Purpose

State the different authentication methods available for OMK applications.

Authentication Methods

OMK authentication methods are configured in /usr/local/omk/conf/opCommon.nmis inside the authentication hash.  This entire file is a PERL hash, so be mindful of the syntax.  After editing this file, a 'perl -c opCommon.nmis' will verify if the syntax is correct.  For authentication method changes to take effect, the omkd service will need to be restarted. 

The supported authentication methods for OMK applications are:

htpasswd

NMIS will use the users defined in the NMIS Users file, by default /usr/local/nmis9/conf/users.dat

The file is in the format created by the Apache htpasswd program.

htpasswd is the default authentication method for NMIS.

ldap, ldaps

For versions of products before October 2024, see Legacy LDAP Authentication For current products they have been simplified.

The FirstWave products will use the configured LDAP server to perform authentication and optionally authorization.

You can choose to use ldap or ldaps (secure), you can not use both of these at the same time. The ldap or ldaps options can also be used for Microsoft Active Directory servers.

Following are the configuration items:

novell-ldap

-- Deprecated --

apache

The FirstWave products will use Apache to perform authentication and provide an authenticated user to FirstWave products with all the authorisation policies applied.

connectwise

The FirstWave products will use the ConnectWise API configured for authentication. For this, you need to setup the ConnectWise API and then setup the system to use the same authentication method using 'auth_method_1' => 'connectwise'.

Following are the configuration items for setting up the ConnectWise API in opCommon.json (Cannot be configured in GUI):

crowd

The FirstWave products will use Atlassian Crowd authentication. Use Crowd to assign additional groups to a user and define each service that requires authentication as an application in Crowd.

Following are the configuration items:

openaudit

Other FirstWave products can use Open-AudIT to authenticate users. See reference. Open-AudIT can use Active Directory and/or OpenLDAP for user authentication and/or authorisation. Open-AudIT will query both types of LDAP servers to validate a user's username and password and retrieve the user details (roles and orgs the user has access to). The user will be automatically created when they are authenticated.

To configure the use of openaudit authentication the following items must be configured:

openid_connect

FirstWave products use OKTA's OpenID Connect for authentication. In the authentication > auth_method_1 entry of opCommon.json, use the openid_connect. For more information, see OKTA OpenID authentication.

Following are the configuration items:

After making the required changes, restart the omkd service.

radius

The FirstWave products will use the configured radius server (for example, Cisco ACS or Steel Belted Radius).

Following are the configuration items:

saml

The FirstWave products will use the configured SAML Identify Provider server (IdP) to authenticate (for example, Keycloak or Okta). The FirstWave products are the SAML Service Provider (SP).

tacacs

The FirstWave products will use the configured TACACS+ server (for example, Cisco ACS).

token

The FirstWave products support an authentication method called token, which offers Delegated Authentication. This enables an external party to pre-authenticate a user, who can access the FirstWave products without having to log in with username and password.

For more information on how to generate and log in with a token, see Delegated Authentication.

Multiple Authentication Methods

You can use up to 3 authentication methods for fail back. If authentication with method 1 fails, then if they are defined, the remaining methods are tried in order. Authentication fails if they all fail. For example, if you set auth_method_1 to be LDAP and auth_method_2 to be htpasswd and login with the default NMIS credentials (and you have not changed the password), the authentication for LDAP will fail, and then htpasswd authentication with the users.dat will succeed and the NMIS user will be logged in.

Here is an example of the authentication hash inside opCommon.nmis. Remember that statements preceded by the '#' sign are 'commented out' and will not be evaluated. In this example, if ms-ldap fails, it will fail back to htpasswd.

  'authentication' => {
    'auth_htpasswd_file' => '<omk_conf>/users.dat',
    'auth_htpasswd_encrypt' => 'crypt',
    'auth_method_1' => 'htpasswd',
    'auth_method_2' => '',
    'auth_method_3' => '',
    'auth_login_motd' => 'Authentication required: default credentials are nmis/nm1888',
    'auth_crowd_server' => '',
    'auth_crowd_user' => '',
    'auth_crowd_password' => '',
    'auth_sso_domain' => '',
    'auth_expire_seconds' => '3600',
    'auth_lockout_after' => 0,
    #'auth_ms_ldap_attr' => 'sAMAccountName',
    #'auth_ms_ldap_base' => 'CN=Users,DC=your_domain,DC=com',
    #'auth_ms_ldap_group' => 'CN=Users,DC=your_domain,DC=com',
    #'auth_ms_ldap_debug' => 'false',
    #'auth_ms_ldap_dn_acc' => 'CN=Administrator,CN=Users,DC=your_domain,DC=com',
    #'auth_ms_ldap_dn_psw' => 'your_administrator_password',
    #'auth_ms_ldap_server' => 'your.ip.address.here'
 },

