saslauthd-port

README

= Purpose and developer setup of saslauthd-port
Aliaksey Kandratsenka <alk@tut.by>

== What it's for

This little program is bridging Couchbase Server `ns_server` component
and saslauthd program from cyrus-sasl package. The purpose of that is
providing ldap (as well as pam and other kinds of) authentication for
couchbase server.

== How does it work

It works by speaking to local saslauthd deamon over unix domain
socket. This is a bit undocumented and internal, private API of
cyrus-sasl. It can be argued that doing it via libsasl2 would be
better way. But it does look like saslauthd protocol is reasonably
stable in practice. And most importantly dealing with libsasl2 from
golang is not as easy as dealing with saslauthd directly.

saslauthd-port program is designed to receive auth requests from
`ns_server` via revrpc facility.

== Setting up simplified dev environment for testing

If you're ok with stubbing auth, then take a look at fake-saslauthd.rb
in this directory. It'll simulate saslauthd. Username is "alk" (well,
any name will work except for usernames starting with but not equal to
"alk") and password is "AsdQwe!23".

== Setting up local LDAP server

=== Via adelton/freeipa-server docker image

* `# docker run --dns 127.0.0.1 --name freeipa-server-container -ti -h ipa.example.test -e PASSWORD=SomePassword123 adelton/freeipa-server`

* when it completes do ifconfig inside container and update /etc/hosts
  to point ipa.example.test to that container. I.e. it could be 172.17.0.2

* go to https://ipa.example.test (it will autoredirect to
  ipa.example.test anyways).

* login as admin with password SomePassword123 (configured at first step)

* create user or two in intuitive UI. In my case that's user "alk"
  with password "AsdQwe!23"

* configure local saslauthd by:

** enabling it. On my debian box that's editing
   /etc/defaults/saslauthd and changing START=yes MECHANISMS="ldap".
   Then start it via initscript or systemctl (e.g. `#
   /etc/init.d/saslauthd start`).

** configuring it. Create /etc/saslauthd.conf and put the following:

 ldap_servers: ldap://ipa.example.test/
 ldap_search_base: cn=users,cn=accounts,dc=example,dc=test

** testing it. If everything is right, then the following should say "OK". E.g:

 # testsaslauthd -u alk -p 'AsdQwe!23'
 0: OK "Success."

Upside of IPA is very nice UI plus built-in Kerberos.

One downside of this approach that I found is that container may have
hard time booting after it was stopped. If you need somebody to blame,
the would be either systemd or lack of docker's support for systemd,
whichever is more appropriate for your "political orientation". For
that reason, I'll describe second way of setting up ldap auth via
docker.

== Via turnkeylinux/openldap-13 docker image

This image is a bit more basic. It gives you openldap with fancy web
UI. But no kerberos and no built-in groups.

* `# docker run -i -t turnkeylinux/openldap-13.0`

* follow instructions on
  https://registry.hub.docker.com/u/turnkeylinux/openldap-13.0/ on how
  to recover "random root password" and do first time setup (it
  requires ssh-ing into container). This will guide you through basic
  configuration of container such us defining root password, ldap
  admin password and ldap base (in my case it was ipa.example.test to
  match ipa case above).

* note that I had some issue after install that ldaps process was
  running with stale config. I fixed it by killing it manually
  (`/etc/init.d/ldaps stop` did not work). And then starting it back
  via initscript.

* then follow instructions on
  https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-and-configure-a-basic-ldap-server-on-an-ubuntu-12-04-vps#AddOrganizationalUnits,Groups,andUsers
  to create basic structure of user groups and one or two user
  accounts.

* in the end I got something like: http://i.imgur.com/LsOw6Yw.png

image::http://i.imgur.com/LsOw6Yw.png[]

* configure local saslauthd by:

** enabling it. On my debian box that's editing
   /etc/defaults/saslauthd and changing START=yes
   MECHANISMS="ldap". Then start it via initscript or systemctl.

** configuring it. Create /etc/saslauthd.conf and put the following (replacing ip address accordingly):

 ldap_servers: ldap://172.17.0.3/
 ldap_search_base: ou=users,dc=ipa,dc=example,dc=test

** testing it. If everything is right, then the following should say "OK". E.g:

 # testsaslauthd -u alk -p 'AsdQwe!23'
 0: OK "Success."