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LDAP

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You can configure SonarQube authentication and authorization to an LDAP server (including the LDAP service of Active Directory) by configuring the correct values in <sonarqubeHome>/conf/sonar.properties.

The main features are:

  • Password checking against the external authentication engine.
  • Automatic synchronization of usernames and emails.
  • Automatic synchronization of relationships between users and groups (authorization).
  • During the first successful authentication, the user account is created in the SonarQube database. Each time a user logs into SonarQube, the username and the email are synchronized. 
  • Group synchronization is an option that will sync SonarQube group memberships with the LDAP service.
Apache DSOpenLDAPOpen DSActive Directory
Anonymous
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Simple
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LDAPS
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DIGEST-MD5
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CRAM-MD5
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GSSAPI
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Setup

  1. Configure LDAP by editing <sonarqubeHome>/conf/sonar.properties (see table below).
  2. Restart the SonarQube server and check the log file for:
    INFO org.sonar.INFO Security realm: LDAP ...
    INFO o.s.p.l.LdapContextFactory Test LDAP connection: OK
  3. Log in to SonarQube.
  4. On log out users will be presented with a login page (/sessions/login), where they can choose to log in as a technical user or a domain user by passing the appropriate credentials.

For SonarScanners, we recommend using local technical users for authentication against SonarQube Server.

General Configuration

PropertyDescriptionDefault valueRequiredExample
sonar.security.realmSet this to LDAP authenticate first against the external sytem. If the external system is not reachable or if the user is not defined in the external system, authentication will be performed against SonarQube's internal database.noneYesLDAP (only possible value)
sonar.authenticator.downcaseSet to true when connecting to a LDAP server using a case-insensitive setup.falseNo
ldap.urlURL of the LDAP server. If you are using ldaps, you should install the server certificate into the Java truststore.noneYesldap://localhost:10389
ldap.bindDnThe username of an LDAP user to connect (or bind) with. Leave this blank for anonymous access to the LDAP directory.noneNocn=sonar,ou=users,o=mycompany
ldap.bindPasswordThe password of the user to connect with. Leave this blank for anonymous access to the LDAP directory.noneNosecret
ldap.authenticationPossible values: simpleCRAM-MD5DIGEST-MD5GSSAPI. See the tutorial on authentication mechanismssimpleNo
ldap.realmSee Digest-MD5 AuthenticationCRAM-MD5 AuthenticationnoneNoexample.org
ldap.contextFactoryClassContext factory class.com.sun.jndi.ldap.LdapCtxFactoryNo
ldap.StartTLSEnable use of StartTLSfalseNo
ldap.followReferralsFollow referrals or not. See Referrals in the JNDItrue



ldap.saslQopQuality of protection requestnoneNoauth
ldap.saslStrengthCryptographic protection requestnoneNomedium
ldap.saslMaxbufMaximum receive buffer sizenoneNo16384

User Mapping

PropertyDescriptionDefault valueRequiredExample for Active Directory
ldap.user.baseDnDistinguished Name (DN) of the root node in LDAP from which to search for users.NoneYescn=users,dc=example,dc=org
ldap.user.requestLDAP user request.(&(objectClass=inetOrgPerson)(uid={login}))No(&(objectClass=user)(sAMAccountName={login}))
ldap.user.realNameAttributeAttribute in LDAP defining the user’s real name.cnNo
ldap.user.emailAttributeAttribute in LDAP defining the user’s email.mailNo

Group synchronization

Only groups and static groups are supported. Roles and dynamic groups are not supported; this page about Static Vs Dynamic LDAP Group management offers more detail about the differences.

To delege authorization, groups must first be defined in SonarQube. See the Group synchronization section on the Overview page for more details. After your groups are created, the following properties must be defined to allow SonarQube to automatically synchronize the relationships between users and groups.

PropertyDescriptionDefault valueRequiredExample for Active Directory
ldap.group.baseDnDistinguished Name (DN) of the root node in LDAP from which to search for groups.noneNocn=groups,dc=example,dc=org
ldap.group.requestLDAP group request.(&(objectClass=groupOfUniqueNames)(uniqueMember={dn}))No(&(objectClass=group)(member={dn}))
ldap.group.idAttributeProperty used to specifiy the attribute to be used for returning the list of user groups in the compatibility mode.cnNosAMAccountName

Configuration sample

# LDAP configuration
# General Configuration
sonar.security.realm=LDAP
ldap.url=ldap://myserver.mycompany.com
ldap.bindDn=my_bind_dn
ldap.bindPassword=my_bind_password
  
# User Configuration
ldap.user.baseDn=ou=Users,dc=mycompany,dc=com
ldap.user.request=(&(objectClass=inetOrgPerson)(uid={login}))
ldap.user.realNameAttribute=cn
ldap.user.emailAttribute=mail
 
# Group Configuration
ldap.group.baseDn=ou=Groups,dc=sonarsource,dc=com
ldap.group.request=(&(objectClass=posixGroup)(memberUid={uid}))

Advanced LDAP Topics

Authentication Methods

  • Anonymous - Used when only read-only access to non-protected entries and attributes is needed when binding to the LDAP server.
  • Simple Simple authentication is not recommended for production deployments not using the LDAP secure protocol since it sends a cleartext password over the network.
  • CRAM-MD5 - The Challenge-Response Authentication Method (CRAM), based on the HMAC-MD5 MAC algorithm (RFC 2195).
  • DIGEST-MD5 - This is an improvement on the CRAM-MD5 authentication method (RFC 2831).
  • GSSAPI - GSS-API is Generic Security Service API (RFC 2744). One of the most popular security services available for GSS-API is the Kerberos v5, used in Microsoft's Windows 2000 platform.

For a full discussion of LDAP authentication approaches, see RFC 2829 and RFC 2251.

Multiple Servers

To configure multiple servers:

# List the different servers
ldap.servers=server1,server2
  
# Configure server1
ldap.server1.url=ldap://server1:1389
ldap.server1.user.baseDn=dc=dept1,dc=com
...
 
# Configure server2
ldap.server2.url=ldap://server2:1389
ldap.server2.user.baseDn=dc=dept2,dc=com
...

Authentication will be tried on each server, in the order they are listed in the configurations until one succeeds.

Note that all the LDAP servers must be available while (re)starting the SonarQube server.

Migrate users to a new authentication method

If you are changing your delegated authentication method and migrating existing users from your previous authentication method, you can use the api/users/update_identity_provider web API to update your users' identity provider.

About user and identity provider IDs

To avoid the risk of misidentification, the following identification methods are used on all LDAP setups, including SonarQube instances with a single LDAP connection: 

  • The local login of a new account is made unique with a suffix to the identifier. eg. login_<additional_id>.
  • The name of the External Identity Provider is also made unique with the addition of the server key provided in the configuration. eg. LDAP_<server_key> where ldap.servers=<server_key>,...

Troubleshooting

  • Detailed connection logs (and potential error codes received from the LDAP server) are output to SonarQube's <sonarqubeHome>/logs/web.log, when logging is in DEBUG mode.
  • If you experience time outs when running SonarQube analysis using LDAP, Java parameters are documented here. Such parameters can be set in sonar.web.javaAdditionalOpts in <sonarqubeHome>/conf/sonar.properties.

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