SLAPD.ACCESS(5) SLAPD.ACCESS(5)
NAME
slapd.access - access configuration for slapd, the stand-alone LDAP daemon
SYNOPSIS
/etc/openldap/slapd.conf
DESCRIPTION
The slapd.conf(5) file contains configuration information for the slapd(8) daemon. This configuration
file is also used by the slurpd(8) replication daemon and by the SLAPD tools slapacl(8), slapadd(8),
slapauth(8), slapcat(8), slapdn(8), slapindex(8), and slaptest(8).
The slapd.conf file consists of a series of global configuration options that apply to slapd as a
whole (including all backends), followed by zero or more database backend definitions that contain
information specific to a backend instance.
The general format of slapd.conf is as follows:
# comment - these options apply to every database
<global configuration options>
# first database definition & configuration options
database <backend 1 type>
<configuration options specific to backend 1>
# subsequent database definitions & configuration options
...
Both the global configuration and each backend-specific section can contain access information.
Backend-specific access control directives are used for those entries that belong to the backend,
according to their naming context. In case no access control directives are defined for a backend or
those which are defined are not applicable, the directives from the global configuration section are
then used.
If no access controls are present, the default policy allows anyone and everyone to read anything but
restricts updates to rootdn. (e.g., "access to * by * read"). The rootdn can always read and write
EVERYTHING!
For entries not held in any backend (such as a root DSE), the directives of the first backend (and
any global directives) are used.
Arguments that should be replaced by actual text are shown in brackets <>.
THE ACCESS DIRECTIVE
The structure of the access control directives is
access to <what> [ by <who> <access> [ <control> ] ]+
Grant access (specified by <access>) to a set of entries and/or attributes (specified by
<what>) by one or more requestors (specified by <who>).
THE <WHAT> FIELD
The field <what> specifies the entity the access control directive applies to. It can have the forms
[dn[.<dnstyle>]=]<dnpattern>
filter=<ldapfilter>
attrs=<attrlist>[ val[/matchingRule][.<attrstyle>]=<attrval>]
with
<dnstyle>={{exact|base(object)}|regex
|one(level)|sub(tree)|children}
<attrlist>={<attr>|[{!|@}]<objectClass>}[,<attrlist>]
<attrstyle>={{exact|base(object)}|regex
|one(level)|sub(tree)|children}
The statement dn=<dnpattern> selects the entries based on their naming context. The dn= part is
optional. The <dnpattern> is a string representation of the entry's DN. The wildcard * stands for
all the entries, and it is implied if no dn form is given.
The <dnstyle> is also optional; however, it is recommended to specify both the dn= and the <dnstyle>
to avoid ambiguities. Base (synonym of baseObject), the default, or exact (an alias of base) indi-cates indicates
cates the entry whose DN is equal to the <dnpattern>; one (synonym of onelevel) indicates all the
entries immediately below the <dnpattern>, sub (synonym of subtree) indicates all entries in the sub-tree subtree
tree at the <dnpattern>, children indicates all the entries below (subordinate to) the <dnpattern>.
If the <dnstyle> qualifier is regex, then <dnpattern> is a POSIX (''extended'') regular expression
pattern, as detailed in regex(7) and/or re_format(7), matching a normalized string representation of
the entry's DN. The regex form of the pattern does not (yet) support UTF-8.
The statement filter=<ldapfilter> selects the entries based on a valid LDAP filter as described in
RFC 2254. A filter of (objectClass=*) is implied if no filter form is given.
The statement attrs=<attrlist> selects the attributes the access control rule applies to. It is a
comma-separated list of attribute types, plus the special names entry, indicating access to the entry
itself, and children, indicating access to the entry's children. ObjectClass names may also be speci-fied specified
fied in this list, which will affect all the attributes that are required and/or allowed by that
objectClass. Actually, names in <attrlist> that are prefixed by @ are directly treated as object-Class objectClass
Class names. A name prefixed by ! is also treated as an objectClass, but in this case the access
rule affects the attributes that are not required nor allowed by that objectClass. If no attrs form
is given, attrs=@extensibleObject is implied, i.e. all attributes are addressed.
Using the form attrs=<attr> val[/matchingRule][.<attrstyle>]=<attrval> specifies access to a particu-lar particular
lar value of a single attribute. In this case, only a single attribute type may be given. The
<attrstyle> exact (the default) uses the attribute's equality matching rule to compare the value,
unless a different (and compatible) matching rule is specified. If the <attrstyle> is regex, the pro-vided provided
vided value is used as a POSIX (''extended'') regular expression pattern. If the attribute has DN
syntax, the <attrstyle> can be any of base, onelevel, subtree or children, resulting in base,
onelevel, subtree or children match, respectively.
