Kerberos, Active Directory and AIX
Kerberos, Active Directory and AIX
You can find a lot and often conflicting information on the subject of using Kerberos with Active Directory to authenticate AIX clients. Recently, I migrated from LDAP-based authentication to one using Kerberos and Active Directory (2012); my AIX clients have more than 150 hosts running AIX 5.3, 6.1 and 7.1. While not painless, the difficulties were short-lived and not severe. This article will describe the task in detail.
If you think Kerberos file sets are all you need for this solution, you’re wrong. It also requires LDAP client file sets because Kerberos provides only authentication service whereas LDAP delivers the authorization (group membership and other user-defining info) information. Both obtain their information from the same source – Active Directory.
Installation
To install Kerberos client, download NAS (Network Authentication Service pack) compatible with your version of AIX. The following command installs it:
# /usr/sbin/installp -agYXd /path/to/apps/NAS1.6.0.1 all
In the similar fashion, install LDAP software. If you install only the LDAP client components, you’ll most likely be left without access to the ldapsearch command so load them all.
It makes sense to verify LDAP “connectivity” before proceeding any further. Your AIX client must have the ldapsearch command. If it’s missing, you’ll want to look for it as it’s not installed in /usr/bin or /usr/sbin. You may locate it with the find command:
# find /opt –name ldapsearch –ls /opt/IBM/ldap/V6.3/bin/32/ldapsearch /opt/IBM/ldap/V6.3/bin/64/ldapsearch /opt/IBM/ldap/V6.3/bin/ldapsearch /opt/IBM/ldap/V6.3/examples/java/com/ibm/ldap/bp/client/ldapsearch
To make your life easier, I recommend you modify the PATH variable in either your ~./profile or /etc/environment file, appending to it the /opt/IBM/ldap/V6.3/bin. Or alternatively:
# export PATH=$PATH:/opt/IBM/ldap/V6.3/bin
Verification
With both Kerberos and LDAP installed, you must verify the AIX client is capable of asking for and receiving information from the Active Directory. Ask your Active Directory administrator for the fully qualified name of an account (and password) created for this purpose and for the DNS name of the Active Directory server (ldap.wmd.edu) where this account resides. For the sake of this tutorial, my account name is cn=aixldapquery,ou=ServiceAccounts,ou=Corporate Servers,dc=wmd,dc=edu, the password is ^laska^nebeska:1954 and our hostname is ldap.wmd.edu. With this information in hand, search Active Directory for some details about a user. In this case, I’ll ask for my own information:
# ldapsearch -h ldap.wmd.edu \ -D "cn=aixldapquery,ou=ServiceAccounts,ou=Corporate Servers,dc=wmd,dc=edu”\ -w ^laska^nebeska:1954 \ -s sub \ -b "dc=,dc=edu" "(cn=duszyk)" uid unixHomeDirectory loginShell CN=duszyk,OU=Secured,OU=Corporate Users,DC=wmd,DC=edu uid=duszyk unixHomeDirectory=/home/duszyk loginShell=/bin/bash
As this response shows, at least some of the Active Directory UNIX attributes have already been set. You must ensure UNIX attributes in Active Directory of your AIX users are set before any of your AIX hosts is transitioned to use it for authentication. This is a sometimes-overlooked detail.
First, let’s set the client to authenticate purely with LDAP, which is an opportunity to validate that the client correctly translated user information from the Active Directory into the format that AIX can understand and use. Execute the mksecldap command:
# mksecldap –c –h ldap.wmd.edu \ –a “cn=aixldapquery,ou=ServiceAccounts,ou=Corporate Servers,dc=wmd,dc=edu” \ –d “dc=wmd,dc=edu”\ –p ^laska^nebeska:1954
Next, in the file /etc/security/user, find your own stanza and change both SYSTEM and registry attributes to contain the word LDAP.
registry = LDAP SYSTEM = “LDAP”
Now, edit the /etc/security/ldap/ldap.cfg and verify that it contains the following entries:
authtype:unix_auth useSSL:no userattrmappath:/etc/security/ldap/sfur2user.map groupattrmappath:/etc/security/ldap/sfur2group.map userclasses:user,person,organizationalperson groupclasses:group ldapport:389 searchmode:ALL defaultentrylocation:LDAP serverschematype:sfur2
The “sfur2” shown identifies the data store as Active Directory. UNIX group membership in Active Directory may be specified in one of two ways and as the result you must change the following entry in the /etc/security/ldap/sfur2group.map:
users SEC_LIST cn m na yes Into either: users SEC_LIST msSFU30PosixMember m na yes Or: users SEC_LIST member m na yes
Now, restart the secldapclntd executing “restart-secldapclntd” or empty its cache executing “flush-secldapclntd”. Check that you’re able to get all your AIX data from Active Directory – in my case, I executed the “lsuser –R LDAP duszyk” which delivered data I needed to see to declare it successful.
