coded values to set on those paths. This can be useful for example if you want to hard code a namespace or similar on the generated entities.

set:
  # Just an example; the key and value can be anything
  metadata.namespace: 'ldap'

groups.map​

Mappings from well known entity fields, to LDAP attribute names. This is where you are able to define how to interpret the attributes of each LDAP result item, and to move them into the corresponding entity fields. All of the options are shown below, with their default values, but they are all optional.

If you leave out an optional mapping, it will still be copied using that default value. For example, even if you do not put in the field displayName in your config, the provider will still copy the attribute cn into the entity field spec.profile.displayName. If the target field is optional, such as the display name, the importer will accept missing attributes and just leave the target field unset. If the target field is mandatory, such as the name of the entity, validation will fail if the source attribute is missing.

map:
  # The name of the attribute that holds the relative
  # distinguished name of each entry. This value is copied into a
  # well known annotation to be able to query by it later.
  rdn: cn
  # The name of the attribute that shall be used for the value of
  # the metadata.name field of the entity.
  name: cn
  # The name of the attribute that shall be used for the value of
  # the metadata.description field of the entity.
  description: description
  # The name of the attribute that shall be used for the value of
  # the spec.type field of the entity.
  type: groupType
  # The name of the attribute that shall be used for the value of
  # the spec.profile.displayName field of the entity.
  displayName: cn
  # The name of the attribute that shall be used for the value of
  # the spec.profile.email field of the entity.
  email: <nothing, left out>
  # The name of the attribute that shall be used for the value of
  # the spec.profile.picture field of the entity.
  picture: <nothing, left out>
  # The name of the attribute that shall be used for the values of
  # the spec.parent field of the entity.
  memberOf: memberOf
  # The name of the attribute that shall be used for the values of
  # the spec.children field of the entity.
  members: member

Optional Vendor Configuration​

In case the LDAP vendor isn't automatically detected by the module, an optional vendor configuration section is available which allows overriding the location for dn and uuid settings, and a case sensitivity setting.

vendor.dnAttributeName​

Allows explicitly defining the name of the attribute that stores each entry's DN.

vendor.uuidAttributeName​

Allows explicitly defining the name of the attribute that stores each entry's UUID.

vendor.dnCaseSensitive​

Provides the ability to ignore case sensitivity issues with user/group mappings. If set to true, the ingestion will link user/members to groups whether their dn, member, or memberOf values have the right case or not.

vendor:
  # Attribute name override for the distinguished name (DN) of an entry.
  dnAttributeName: dn
  # Attribute name override for the unique identifier (UUID) of an entry.
  uuidAttributeName: uuid
  # Attribute to force values provided from dn and members/memberOf values all to lowercase.
  # This is to resolve potential user/group mapping issues if case differences on dn strings.
  dnCaseSensitive: true

Customize the Provider​

In case you want to customize the ingested entities, the provider allows to pass transformers for users and groups.

Transformers can be configured by extending ldapOrgEntityProviderTransformsExtensionPoint. Here is an example:

packages/backend/src/index.ts
import { createBackendModule } from '@backstage/backend-plugin-api';
import { ldapOrgEntityProviderTransformsExtensionPoint } from '@backstage/plugin-catalog-backend-module-ldap';
import { myUserTransformer, myGroupTransformer } from './transformers';

backend.add(
  createBackendModule({
    pluginId: 'catalog',
    moduleId: 'ldap-extensions',
    register(env) {
      env.registerInit({
        deps: {
          ldapTransformers: ldapOrgEntityProviderTransformsExtensionPoint,
        },
        async init({ ldapTransformers }) {
          ldapTransformers.setUserTransformer(myUserTransformer);
          ldapTransformers.setGroupTransformer(myGroupTransformer);
        },
      });
    },
  }),
);