auth.conf structure

Each paragraph starts with one of the names "user_table", "ldap", "generic_sso" or "cas".

The auth.conf file contains directives in the following format:

  name
  keyword value
  keyword value
  ...
  
  name
  keyword value
  keyword value
  ...

Comments start with the "#" character at the beginning of a line.

Empty lines are also considered as comments and are ignored at the beginning. After the first paragraph, they are considered as paragraph separators. There should only be one directive per line, but their order in the paragraph is of no importance.

Succeeding subsections describe available parameters in each paragraph.

"user_table" paragraph

This paragraph is related to Sympa internal authentication by email and password. Information of users are stored in "user_table" database table. This is the simplest one.

"regexp" regexp

"negative_regexp"

Perl regular expressions applied on an email address provided, to select or block this authentication mechanism for a subset of email addresses.

"ldap" paragraph

This paragraph allows one to login to Sympa using data taken from an LDAP directory. Login is done in two steps:

• User provide a user ID or an email address, with a password. These are used to retrieve their distinguished name (DN) in the LDAP directory.
• The email attribute is extracted from the directory entry corresponding to the found DN.

Here is how to configure the LDAP authentication:

"regexp"

"negative_regexp"

Same as in the "user_table" paragraph: If an email address is provided (this does not apply to the user ID), then the regular expression will be applied to find out if the LDAP directory can be used to authenticate a subset of users.

"host"

This keyword is mandatory. It is the domain name used in order to bind to the directory and then to extract information. You must mention the port number after the server name. Server replication is supported by listing several servers separated by commas (",").

Example:

  host ldap.univ-rennes1.fr:389
  host ldap0.university.com:389,ldap1.university.com:389,ldap2.university.com:389
    

"timeout"

It corresponds to the time limit in the search operation. A "timelimit" that restricts the maximum time (in seconds) allowed for a search. A value of 0 (the default) means that no time limit will be requested.

"suffix"

The root of the DIT (directory information tree). The DN that is the base object entry relative to which the search is to be performed.

Example:

  dc=university,dc=fr
    

"bind_dn"

If anonymous bind is not allowed on the LDAP server, a DN and password can be used.

"bind_password"

This password is used, combined with the "bind_dn" above.

"get_dn_by_uid_filter"

Defines the search filter corresponding to the "ldap_uid". (RFC 2254 compliant). If you want to apply the filter on the user, use the variable "[sender]". It will work with every type of authentication (user ID, "alternate_email", ...).

Example:

  (Login = [sender])
  (|(ID = [sender])(UID = [sender]))
    

"get_dn_by_email_filter"

Defines the search filter corresponding to the email addresses (canonic and alternative --- this is RFC 2254 compliant). If you want to apply the filter on the user, use the variable "[sender]". It will work with every type of authentication (user ID, "alternate_email"..).

Example: a person is described by

  dn: cn=Fabrice Rafart, ou=Siege, o=MaSociete, c=FR
  objectClass: person
  cn: Fabrice Rafart
  title: Network Responsible
  o: Siege
  ou: Data processing
  telephoneNumber: 01-00-00-00-00
  facsimileTelephoneNumber: 01-00-00-00-00
  l: Paris
  country: France
  uid: frafart
  mail: Fabrice.Rafart@MaSociete.fr
  alternate_email: frafart@MaSociete.fr
  alternate: rafart@MaSociete.fr
    

The filters can be:

  (mail = [sender])
  (| (mail = [sender])(alternate_email = [sender]) )
  (| (mail = [sender])(alternate_email = [sender])(alternate  = [sender]) )
    

"email_attribute"

The name of the attribute for the canonic email in your directory: for instance "mail", "canonic_email", "canonic_address", ... In the previous example, the canonic email is "mail".

"alternative_email_attribute"

Obsoleted.

On Sympa 6.2.38 or earlier, web interface provided a cookie named "sympa_altemails" which contained attribute values specified by this parameter along with authenticated email address. This feature was deprecated.

"scope"

Default value: "sub"

By default, the search is performed on the whole tree below the specified base object. This may be changed by specifying a scope:

"authentication_info_url"

Defines the URL of a document describing LDAP password management. When hitting Sympa's "Send me a password" button, LDAP users will be redirected to this URL.

TLS parameters

Following parameters are used to provide LDAPS (LDAP over TLS/SSL):

"use_ssl" (OBSOLETE)

If set to 1, connection to the LDAP server will use LDAPS (LDAP over TLS/SSL).

Obsoleted as of Sympa 6.2.15. Use "use_tls" instead.

"use_tls"

Default value: "none"

"ssl_version"

Default value: "tlsv1"

This defines the version of the TLS/SSL protocol to use. Possible values are "sslv2", "sslv3", "tlsv1", "tlsv1_1" and "tlsv1_2".

"ssl_ciphers"

Specify which subset of cipher suites are permissible for this connection, using the standard OpenSSL string format. The default value of Net::LDAPS for ciphers is "ALL", which permits all ciphers, even those that do not encrypt!

"ssl_cert"

Path to client certificate.

Introduced on Sympa 6.2.

"ssl_key"

Path to the secret key of client certificate.

Introduced on Sympa 6.2.

"ca_verify"

"none", "optional" or "required". If set to "none", will never verify server certificate. Latter two need appropriate "ca_path" and/or "ca_file" settings.

Introduced on Sympa 6.2.

"ca_path"

Path to directory store of CA certificates.

Introduced on Sympa 6.2.

"ca_file"

Path to file store of CA certificates.

Introduced on Sympa 6.2.

"generic_sso" paragraph

"regexp"

"negative_regexp"

See "user_table" paragraph.