The dn, filter, and attrs statements are additive; they can be used in sequence to select entities
the access rule applies to based on naming context, value and attribute type simultaneously.
THE <WHO> FIELD
The field <who> indicates whom the access rules apply to. Multiple <who> statements can appear in an
access control statement, indicating the different access privileges to the same resource that apply
to different accessee. It can have the forms
*
anonymous
users
self[.<selfstyle>]
dn[.<dnstyle>[,<modifier>]]=<DN>
dnattr=<attrname>
realanonymous
realusers
realself[.<selfstyle>]
realdn[.<dnstyle>[,<modifier>]]=<DN>
realdnattr=<attrname>
group[/<objectclass>[/<attrname>]]
[.<groupstyle>]=<group>
peername[.<peernamestyle>]=<peername>
sockname[.<style>]=<sockname>
domain[.<domainstyle>[,<modifier>]]=<domain>
sockurl[.<style>]=<sockurl>
set[.<setstyle>]=<pattern>
ssf=<n>
transport_ssf=<n>
tls_ssf=<n>
sasl_ssf=<n>
aci[=<attrname>]
dynacl/name[/<options>][.<dynstyle>][=<pattern>]
with
<style>={exact|regex|expand}
<selfstyle>={level{<n>}}
<dnstyle>={{exact|base(object)}|regex
|one(level)|sub(tree)|children|level{<n>}}
<groupstyle>={exact|expand}
<peernamestyle>={<style>|ip|path}
<domainstyle>={exact|regex|sub(tree)}
<setstyle>={exact|regex}
<modifier>={expand}
They may be specified in combination.
The wildcard * refers to everybody.
The keywords prefixed by real act as their counterparts without prefix; the checking respectively
occurs with the authentication DN and the authorization DN.
The keyword anonymous means access is granted to unauthenticated clients; it is mostly used to limit
access to authentication resources (e.g. the userPassword attribute) to unauthenticated clients for
authentication purposes.
The keyword users means access is granted to authenticated clients.
The keyword self means access to an entry is allowed to the entry itself (e.g. the entry being
accessed and the requesting entry must be the same). It allows the level{<n>} style, where <n> indi-cates indicates
cates what ancestor of the DN is to be used in matches. A positive value indicates that the <n>-th
ancestor of the user's DN is to be considered; a negative value indicates that the <n>-th ancestor of
the target is to be considered. For example, a "by self.level{1} ..." clause would match when the
object "dc=example,dc=com" is accessed by "cn=User,dc=example,dc=com". A "by self.level{-1} ..."
clause would match when the same user accesses the object "ou=Address Book,cn=User,dc=exam-ple,dc=com". Book,cn=User,dc=example,dc=com".
ple,dc=com".
The statement dn=<DN> means that access is granted to the matching DN. The optional style qualifier
dnstyle allows the same choices of the dn form of the <what> field. In addition, the regex style can
exploit substring substitution of submatches in the <what> dn.regex clause by using the form
$<digit>, with digit ranging from 0 to 9 (where 0 matches the entire string), or the form
${<digit>+}, for submatches higher than 9. Since the dollar character is used to indicate a sub-string substring
string replacement, the dollar character that is used to indicate match up to the end of the string
must be escaped by a second dollar character, e.g.
access to dn.regex="^(.+,)?uid=([^,]+),dc=[^,]+,dc=com$"
by dn.regex="^uid=$2,dc=[^,]+,dc=com$$" write
The style qualifier allows an optional modifier. At present, the only type allowed is expand, which
causes substring substitution of submatches to take place even if dnstyle is not regex. Note that
the regex dnstyle in the above example may be of use only if the <by> clause needs to be a regex;
otherwise, if the value of the second (from the right) dc= portion of the DN in the above example
were fixed, the form
access to dn.regex="^(.+,)?uid=([^,]+),dc=example,dc=com$"
by dn.exact,expand="uid=$2,dc=example,dc=com" write
could be used; if it had to match the value in the <what> clause, the form
access to dn.regex="^(.+,)?uid=([^,]+),dc=([^,]+),dc=com$"
by dn.exact,expand="uid=$2,dc=$3,dc=com" write
could be used.
