Configure User Authentication and Authorization with Okta LDAP Interface¶
On this page
- Limitations
- Procedures
- Configure Okta for LDAP Authentication
- Configure Atlas for LDAP Authentication
- Configure Okta for LDAP Authorization
- Configure Atlas for LDAP Authorization
- Connect to your Cluster Using
mongosh
- Use
to connect to your cluster with user credentials that you added to Atlas.
- After connecting to your cluster, run commands to verify the user has the read or write privileges you assigned them.
- Troubleshoot LDAP Connection Issues
This feature is not available for M0
free clusters, M2
, and
M5
clusters. To learn more about which features are unavailable,
see Atlas M0 (Free Cluster), M2, and M5 Limitations.
Serverless instances are in preview and do not support this feature at this time. To learn more, see Serverless Instance Limitations.
This guide shows you how to enable Atlas to authenticate and authorize database users (not Atlas users) from Okta, a third-party LDAP provider.
You can enable LDAP authentication only or you can enable both LDAP authentication and authorization:
- If you enable LDAP authentication only, you add individual users to Atlas and assign database access privileges to each user you add.
- If you enable LDAP authentication and authorization, you add user groups to Atlas and assign database access privileges to each group. Users inherit the database access privileges from the LDAP group they belong to.
Atlas supports:
- Authenticating database users from Okta Active Directory synchronization.
- Authenticating database users from Okta.
- Authorizing database users in Okta groups.
Limitations¶
- You must deploy
M10
or larger Atlas clusters to enable LDAP integration. LDAP integration is an Atlas Enterprise feature. - Atlas does not support authorizing database users in Okta Active Directory synchronization groups.
- Atlas does not support single sign-on integration for database users. To learn about single-sign on integration for the Atlas administrative web interface, see Configure Federated Authentication.
Procedures¶
Configure Okta for LDAP Authentication¶
The following procedure configures Okta for authentication with Atlas:
Set up the Okta LDAP interface.¶
- To learn more about setting up the Okta LDAP interface, see the Okta documentation.
Note your
<okta-instance-id>
. You must provide it in several places during the configuration process.The instance name is located in the URL you use to sign in to your Okta account:
https://<okta-instance-id>.admin.okta.com
Create a bind user.¶
Create a new Okta user to use as the Atlas bind user. The bind user is an Okta user that you use to query the account and to authenticate database users' credentials when they connect to an Atlas database.
ImportantDon't use your own user account for the bind user.
Use the following template to determine the full Distinguished Name (DN) of your bind user:
uid=<bind-user-email>,dc=<okta-instance-id>,dc=okta,dc=com For example, if your
<bind-user-email>
isbind@example.com
and your<okta-instance-id>
ismdb-example
, your bind user's DN is:uid=bind@example.com,ou=users,dc=mdb-example,dc=okta,dc=com
Create database users in Okta.¶
If they don't exist already, create users in Okta that you want to grant database access to:
- Navigate to your Okta People page.
- Click Add Person.
Enter the user's details. Use email addresses for usernames.
NoteAvoid entering email addresses with plus symbols (
+
). The Atlas LDAP integration may encounter issues with email addresses containing plus symbols.- Click Save.
Configure Atlas for LDAP Authentication¶
The following procedure enables Atlas to authenticate database users from Okta LDAP:
Log into Atlas.¶
Navigate to the Advanced page for your project.¶
- If it is not already displayed, select the organization that contains your desired project from the Organizations menu in the navigation bar.
- If it is not already displayed, select your desired project from the Projects menu in the navigation bar.
- Click Advanced in the sidebar.
Toggle the button next to LDAP Authentication to On.¶
You might incur additional costs when you enable this feature. See Advanced Security.
Enter the server details and bind credentials for all of your LDAP servers in the Configure Your LDAP Server panel.¶
Server Hostname:
<okta_instance_id>.ldap.okta.com - Server Port:
636
Bind Username:
uid=<bind-user-email>,ou=users,dc=<okta-instance-id>,dc=okta,dc=com
Optional: Add a User to DN Mapping.¶
Add a User to DN mapping similar to the following example to allow clients to provide their email addresses instead of full DNs when they connect to Atlas databases:
[ { "match": "(.+)", "substitution": "uid={0},ou=users,dc=<okta_instance_id>,dc=okta,dc=com" } ]
Optional: Enter certificates issued from a Certificate Authority (CA) for your LDAP servers, separated by commas, in the CA Root Certificate field.¶
You may provide self-signed certificates.
Click Verify and Save.¶
Wait for Atlas to deploy your changes. Atlas verifies that your clusters can connect to, authenticate with, and query your LDAP servers using the configuration details that you provided.
Add LDAP users to Atlas.¶
Skip this step if you want to enable LDAP authorization.
Add users managed in the Okta LDAP to Atlas.
- In the Security section of the left navigation, click Database Access.
- Click Add New Database User.
- Click LDAP User.
Perform one of the following:
If you have not entered a User to DN Mapping, enter the full DN of the LDAP user. Follow this template:
uid=<user-name>,ou=users,dc=<okta-instance-id>,dc=okta,dc=com For example, if your
<user-name>
isjane@example.com
and your<okta-instance-id>
ismdb-example
, your user's DN is:uid=jane@example.com,ou=users,dc=mdb-example,dc=okta,dc=com - If you entered a User to DN Mapping, enter the username or email address that your mapping requires.
- Select the database access level to grant to the user.
- Click Add User.
Configure Okta for LDAP Authorization¶
Skip this section if you don't want to enable LDAP authorization.
The following procedure configures Atlas to authorize users who belong to Okta LDAP database access groups.