Configuration of the External Authentications

In the OMK configuration, you can configure multiple methods, which are used for auth failure. Therefore, for example, if ms-ldap fails, it will fail back to htpasswd. This means, if you set auth_method_1 to be ldap and auth_method_2 to be htpasswd, and login with the default NMIS credentials (and you have not changed the password), the authentication for LDAP will fail, and then authentication with the users.dat will succeed and the user will be logged in.

It is important to change your default passwords if you expect any level of security.

NMIS9 Notes

From NMIS9, changes will instead need to be made to the opCommon.json configuration file (located in /usr/local/omk/conf/). As we are using .json format files instead of .nmis, the format of the attributes to use is slightly different. See the examples below:

LDAP:

"authentication" : {
   "auth_ldap_server" : "the_fqdn_of_your_ad_server:389", # you could also use an IP address here, but you need to ensure that the LDAP/LDAPS port is added in the value, eg. 192.168.1.22:389
   "auth_ldap_acc" : "svc_omk_admin@contoso.local",
   "auth_ldap_psw" : "password_of_the_auth_ldap_acc_above",
   "auth_ldap_context" : "dc=contoso,dc=local",
   
   

},

LDAPS (Secure)

"authentication" : {
   "auth_ldaps_server" : "the_fqdn_of_your_ad_server:389", # you could also use an IP address here, but you need to ensure that the LDAP/LDAPS port is added in the value, eg. 192.168.1.22:389
   "auth_ldap_acc" : "svc_omk_admin@contoso.local",
   "auth_ldap_dn_psw" : "password_of_the_auth_ldap_acc_above",
   "auth_ldap_context" : "dc=contoso,dc=local",
   
   

},

TACACS:

"auth_tacacs_server" : "host:port",
"auth_tacacs_secret" : "secret",

MS-LDAP
An example of integrating your ms-ldap setup with modules such as opConfig, opEvents, opCharts etc. is below. Ensure you have also included ms-ldap as in one of the auth_methods:

"authentication" : {
...
   "auth_ms_ldap_server" : "IP_ADDRESS_OF_YOUR_MS_LDAP_SERVER", #eg. 192.168.1.22
   "auth_ms_ldap_dn_acc" : "svc_omk_admin", #you should only need to use the username of the user here, but if this is not successful, you can use username@domain as well.
   "auth_ms_ldap_dn_psw" : "password_of_the_dn_acc_above",
   "auth_ms_ldap_attr" : "sAMAccountName",
   "auth_ms_ldap_base" : "OU=Network Admins,DC=contoso,DC=local",
...


},

MS-LDAPS (Secure)

"authentication" : {
...
   "auth_ms_ldaps_server" : "IP_ADDRESS_OF_YOUR_MS_LDAPS_SERVER", #eg. 192.168.1.23
   "auth_ms_ldap_dn_acc" : "svc_omk_admin", #you should only need to use the username of the user here, but if this is not successful, you can use username@domain as well.
   "auth_ms_ldap_dn_psw" : "password_of_the_dn_acc_above",
   "auth_ms_ldap_attr" : "sAMAccountName",
   "auth_ms_ldap_base" : "OU=Network Admins,DC=contoso,DC=local",
...


},

RADIUS

"auth_radius_server" : "host:port",
"auth_radius_secret" : "secret",

Once you have saved the updated opCommon.json configuration, you will then need to restart the omkd daemon.

Troubleshooting

If you are experiencing issues with configuring your external authentication method, extra debug can be enabled to assist.

Depending on the authentication method you are using, the following two attributes can be added to your opCommon.json. This should cover most, if not all of our authentication methods to debug.

"authentication" : {
...
	"auth_debug" : 1,
	"auth_ldap_debug" : "true"
...

},

Save the file once you have added these two extra lines and restart omkd. Repeat the authentication process again, then review auth.log (located in the /usr/local/omk/log directory) and troubleshoot.

Related Topics

• User Management in NMIS8

• User Authorisation with Active Directory and LDAP

• OKTA OpenID authentication