Forms of the <what> clause other than regex may provide submatches as well. The base(object), the
sub(tree), the one(level), and the children forms provide $0 as the match of the entire string. The
sub(tree), the one(level), and the children forms also provide $1 as the match of the rightmost part
of the DN as defined in the <what> clause. This may be useful, for instance, to provide access to
all the ancestors of a user by defining
access to dn.subtree="dc=com"
by dn.subtree,expand="$1" read
which means that only access to entries that appear in the DN of the <by> clause is allowed.
The level{<n>} form is an extension and a generalization of the onelevel form, which matches all DNs
whose <n>-th ancestor is the pattern. So, level{1} is equivalent to onelevel, and level{0} is equiv-alent equivalent
alent to base.
It is perfectly useless to give any access privileges to a DN that exactly matches the rootdn of the
database the ACLs apply to, because it implicitly possesses write privileges for the entire tree of
that database. Actually, access control is bypassed for the rootdn, to solve the intrinsic chicken-and-egg chickenand-egg
and-egg problem.
The statement dnattr=<attrname> means that access is granted to requests whose DN is listed in the
entry being accessed under the <attrname> attribute.
The statement group=<group> means that access is granted to requests whose DN is listed in the group
entry whose DN is given by <group>. The optional parameters <objectclass> and <attrname> define the
objectClass and the member attributeType of the group entry. The defaults are groupOfNames and mem-ber, member,
ber, respectively. The optional style qualifier <style> can be expand, which means that <group> will
be expanded as a replacement string (but not as a regular expression) according to regex(7) and/or
re_format(7), and exact, which means that exact match will be used. If the style of the DN portion
of the <what> clause is regex, the submatches are made available according to regex(7) and/or re_for-mat(7); re_format(7);
mat(7); other styles provide limited submatches as discussed above about the DN form of the <by>
clause.
For static groups, the specified attributeType must have DistinguishedName or NameAndOptionalUID syn-tax. syntax.
tax. For dynamic groups the attributeType must be a subtype of the labeledURI attributeType. Only
LDAP URIs of the form ldap:///<base>??<scope>?<filter> will be evaluated in a dynamic group, by
searching the local server only.
The statements peername=<peername>, sockname=<sockname>, domain=<domain>, and sockurl=<sockurl> mean
that the contacting host IP (in the form IP=<ip>:<port>) or the contacting host named pipe file name
(in the form PATH=<path> if connecting through a named pipe) for peername, the named pipe file name
for sockname, the contacting host name for domain, and the contacting URL for sockurl are compared
against pattern to determine access. The same style rules for pattern match described for the group
case apply, plus the regex style, which implies submatch expand and regex match of the corresponding
connection parameters. The exact style of the <peername> clause (the default) implies a case-exact
match on the client's IP, including the IP= prefix and the trailing :<port>, or the client's path,
including the PATH= prefix if connecting through a named pipe. The special ip style interprets the
pattern as <peername>=<ip>[%<mask>][{<n>}], where <ip> and <mask> are dotted digit representations of
the IP and the mask, while <n>, delimited by curly brackets, is an optional port. When checking
access privileges, the IP portion of the peername is extracted, eliminating the IP= prefix and the
:<port> part, and it is compared against the <ip> portion of the pattern after masking with <mask>.
As an example, peername.ip=127.0.0.1 allows connections only from localhost, peer-name.ip=192.168.1.0%255.255.255.0 peername.ip=192.168.1.0%255.255.255.0
name.ip=192.168.1.0%255.255.255.0 allows connections from any IP in the 192.168.1 class C domain, and
peername.ip=192.168.1.16%255.255.255.240{9009} allows connections from any IP in the
192.168.1.[16-31] range of the same domain, only if port 9009 is used. The special path style elimi-nates eliminates
nates the PATH= prefix from the peername when connecting through a named pipe, and performs an exact
match on the given pattern. The <domain> clause also allows the subtree style, which succeeds when a
fully qualified name exactly matches the domain pattern, or its trailing part, after a dot, exactly
matches the domain pattern. The expand style is allowed, implying an exact match with submatch
expansion; the use of expand as a style modifier is considered more appropriate. As an example,
domain.subtree=example.com will match www.example.com, but will not match www.anotherexample.com.
The domain of the contacting host is determined by performing a DNS reverse lookup. As this lookup
can easily be spoofed, use of the domain statement is strongly discouraged. By default, reverse
lookups are disabled. The optional domainstyle qualifier of the <domain> clause allows a modifier
option; the only value currently supported is expand, which causes substring substitution of sub-matches submatches
matches to take place even if the domainstyle is not regex, much like the analogous usage in <dn>
clause.
