Set Up LDAP Authentication
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Set Up LDAP Authentication

Table of Contents

Set Up LDAP Authentication

LDAP is often used by organizations as an authentication service and a central repository for user information. It can also be used to store the role information for application users.
  1. Create a server profile.
    The server profile identifies the external authentication service and instructs the firewall how to connect to that authentication service and access the authentication credentials for your users.
    When you use LDAP to connect to Active Directory (AD), you must create a separate LDAP server profile for every AD domain.
    1. Select
      Device
      Server Profiles
      LDAP
      , and then
      Add
      an LDAP server profile.
    2. Enter a
      Profile Name
      , such as
      GP-User-Auth
      .
    3. If this profile is for a firewall with multiple virtual systems capability, select a virtual system or
      Shared
      as the
      Location
      where the profile is available.
    4. Click
      Add
      in the
      Server List
      area, and then enter the necessary information for connecting to the authentication server, including the server
      Name
      , IP address or FQDN of the
      LDAP Server
      , and
      Port
      .
    5. Select the LDAP server
      Type
      .
    6. Enter the
      Bind DN
      and
      Password
      to enable the authentication service to authenticate the firewall.
    7. (
      Optional
      ) If you want the endpoint to use SSL or TLS for a more secure connection with the directory server, enable the option to
      Require SSL/TLS secured connection
      (enabled by default). The protocol that the endpoint uses depends on the server port:
      • 389 (default)—TLS (Specifically, the device uses the StartTLS operation, which upgrades the initial plaintext connection to TLS.)
      • 636—SSL
      • Any other port—The device first attempts to use TLS. If the directory server doesn’t support TLS, the device falls back to SSL.
    8. (
      Optional
      ) For additional security, enable to the option to
      Verify Server Certificate for SSL sessions
      so that the endpoint verifies the certificate that the directory server presents for SSL/TLS connections. To enable verification, you must also enable the option to
      Require SSL/TLS secured connection
      . For verification to succeed, the certificate must meet one of the following conditions:
      • It is in the list of device certificates:
        Device
        Certificate Management
        Certificates
        Device Certificates.
        If necessary, import the certificate into the device.
      • The certificate signer is in the list of trusted certificate authorities:
        Device
        Certificate Management
        Certificates
        Default Trusted Certificate Authorities
        .
    9. Click
      OK
      to save the server profile.
  2. (
    Optional
    ) Create an authentication profile.
    The authentication profile specifies the server profile that the portal or gateways use when they authenticate users. On a portal or gateway, you can assign one or more authentication profiles to one or more client authentication profiles. For descriptions of how an authentication profile within a client authentication profile supports granular user authentication, see Configure a GlobalProtect Gateway and Set Up Access to the GlobalProtect Portal.
    To enable users to connect and change their expired passwords without administrative intervention, consider using Remote Access VPN with Pre-Logon.
    If a user’s password expires, you can assign a temporary LDAP password to enable them to log in to GlobalProtect. In this case, the temporary password may be used to authenticate to the portal, but the gateway login may fail because the same temporary password cannot be re-used. To prevent this issue, configure an authentication override in the portal configuration (
    Network
    GlobalProtect
    Portal
    ) to enable the GlobalProtect app to use a cookie to authenticate to the portal and the temporary password to authenticate to the gateway.
    1. Select
      Device
      Authentication Profile
      , and then
      Add
      a new profile.
    2. Enter a
      Name
      for the profile.
    3. Set the
      Authentication
      Type
      to
      LDAP
      .
    4. Select the LDAP authentication
      Server Profile
      that you created in step 1.
    5. Enter
      sAMAccountName
      as the
      Login Attribute
      .
    6. Set the
      Password Expiry Warning
      to specify the number of days before password expiration that users are notified. By default, users are notified seven days prior to password expiration (range is 1-255). Because users must change their passwords before the end of the expiration period, you must provide a notification period that is adequate for your users in order to ensure continued access to GlobalProtect. To use this feature, you must specify one of the following LDAP server types in your LDAP server profile:
      active-directory
      ,
      e-directory
      , or
      sun
      .
      Unless you enable pre-logon, users cannot access GlobalProtect when their passwords expire.
    7. Specify the
      User Domain
      and
      Username Modifier
      . The endpoint combines the
      User Domain
      and
      Username Modifier
      values to modify the domain/username string that a user enters during login. The endpoint uses the modified string for authentication and the
      User Domain
      value for User-ID group mapping. Modifying user input is useful when the authentication service requires domain/username strings in a particular format but you do not want to rely on users to enter the domain correctly. You can select from the following options:
      • To send only the unmodified user input, leave the
        User Domain
        blank (the default) and set the
        Username Modifier
        to the variable
        %USERINPUT%
        (the default).
      • To prepend a domain to the user input, enter a
        User Domain
        and set the
        Username Modifier
        to
        %USERDOMAIN%\%USERINPUT%
        .
      • To append a domain to the user input, enter a
        User Domain
        and set the
        Username Modifier
        to
        %USERINPUT%@%USERDOMAIN%
        .
      If the
      Username Modifier
      includes the
      %USERDOMAIN%
      variable, the
      User Domain
      value replaces any domain string that the user enters. If the
      User Domain
      is blank, tthe device removes any user-entered domain string.
    8. On the
      Advanced
      tab,
      Add
      an
      Allow List
      to select the users and user groups that are allowed to authenticate with this profile. The
      all
      option allows every user to authenticate with this profile. By default, the list has no entries, which means no users can authenticate.
    9. Click
      OK
      .
  3. Commit the configuration.
    Click
    Commit
    .

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