PingDS 7.5.1

Accounts

Account lockout

Account lockout settings are part of password policy. The server locks an account after the specified number of consecutive authentication failures. For example, users are allowed three consecutive failures before being locked out for five minutes. Failures themselves expire after five minutes.

The aim of account lockout is not to punish users who mistype their passwords. It protects the directory when an attacker attempts to guess a user password with repeated attempts to bind.

Account lockout is not transactional across a replication topology. Under normal circumstances, replication propagates lockout quickly. If replication is ever delayed, an attacker with direct access to multiple replicas could try to authenticate up to the specified number of times on each replica before being locked out on all replicas.

The following command adds a replicated password policy to activate lockout:

$ ldapmodify \
 --hostname localhost \
 --port 1636 \
 --useSsl \
 --usePkcs12TrustStore /path/to/opendj/config/keystore \
 --trustStorePassword:file /path/to/opendj/config/keystore.pin \
 --bindDN uid=admin \
 --bindPassword password << EOF
dn: cn=Lock after three failures,dc=example,dc=com
objectClass: top
objectClass: subentry
objectClass: ds-pwp-password-policy
cn: Lock after three failures
ds-pwp-password-attribute: userPassword
ds-pwp-default-password-storage-scheme: PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA256
ds-pwp-lockout-failure-expiration-interval: 5 m
ds-pwp-lockout-duration: 5 m
ds-pwp-lockout-failure-count: 3
subtreeSpecification: { base "ou=people" }
EOF

Users with this policy are locked out after three failed attempts in succession:

$ ldapsearch \
 --hostname localhost \
 --port 1636 \
 --useSsl \
 --usePkcs12TrustStore /path/to/opendj/config/keystore \
 --trustStorePassword:file /path/to/opendj/config/keystore.pin \
 --bindDN "uid=bjensen,ou=people,dc=example,dc=com" \
 --bindPassword hifalutin \
 --baseDN dc=example,dc=com \
 uid=bjensen \
 mail

dn: uid=bjensen,ou=People,dc=example,dc=com
mail: bjensen@example.com

$ ldapsearch \
 --hostname localhost \
 --port 1636 \
 --useSsl \
 --usePkcs12TrustStore /path/to/opendj/config/keystore \
 --trustStorePassword:file /path/to/opendj/config/keystore.pin \
 --bindDN "uid=bjensen,ou=people,dc=example,dc=com" \
 --bindPassword fatfngrs \
 --baseDN dc=example,dc=com \
 uid=bjensen \
 mail

The LDAP bind request failed: 49 (Invalid Credentials)

$ ldapsearch \
 --hostname localhost \
 --port 1636 \
 --useSsl \
 --usePkcs12TrustStore /path/to/opendj/config/keystore \
 --trustStorePassword:file /path/to/opendj/config/keystore.pin \
 --bindDN "uid=bjensen,ou=people,dc=example,dc=com" \
 --bindPassword fatfngrs \
 --baseDN dc=example,dc=com \
 uid=bjensen \
 mail

The LDAP bind request failed: 49 (Invalid Credentials)

$ ldapsearch \
 --hostname localhost \
 --port 1636 \
 --useSsl \
 --usePkcs12TrustStore /path/to/opendj/config/keystore \
 --trustStorePassword:file /path/to/opendj/config/keystore.pin \
 --bindDN "uid=bjensen,ou=people,dc=example,dc=com" \
 --bindPassword fatfngrs \
 --baseDN dc=example,dc=com \
 uid=bjensen \
 mail

The LDAP bind request failed: 49 (Invalid Credentials)

$ ldapsearch \
 --hostname localhost \
 --port 1636 \
 --useSsl \
 --usePkcs12TrustStore /path/to/opendj/config/keystore \
 --trustStorePassword:file /path/to/opendj/config/keystore.pin \
 --bindDN "uid=bjensen,ou=people,dc=example,dc=com" \
 --bindPassword hifalutin \
 --baseDN dc=example,dc=com \
 uid=bjensen \
 mail

The LDAP bind request failed: 49 (Invalid Credentials)

Account management

Disable an account

  1. Make sure the user running the manage-account command has access to perform the appropriate operations.

    Kirsten Vaughan is a member of the Directory Administrators group. For this example, she must have the password-reset privilege, and access to edit user attributes and operational attributes:

    $ ldapmodify \
 --hostname localhost \
 --port 1636 \
 --useSsl \
 --usePkcs12TrustStore /path/to/opendj/config/keystore \
 --trustStorePassword:file /path/to/opendj/config/keystore.pin \
 --bindDN uid=admin \
 --bindPassword password << EOF
dn: uid=kvaughan,ou=People,dc=example,dc=com
changetype: modify
add: ds-privilege-name
ds-privilege-name: password-reset

dn: ou=People,dc=example,dc=com
changetype: modify
add: aci
aci: (target="ldap:///ou=People,dc=example,dc=com")(targetattr ="*||+")
 (version 3.0;acl "Admins can run amok"; allow(all)
  groupdn = "ldap:///cn=Directory Administrators,ou=Groups,dc=example,dc=com";)
EOF

    Notice here that the directory superuser, uid=admin, assigns privileges. Any administrator with the privilege-change privilege can assign privileges. However, if the administrator can update administrator privileges, they can assign themselves the bypass-acl privilege. Then they are no longer bound by access control instructions, including both user data ACIs and global ACIs. For this reason, do not assign the privilege-change privilege to normal administrator users.