The statement set=<pattern> is undocumented yet.
The statement aci[=<attrname>] means that the access control is determined by the values in the attr-name attrname
name of the entry itself. The optional <attrname> indicates what attributeType holds the ACI infor-mation information
mation in the entry. By default, the OpenLDAPaci operational attribute is used. ACIs are experimen-tal; experimental;
tal; they must be enabled at compile time.
The statement dynacl/<name>[/<options>][.<dynstyle>][=<pattern>] means that access checking is dele-gated delegated
gated to the admin-defined method indicated by <name>, which can be registered at run-time by means
of the moduleload statement. The fields <options>, <dynstyle> and <pattern> are optional, and are
directly passed to the registered parsing routine. Dynacl is experimental; it must be enabled at
compile time. If dynacl and ACIs are both enabled, ACIs are cast into the dynacl scheme, where
<name>=aci and, optionally, <patten>=<attrname>. However, the original ACI syntax is preserved for
backward compatibility.
The statements ssf=<n>, transport_ssf=<n>, tls_ssf=<n>, and sasl_ssf=<n> set the minimum required
Security Strength Factor (ssf) needed to grant access. The value should be positive integer.
THE <ACCESS> FIELD
The field <access> ::= [[real]self]{<level>|<priv>} determines the access level or the specific
access privileges the who field will have. Its component are defined as
<level> ::= none|disclose|auth|compare|search|read|write
<priv> ::= {=|+|-}{w|r|s|c|x|d|0}+
The modifier self allows special operations like having a certain access level or privilege only in
case the operation involves the name of the user that's requesting the access. It implies the user
that requests access is authorized. The modifier realself refers to the authenticated DN as opposed
to the authorized DN of the self modifier. An example is the selfwrite access to the member
attribute of a group, which allows one to add/delete its own DN from the member list of a group,
without affecting other members.
The level access model relies on an incremental interpretation of the access privileges. The possi-ble possible
ble levels are none, disclose, auth, compare, search, read, and write. Each access level implies all
the preceding ones, thus write access will imply all accesses.
The none access level disallows all access including disclosure on error.
The disclose access level allows disclosure of information on error.
The auth access level means that one is allowed access to an attribute to perform authentica-tion/authorization authentication/authorization
tion/authorization operations (e.g. bind) with no other access. This is useful to grant unauthenti-cated unauthenticated
cated clients the least possible access level to critical resources, like passwords.
The priv access model relies on the explicit setting of access privileges for each clause. The =
sign resets previously defined accesses; as a consequence, the final access privileges will be only
those defined by the clause. The + and - signs add/remove access privileges to the existing ones.
The privileges are w for write, r for read, s for search, c for compare, x for authentication, and d
for disclose. More than one of the above privileges can be added in one statement. 0 indicates no
privileges and is used only by itself (e.g., +0). If no access is given, it defaults to +0.
THE <CONTROL> FIELD
The optional field <control> controls the flow of access rule application. It can have the forms
stop
continue
break
where stop, the default, means access checking stops in case of match. The other two forms are used
to keep on processing access clauses. In detail, the continue form allows for other <who> clauses in
the same <access> clause to be considered, so that they may result in incrementally altering the
privileges, while the break form allows for other <access> clauses that match the same target to be
processed. Consider the (silly) example
access to dn.subtree="dc=example,dc=com" attrs=cn
by * =cs break
access to dn.subtree="ou=People,dc=example,dc=com"
by * +r
which allows search and compare privileges to everybody under the "dc=example,dc=com" tree, with the
second rule allowing also read in the "ou=People" subtree, or the (even more silly) example
access to dn.subtree="dc=example,dc=com" attrs=cn
by * =cs continue
by users +r
which grants everybody search and compare privileges, and adds read privileges to authenticated
clients.
One useful application is to easily grant write privileges to an updatedn that is different from the
rootdn. In this case, since the updatedn needs write access to (almost) all data, one can use
access to *
by dn.exact="cn=The Update DN,dc=example,dc=com" write
by * break
as the first access rule. As a consequence, unless the operation is performed with the updatedn
identity, control is passed straight to the subsequent rules.
OPERATION REQUIREMENTS
Operations require different privileges on different portions of entries. The following summary
applies to primary database backends such as the BDB and HDB backends. Requirements for other back-ends backends
ends may (and often do) differ.
