Authenticating to ActiveDirectory
To authenticate requests, set the User and Password properties to valid ActiveDirectory credentials (e.g., set User to "Domain\\BobF" or "cn=Bob F,ou=Employees,dc=Domain").
The provider uses plaintext authentication by default, since the provider attempts to negotiate TLS/SSL with the server. You can specify another authentication method with AuthMechanism.
See Advanced Settings for more information on TLS/SSL configuration.
Connecting to ActiveDirectory
Set Server and Port for basic connectivity. Additionally, you can fine-tune the connection with the following:
- FollowReferrals: When set, the provider surfaces data as views from only referral servers. To modify data on a referral server, you must specify this server with Server and Port.
- LDAPVersion: Set this to the version of the protocol your server implements; by default, the provider uses version 2.
- UseDefaultDC: Set this to connect to the default Domain Controller and authenticate using the current user credentials.
Fine-Tuning Data Access
The following properties control the scope of data returned:
- BaseDN will limit the scope of LDAP searches to the height of the distinguished name provided. Note: Specifying a narrow BaseDN may greatly increase performance; for example, a value of "cn=users,dc=domain" will only return results contained within "cn=users" and its children.
- Scope: This property enables more granular control over the data to return from a subtree.
Customizing Tables
The provider surfaces the columns most often needed from ActiveDirectory entities. However, if you need to work with other data, the tables are easy to modify. Tables are defined in schema files, which have a simple format.
Customizing the SSL Configuration
By default, the provider attempts to negotiate SSL/TLS by checking the server's certificate against the system's trusted certificate store. To specify another certificate, see the SSLServerCert property for the available formats to do so.
Connecting Through a Firewall or Proxy
Set the following properties:
- To use a proxy-based firewall, set FirewallType, FirewallServer, and FirewallPort.
- To tunnel the connection, set FirewallType to TUNNEL.
- To authenticate, specify FirewallUser and FirewallPassword.
- To authenticate to a SOCKS proxy, additionally set FirewallType to SOCKS5.
Troubleshooting the Connection
To show provider activity from query execution to network traffic, use Logfile and Verbosity. The examples of common connection errors below show how to use these properties to get more context. Contact the support team for help tracing the source of an error or circumventing a performance issue.
- Authentication errors: Typically, recording a Logfile at Verbosity 4 is necessary to get full details on an authentication error.
- Queries time out: A server that takes too long to respond will exceed the provider's client-side timeout. Often, setting the Timeout property to a higher value will avoid a connection error. Another option is to disable the timeout by setting the property to 0. Setting Verbosity to 2 will show where the time is being spent.
- The certificate presented by the server cannot be validated: This error indicates that the provider cannot validate the server's certificate through the chain of trust. If you are using a self-signed certificate, there is only one certificate in the chain.
To resolve this error, you must verify yourself that the certificate can be trusted and specify to the provider that you trust the certificate. One way you can specify that you trust a certificate is to add the certificate to the trusted system store; another is to set SSLServerCert.