  2. Set the account status to disabled:

    $ manage-account \
 set-account-is-disabled \
 --hostname localhost \
 --port 4444 \
 --bindDN uid=kvaughan,ou=people,dc=example,dc=com \
 --bindPassword bribery \
 --operationValue true \
 --targetDN uid=bjensen,ou=people,dc=example,dc=com \
 --usePkcs12TrustStore /path/to/opendj/config/keystore \
 --trustStorePassword:file /path/to/opendj/config/keystore.pin

Account Is Disabled:  true

Activate a disabled account

  1. Clear the disabled status:

    $ manage-account \
 set-account-is-disabled \
 --hostname localhost \
 --port 4444 \
 --bindDN uid=kvaughan,ou=people,dc=example,dc=com \
 --bindPassword bribery \
 --operationValue false \
 --targetDN uid=bjensen,ou=people,dc=example,dc=com \
 --usePkcs12TrustStore /path/to/opendj/config/keystore \
 --trustStorePassword:file /path/to/opendj/config/keystore.pin

Account Is Disabled:  false

Account status notifications

DS servers can send mail about account status changes. The DS server needs an SMTP server to send messages, and needs templates for the mail it sends. By default, message templates are in English, and found in the /path/to/opendj/config/messages/ directory.

DS servers generate notifications only when the server writes to an entry or evaluates a user entry for authentication. A server generates account enabled and account disabled notifications when the user account is enabled or disabled with the manage-account command. A server generates password expiration notifications when a user tries to bind.

For example, if you configure a notification for password expiration, that notification gets triggered when the user authenticates during the password expiration warning interval. The server does not automatically scan entries to send password expiry notifications.

DS servers implement controls that you can pass in an LDAP search to determine whether a user’s password is about to expire. Refer to Supported LDAP controls for a list. Your script or client application can send notifications based on the results of the search.

Send account status mail

  1. Configure an SMTP server to use when sending messages:

    $ dsconfig \
 create-mail-server \
 --hostname localhost \
 --port 4444 \
 --bindDN uid=admin \
 --bindPassword password \
 --server-name "SMTP server" \
 --set enabled:true \
 --set auth-username:mail.user \
 --set auth-password:password \
 --set smtp-server:smtp.example.com:587 \
 --set trust-manager-provider:"JVM Trust Manager" \
 --set use-start-tls:true \
 --usePkcs12TrustStore /path/to/opendj/config/keystore \
 --trustStorePassword:file /path/to/opendj/config/keystore.pin \
 --no-prompt

  2. Prepare the DS server to mail users about account status.

    The following example configures the server to send text-format mail messages:

    $ dsconfig \
 set-account-status-notification-handler-prop \
 --hostname localhost \
 --port 4444 \
 --bindDN uid=admin \
 --bindPassword password \
 --handler-name "SMTP Handler" \
 --set enabled:true \
 --set email-address-attribute-type:mail \
 --usePkcs12TrustStore /path/to/opendj/config/keystore \
 --trustStorePassword:file /path/to/opendj/config/keystore.pin \
 --no-prompt

    Notice that the server finds the user’s mail address on the attribute on the user’s entry, specified by email-address-attribute-type. You can also configure the message-subject and message-template-file properties. Use interactive mode to make the changes.

    You find templates for messages by default under the config/messages directory. Edit the templates as necessary.

    If you edit the templates to send HTML rather than text messages, then set the advanced property, send-email-as-html:

    $ dsconfig \
 set-account-status-notification-handler-prop \
 --hostname localhost \
 --port 4444 \
 --bindDN uid=admin \
 --bindPassword password \
 --handler-name "SMTP Handler" \
 --set enabled:true \
 --set send-email-as-html:true \
 --usePkcs12TrustStore /path/to/opendj/config/keystore \
 --trustStorePassword:file /path/to/opendj/config/keystore.pin \
 --no-prompt

  3. Adjust applicable password policies to use the account status notification handler you configured:

    $ dsconfig \
 set-password-policy-prop \
 --hostname localhost \
 --port 4444 \
 --bindDN uid=admin \
 --bindPassword password \
 --policy-name "Default Password Policy" \
 --set account-status-notification-handler:"SMTP Handler" \
 --usePkcs12TrustStore /path/to/opendj/config/keystore \
 --trustStorePassword:file /path/to/opendj/config/keystore.pin \
 --no-prompt

    When configuring a subentry password policy, set the ds-pwp-account-status-notification-handler attribute, an attribute of the ds-pwp-password-policy object class.

Message templates

When editing the config/messages templates, use the following tokens, which the server replaces with text:

%%notification-type%%

The name of the notification type.

%%notification-message%%

The message for the notification.

%%notification-user-dn%%

The string representation of the user DN that is the target of the notification.

%%notification-user-attr:attrname%%

The value of the attribute specified by attrname from the user’s entry.

If the specified attribute has multiple values, then this is the first value encountered. If the specified attribute does not have any values, then this is an empty string.

%%notification-property:propname%%

The value of the specified property.

If the specified property has multiple values, then this is the first value encountered. If the specified property does not have any values, then this is an empty string.

Valid propname values include the following:

  • account-unlock-time

  • new-password

  • old-password

  • password-expiration-time

  • password-policy-dn

  • seconds-until-expiration

  • seconds-until-unlock

  • time-until-expiration

  • time-until-unlock

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