The add operation requires write (=w) privileges on the pseudo-attribute entry of the entry being
added, and write (=w) privileges on the pseudo-attribute children of the entry's parent. When adding
the suffix entry of a database, write access to children of the empty DN ("") is required.
The bind operation, when credentials are stored in the directory, requires auth (=x) privileges on
the attribute the credentials are stored in (usually userPassword).
The compare operation requires compare (=c) privileges on the attribute that is being compared.
The delete operation requires write (=w) privileges on the pseudo-attribute entry of the entry being
deleted, and write (=w) privileges on the children pseudo-attribute of the entry's parent.
The modify operation requires write (=w) privileges on the attributes being modified.
The modrdn operation requires write (=w) privileges on the pseudo-attribute entry of the entry whose
relative DN is being modified, write (=w) privileges on the pseudo-attribute children of the old and
new entry's parents, and write (=w) privileges on the attributes that are present in the new relative
DN. Write (=w) privileges are also required on the attributes that are present in the old relative
DN if deleteoldrdn is set to 1.
The search operation, requires search (=s) privileges on the entry pseudo-attribute of the searchBase
(NOTE: this was introduced with 2.3). Then, for each entry, it requires search (=s) privileges on
the attributes that are defined in the filter. The resulting entries are finally tested for read
(=r) privileges on the pseudo-attribute entry (for read access to the entry itself) and for read (=r)
access on each value of each attribute that is requested. Also, for each referral object used in
generating continuation references, the operation requires read (=r) access on the pseudo-attribute
entry (for read access to the referral object itself), as well as read (=r) access to the attribute
holding the referral information (generally the ref attribute).
Some internal operations and some controls require specific access privileges. The authzID mapping
and the proxyAuthz control require auth (=x) privileges on all the attributes that are present in the
search filter of the URI regexp maps (the right-hand side of the authz-regexp directives). Auth (=x)
privileges are also required on the authzTo attribute of the authorizing identity and/or on the
authzFrom attribute of the authorized identity.
Access control to search entries is checked by the frontend, so it is fully honored by all backends;
for all other operations and for the discovery phase of the search operation, full ACL semantics is
only supported by the primary backends, i.e. back-bdb(5), and back-hdb(5).
Some other backend, like back-sql(5), may fully support them; others may only support a portion of
the described semantics, or even differ in some aspects. The relevant details are described in the
backend-specific man pages.
CAVEATS
It is strongly recommended to explicitly use the most appropriate <dnstyle> in <what> and <who>
clauses, to avoid possible incorrect specifications of the access rules as well as for performance
(avoid unnecessary regex matching when an exact match suffices) reasons.
An administrator might create a rule of the form:
access to dn.regex="dc=example,dc=com"
by ...
expecting it to match all entries in the subtree "dc=example,dc=com". However, this rule actually
matches any DN which contains anywhere the substring "dc=example,dc=com". That is, the rule matches
both "uid=joe,dc=example,dc=com" and "dc=example,dc=com,uid=joe".
To match the desired subtree, the rule would be more precisely written:
access to dn.regex="^(.+,)?dc=example,dc=com$"
by ...
For performance reasons, it would be better to use the subtree style.
access to dn.subtree="dc=example,dc=com"
by ...
When writing submatch rules, it may be convenient to avoid unnecessary regex <dnstyle> use; for
instance, to allow access to the subtree of the user that matches the <what> clause, one could use
access to dn.regex="^(.+,)?uid=([^,]+),dc=example,dc=com$"
by dn.regex="^uid=$2,dc=example,dc=com$$" write
by ...
However, since all that is required in the <by> clause is substring expansion, a more efficient solu-tion solution
tion is
access to dn.regex="^(.+,)?uid=([^,]+),dc=example,dc=com$"
by dn.exact,expand="uid=$2,dc=example,dc=com" write
by ...
In fact, while a <dnstyle> of regex implies substring expansion, exact, as well as all the other DN
specific <dnstyle> values, does not, so it must be explicitly requested.
FILES
/etc/openldap/slapd.conf
default slapd configuration file
SEE ALSO
slapd(8), slapd-*(5), slapacl(8), regex(7), re_format(7)
"OpenLDAP Administrator's Guide" (http://www.OpenLDAP.org/doc/admin/)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
OpenLDAP is developed and maintained by The OpenLDAP Project (http://www.openldap.org/) OpenLDAP is
derived from University of Michigan LDAP 3.3 Release.
OpenLDAP 2.3.27 2006/08/19 SLAPD.ACCESS(5)
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