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LDAP Authentication

Add LDAP Bind Authentication to a Route with username and password protection. The plugin will check for valid credentials in the Proxy-Authorization and Authorization header (in this order).

Note: The functionality of this plugin as bundled with versions of Kong prior to 0.14.1 and Kong Enterprise prior to 0.34 differs from what is documented herein. Refer to the CHANGELOG for details.

Terminology

  • plugin: a plugin executing actions inside Kong before or after a request has been proxied to the upstream API.
  • Service: the Kong entity representing an external upstream API or microservice.
  • Route: the Kong entity representing a way to map downstream requests to upstream services.
  • upstream service: this refers to your own API/service sitting behind Kong, to which client requests are forwarded.

Configuration

Enabling the plugin on a Route

Configure this plugin on a Route with:

$ curl -X POST http://kong:8001/routes/{route_id}/plugins \
    --data "name=ldap-auth"  \
    --data "config.hide_credentials=true" \
    --data "config.ldap_host=ldap.example.com" \
    --data "config.ldap_port=389" \
    --data "config.start_tls=false" \
    --data "config.base_dn=dc=example,dc=com" \
    --data "config.verify_ldap_host=false" \
    --data "config.attribute=cn" \
    --data "config.cache_ttl=60" \
    --data "config.header_type=ldap"
  • route_id: the id of the Route that this plugin configuration will target.

Global plugins

All plugins can be configured using the http://kong:8001/plugins/ endpoint. A plugin which is not associated to any Service, Route or Consumer (or API, if you are using an older version of Kong) is considered "global", and will be run on every request. Read the Plugin Reference and the Plugin Precedence sections for more information.

Parameters

Here's a list of all the parameters which can be used in this plugin's configuration:

form parameterdefaultdescription
nameThe name of the plugin to use, in this case ldap-auth
route_idThe id of the Route which this plugin will target.
enabledtrueWhether this plugin will be applied.
config.hide_credentials
optional

false

An optional boolean value telling the plugin to hide the credential to the upstream server. It will be removed by Kong before proxying the request.
config.ldap_host

Host on which the LDAP server is running.
config.ldap_port

TCP port where the LDAP server is listening.
config.start_tls

false

Set it to true to issue StartTLS (Transport Layer Security) extended operation over ldap connection.
config.base_dn

Base DN as the starting point for the search.
config.verify_ldap_host

false

Set it to true to authenticate LDAP server. The server certificate will be verified according to the CA certificates specified by the lua_ssl_trusted_certificate directive.
config.attribute

Attribute to be used to search the user.
config.cache_ttl

60

Cache expiry time in seconds.
config.timeout
optional

10000

An optional timeout in milliseconds when waiting for connection with LDAP server.
config.keepalive
optional

60000

An optional value in milliseconds that defines for how long an idle connection to LDAP server will live before being closed.
config.anonymous
optional

An optional string (consumer uuid) value to use as an “anonymous” consumer if authentication fails. If empty (default), the request will fail with an authentication failure 4xx. Please note that this value must refer to the Consumer id attribute which is internal to Kong, and not its custom_id.
config.header_type
optional

ldap

An optional string to use as part of the Authorization header. By default, a valid Authorization header looks like this: Authorization: ldap base64(username:password). If header_type is set to “basic” then the Authorization header would be Authorization: basic base64(username:password). Note that header_type can take any string, not just "ldap" and "basic".
Note: The config.header_type option was introduced in Kong 0.12.0. Previous versions of this plugin behave as if ldap was set for this value.

Usage

In order to authenticate the user, client must set credentials in Proxy-Authorization or Authorization header in following format

credentials := [ldap LDAP] base64(username:password)

The plugin will validate the user against the LDAP server and cache the credential for future requests for the duration specified in config.cache_ttl.

Upstream Headers

When a client has been authenticated, the plugin will append some headers to the request before proxying it to the upstream service, so that you can identify the consumer in your code:

  • X-Credential-Username, the username of the Credential (only if the consumer is not the ‘anonymous’ consumer)
  • X-Anonymous-Consumer, will be set to true when authentication failed, and the ‘anonymous’ consumer was set instead.
  • X-Consumer-ID, the ID of the ‘anonymous’ consumer on Kong (only if authentication failed and ‘anonymous’ was set)
  • X-Consumer-Custom-ID, the custom_id of the ‘anonymous’ consumer (only if authentication failed and ‘anonymous’ was set)
  • X-Consumer-Username, the username of the ‘anonymous’ consumer (only if authentication failed and ‘anonymous’ was set)