- You must enable authentication with LDAP before enabling authorization.
- When you enable and configure LDAP authorization, database users who are only configured for LDAP authentication will no longer be able to access databases.
Create Okta database access groups.¶
Atlas LDAP authorization uses LDAP groups to determine if users are authorized to perform database actions.
Create separate Okta groups for each level of access that you want to grant to users. For example, you create one group for read access to one database, another for read and write access, and so on.
- Navigate to your Okta Groups page by clicking Directory, then Groups.
- Click Add Group.
- Enter a group name, for example
db-read
. - Click Add Group.
Add Okta users to database access groups.¶
Assign users to groups based on the level of access each user requires.
- Click the group you want to add users to.
- Click Manage People.
- Add users to the group, and then click Save.
Assign privileges to the bind user.¶
The bind user must have Read Only Administrator
privileges to
authorize users against specific Okta groups and to perform LDAP
searches. To assign the bind user Read Only Administrator
privileges:
- Navigate to your Okta Administrators page by clicking Security, then Administrators.
- Click Add Administrator.
- Search for your bind user, then select the Read Only Administrator role.
- Click Add Administrator.
Configure Atlas for LDAP Authorization¶
Skip this section if you don't want to enable LDAP authorization.
The following procedure adds the Okta database access groups to Atlas and enables database user authorization in Atlas:
Add the database access LDAP groups to Atlas.¶
Add each of the Okta database groups you created to Atlas. Members of groups that you add are authorized to perform database actions granted to the group.
- In the Security section of the left navigation, click Database Access.
- Click Add New Database User.
Click LDAP Group, and then enter the full DN of the group containing your database users, even if you enabled User to DN Mapping. Follow this template:
cn=<group-name>,ou=groups,dc=<okta-instance-id>,dc=okta,dc=com For example, if your
<group-name>
isdb-read
and your<okta-instance-id>
ismdb-example
, your bind user's DN is:cn=db-read,ou=groups,dc=mdb-example,dc=okta,dc=com
- Select the database access level to grant to users in this group.
- Click Add User.
Navigate to the Advanced page for your project.¶
- If it is not already displayed, select the organization that contains your desired project from the Organizations menu in the navigation bar.
- If it is not already displayed, select your desired project from the Projects menu in the navigation bar.
- Click Advanced in the sidebar.
Toggle the button next to LDAP Authorization to On.¶
Verify the server details and bind credentials for your LDAP server are correct in the Configure Your LDAP Server panel.¶
Enter a query template in Query Template.¶
When a user attempts to perform an action, Atlas executes the LDAP query template to obtain the LDAP groups to which the authenticated user belongs. Atlas permits the action if the query returns at least one group that is authorized to perform the action. Atlas does not permit the action if the query returns no groups that are authorized to perform the action.
Atlas substitutes the authenticated username in the {USER}
placeholder when it runs the query. The query is relative to the host
specified in Server Hostname.
The formatting for the query must conform to RFC4515
If you want to identify what group a user is a member of, you can use the following Query Template:
ou=groups,dc=<okta-instance-id>,dc=okta,dc=com?dn?sub?(&(objectClass=groupofUniqueNames)(uniqueMember={USER}))
Other query templates may also work. Using the default template of
{USER}?memberOf?base
may result in longer search times.
Click Verify and Save.¶
Wait for Atlas to deploy your changes. Atlas verifies that your clusters can connect to, authenticate with, and query your LDAP server using the configuration details that you provide.
Connect to your Cluster Using mongosh
¶
The following procedure verifies that LDAP authentication (and LDAP authorization, if enabled) is configured correctly:
When LDAP authentication is enabled, database users must override the following parameters in the connection string for their clients:
authSource
must be$external
authenticationMechanism
must bePLAIN
Use mongosh
to connect to your cluster with user credentials that you added to Atlas.¶
To copy the connection string:
- Click Databases in the top-left corner of Atlas.
- Click Connect on the Database Deployments page.
- Click LDAP, and then click Copy.
- Paste and edit the string with your User DN and password.
Connect to your cluster with a user's full DN if User to DN Mapping is not enabled.
After connecting to your cluster, run commands to verify the user has the read or write privileges you assigned them.¶
Troubleshoot LDAP Connection Issues¶
In Okta, the bind user must have Read Only Administrator
privileges to perform LDAP searches. Make sure that your bind
user has these privileges
before running ldapsearch
.
Use ldapsearch
to determine if the query template you
configured Atlas to use returns user DNs the way you expect. The
query template may not be returning the correct user DNs if LDAP
authentication works but LDAP authorization doesn't.
Use the following ldapsearch
template:
ldapsearch -H 'ldaps://<okta-instance-id>.ldap.okta.com' -D "<bind-user-dn>" -w "<bind-user-pwd>" -b 'ou=groups,dc=<okta-instance-id>,dc=okta,dc=com' '(&(objectClass=groupofUniqueNames)(uniqueMember=<bind-user-dn or group-dn>))
For example, if your bind-user-dn
is
uid=jane@example.com,ou=users,dc=mdb-example,dc=okta,dc=com
and your <okta-instance-id>
is mdb-example
, use the
following command:
ldapsearch -H 'ldaps://mdb-example.ldap.okta.com' -D "uid=jane@example.com,dc=mdb-example,dc=okta,dc=com" -w "REDACTED" -b 'ou=groups,dc=mdb-example,dc=okta,dc=com' '(&(objectClass=groupofUniqueNames)(uniqueMember=uid=jane@example.com,ou=users,dc=mdb-example,dc=okta,dc=com))'
Other query templates may also work. Using the default template of
{USER}?memberOf?base
may result in longer search times.