"service_name"

This is the SSO service name that will be offered to the user in the login banner menu.

"service_id"

This service ID is used as a parameter by Sympa to refer to the SSO service (instead of the service name).

A corresponding URL on the local web server should be protected by the SSO system; this URL would look like "http://yourhost.yourdomain/sympa/sso_login/inqueue" if the "service_id" is ""inqueue"".

"http_header_list"

Sympa gets user attributes from environment variables coming from the web server. These variables are then cached in the "user_table" database table for later use in authorization scenarios (in structure). You can define a comma-separated list of header field names.

"http_header_prefix"

Only environment variables starting with the defined prefix will be kept. Another option is to list HTTP header fields explicitly using "http_header_list" parameter.

"email_http_header"

This parameter defines the environment variable that will contain the authenticated user's email address.

"http_header_value_separator"

Default: ";"

User attributes may be multi-valued (including the user email address. This parameter defines the values separator character(s).

"logout_url"

This optional parameter allows one to specify the SSO logout URL. If defined, Sympa will redirect the user to this URL after the Sympa logout has been performed.

netID mapping parameters

The following parameters define how Sympa can check the user email address, either provided by the SSO or by the user themselves:

"internal_email_by_netid"

If set to 1, this parameter makes Sympa use its "netidmap" table to associate net IDs to user email addresses.

"netid_http_header"

This parameter defines the environment variable that will contain the user's identifier. This net ID will then be associated with an email address provided by the user.

"force_email_verify"

If set to 1, this parameter makes Sympa check the user's email address. If the email address was not provided by the authentication module, then the user is requested to provide a valid email address.

LDAP parameters for generic SSO

The following parameters define how Sympa can retrieve the user email address; these are useful only in case the "email_http_header" entry was not defined:

"ldap_host"

The LDAP host Sympa will connect to fetch user email. The "ldap_host" include the port number and it may be a comma separated list of redundant hosts.

"ldap_bind_dn"

The DN used to bind to this server. Anonymous bind is used if this parameter is not defined.

"ldap_bind_password"

The password used unless anonymous bind is used.

"ldap_suffix"

The LDAP suffix used when searching user email.

"ldap_scope"

The scope used when searching user email. Possible values are "sub", "base" and "one".

"ldap_get_email_by_uid_filter"

The filter used to perform the email search. It can refer to any environment variables inherited from the SSO module, as shown below.

Example:

  ldap_get_email_by_uid_filter (mail=[SSL_CLIENT_S_DN_Email])
    

"ldap_email_attribute"

The attribute name to be used as user canonical email. In the current version of Sympa, only the first value returned by the LDAP server is used.

"ldap_timeout"

The time out for the search.

TLS parameters

To support LDAPS (LDAP over SSL/TLS), corresponding parameters in "ldap" paragraph may also be used for "generic_sso".

"cas" paragraph

Note that Sympa will act as a CAS client to validate CAS tickets. During this exchange, Sympa will check the CAS server X.509 certificate. Therefore you should ensure that the certificate authority of the CAS server is known by Sympa ; this should be configured through the cafile or capath sympa.conf configuration parameters.

"regexp"

"negative_regexp"

See "user_table" paragraph.

"auth_service_name"

The authentication service name. Note that it is used as an identifier in the code; it should therefore be made of alphanumeric characters only, with no space.

"auth_service_friendly_name"

If defined, this string is proposed on the web login banner.

"host" (OBSOLETE)

This parameter has been replaced by "base_url" parameter.

"base_url"

The base URL of the CAS server.

"non_blocking_redirection"

"on" or "off". Default value: "on"

This parameter only concerns the first access to Sympa services by a user, it activates or not the non blocking redirection to the related CAS server to check automatically if the user as been previously authenticated with this CAS server. The redirection to CAS is used with the CGI parameter "gateway=1" that specifies to CAS server to always redirect the user to the original URL, but just check if the user is logged. If active, the SSO service is effective and transparent, but in case the CAS server is out of order, the access to Sympa services is impossible.

"login_uri" (OBSOLETE)

This parameter has been replaced by the "login_path" parameter.

"login_path" (OPTIONAL)

The login service path.

"check_uri" (OBSOLETE)

This parameter has been replaced by the "service_validate_path" parameter.

"service_validate_path" (OPTIONAL)

The ticket validation service path.

"logout_uri" (OBSOLETE)

This parameter has been replaced by the "logout_path" parameter.

"logout_path" (OPTIONAL)

The logout service path.

"proxy_path" (OPTIONAL)

The proxy service path, only used by the Sympa SOAP server.

"proxy_validate_path" (OPTIONAL)

The proxy validate service path, only used by the Sympa SOAP server.

LDAP parameters for CAS

"ldap_host"

The LDAP host Sympa will connect to fetch user email when user uid is return by CAS service. The "ldap_host" includes the port number and it may be a comma separated list of redundant hosts.

"ldap_bind_dn"

The DN used to bind to this server. Anonymous bind is used if this parameter is not defined.

"ldap_bind_password"

The password used unless anonymous bind is used.

"ldap_suffix"

The LDAP suffix used when searching user email.

"ldap_scope"

The scope used when searching user email. Possible values are "sub", "base" and "one".

"ldap_get_email_by_uid_filter"

The filter used to perform the email search.

"ldap_email_attribute"

The attribute name to be used as user canonical email. In the current version of Sympa, only the first value returned by the LDAP server is used.

"ldap_timeout"

The time out for the search.

TLS parameters

To support LDAPS (LDAP over SSL/TLS), corresponding parameters in ldap paragraph may also be used for cas.