Configuring Kerberos
After this test, I removed/restored my user stanza to its original shape and proceeded to Kerberos client configuration. Verify the host time service is working and starting at reboot as Kerberos is very time sensitive and it often refuses to operate if there’s just a several seconds time difference between the client (in this case, AIX host) and Kerberos server (in this case, Active Directory Kerberos Service).
To configure Kerberos takes some focus as it requires both lower and upper case letters and the case matters. Analyze the following entry:
# config.krb5 -C -r WMD.EDU -d wmd.edu –c LDAP.WMD.EDU -s ldap.wmd.edu
Where: -r realm Active Directory domain name: -d domain Domain name of the machine hosting the Active Directory service: -c LDAP.WMD.EDU The host name of the Windows 2000 server (Kerberos Domain Controller): -s server ldap.wmd.edu
The last command populates the /etc/krb5.conf file with the provided information. You may need to edit the default_tkt_enctypes entry in this file.
# cat /etc/krb5.conf
cat krb5.conf
[libdefaults]
default_realm = WMD.EDU
default_keytab_name = FILE:/etc/krb5/krb5.keytab
default_tkt_enctypes = des3-cbc-sha1 arcfour-hmac aes256-cts des-cbc-md5 des-cbc-crc aes128-cts
default_tgs_enctypes = des3-cbc-sha1 arcfour-hmac aes256-cts des-cbc-md5 des-cbc-crc aes128-cts
[realms]
WMD.EDU = {
kdc = LDAP.WMD.EDU:88
admin_server = ldap.wmd.edu:749
default_domain = wmd.edu
}
[domain_realm]
.wmd.edu = WMD.EDU
ldap.wmd.edu = WMD.EDU
DC.LDAP.EDU = WMD.EDU
[logging]
kdc = FILE:/var/krb5/log/krb5kdc.log
admin_server = FILE:/var/krb5/log/kadmin.log
kadmin_local = FILE:/var/krb5/log/kadmin_local.log
default = FILE:/var/krb5/log/krb5lib.log
Open the /etc/methods.cfg file and if you see KRB5A replace it with KRB5. The KRB5A module, which was originally created to communicate with the Active Directory, has been depreciated and its usage is no longer recommended. Use the KRB5 modules instead. Your methods.cfg file should look like mine:
# cat /etc/methods.cfg
KRB5:
program = /usr/lib/security/KRB5
program_64 = /usr/lib/security/KRB5_64
options = authonly,is_kadmind_compat=no,tgt_verify=no
LDAP:
program = /usr/lib/security/LDAP
program_64 =/usr/lib/security/LDAP64
KRB5LDAP:
options = auth=KRB5,db=LDAP
Verifying Kerberos
We are almost at the finish line. It’s time to verify Kerberos configuration. Verify that a user can create “ticket” – I used my own login name.
# kinit -p duszyk
Password for duszyk@WMD.EDU:
# klist
Ticket cache: FILE:/var/krb5/security/creds/krb5cc_0
Default principal: duszyk@WMD.EDU
Valid starting Expires Service principal
10/25/13 14:07:46 10/26/13 00:07:50 krbtgt/WMD.EDU@WMD.EDU
Renew until 10/26/13 14:07:46
I’m satisfied with the output generated by the last command; I have no need for the ticket so I’ll destroy it.
# kdestroy
# klist
Unable to get cache name (ticket cache: /var/krb5/security/creds/krb5cc_0).
Status 0x96c73ac3 - No credentials cache found.
The Finish
In the final step, modify the “default:” stanza in the /etc/security/user file to make sure that all non-local accounts (the “flesh and bone” as I like to call them) will employ Kerberos to authenticate using the Active Directory services. We must change the registry and the SYSTEM entries so they read KRB5LDAP.
# grep KRB5 /etc/security/user
SYSTEM = "KRB5ALDAP"
registry = KRB5ALDAP
Refresh the “secldapclntd” daemon and login. After you login, execute the lsuser and id commands to verify that your AIX host received the complete set of information about you – all your groups, uid, shell and more.
Be aware that in this case, the LDAP delivered data (group membership, home directory, etc.) is not scrambled. If you want, you may configure SSL to do it for you – obtain the appropriate keys from your Active Directory administrator.
A final note: At the time of this writing, I noticed that ftp command fails for the Kerberos authenticated users. I have an open PMR with IBM support to resolve this issue.
Article Number: 280
Posted: Mon, Jun 25, 2018 3:40 PM
Last Updated: Mon, Jun 25, 2018 3:40 PM
Online URL: http://kb.ictbanking.net/article.php?id=280