[Freeipa-users] Python Client
Dmitri Pal
dpal at redhat.com
Wed Feb 13 14:35:48 UTC 2013
On 02/13/2013 12:47 AM, It Meme wrote:
> Thank you for your reply.
>
> Could there be anyway that accounts can be provisioned to IPA, via
> LDAP, from existing IAM system?
>
> The newly provisioned accounts can be temporarily stored in IPA's 389
> Directory Server, and subsequently an automated task can IPA-ize the
> accounts (i.e. via the Python libraries). The accounts that have not
> been IPA-ized will be provisioned in a disabled state (i.e. users will
> be not using them).
>
> After accounts have been IPA-ize, account attributes, such as
> 'givenName', 'password', 'membershipOf', can be managed by LDAP from
> the central IAM system.
>
IMO a solution might be to do something like this:
https://fedorahosted.org/freeipa/ticket/1593
You create a plugin for DS to intercept the changes and send them over
DBUS or socket
So the whole thing would work like this:
You create a different tree for accounts managed by the external system
for example under cn=ext, ...
You create a plugin that would intercept add, delete and modify commands
and would also send these over the DBUS/Socket to a python service that
would translate the changes into ipa user-add, ipa user-mod and
ipa-user-del commands.
The value of this approach is that would take advantage of the standard
interfaces of both systems and have full control over the code you develop.
Would that work for you?
> Thank you.
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 4:18 PM, Dmitri Pal <dpal at redhat.com
> <mailto:dpal at redhat.com>> wrote:
>
> On 02/12/2013 12:42 PM, It Meme wrote:
> > Yes - Dmitri is correct.
> >
> > Our purchased IAM product has LDAP connectors. It is possible to
> customize to develop other connector protocols but it requires
> tweaking the core product code - this adds risk and, if not
> careful, could break our support with vendor or increase
> operational risk to a critical production system.
> >
> > The most practical option is to continue to use the LDAP
> connectors to provision accounts to directory server.
> >
> > If we use IPA, that would mean provisioning accounts, from our
> IAM product to IPA, via LDAP (Step 1) - and subsequently running a
> script that will call the python libraries to IPA-ize the
> provisioned accounts (Step 2).
> >
> > It will assist our help desk staff if 'Step 1' provisioned
> accounts were created in main accounts tree in IPA - then
> subsequent script will IPA-ize the accounts for 'Step 2' and
> accounts will be updated in same tree.
> >
> > Any gotchas foreseen with above?
> Yes. You need to be very careful. You are bypassing all the checks
> that
> framework creates around user and group management. It is also unclear
> how the system would react to the half baked user. It is all
> doable but
> you shift the risk from the tweaking core product code to creating a
> custom IPA code. IMO the level of risk is nearly the same.
>
> > We have larger user base with ~40K new accounts per year and
> 600K ongoing - automating the tasks in stable systems, and having
> help desk insight to account statuses are critical items for
> management.
> >
> > Thank you for your help, insights, input - they are very helpful
> and greatly appreciated.
> >
> > On 2013-02-10, at 7:32, Dmitri Pal <dpal at redhat.com
> <mailto:dpal at redhat.com>> wrote:
> >
> >> On 02/09/2013 11:53 AM, John Dennis wrote:
> >>> On 02/08/2013 05:29 PM, It Meme wrote:
> >>>> Hi:
> >>>>
> >>>> Scenario:
> >>>>
> >>>> 1) User is created via LDAP call to IPA (i.e.the 389
> Directory Server)
> >>>>
> >>>> The above user will not have IPA-specific attributes.
> >>>>
> >>>> Can we use the Python Library, or CLI, to modify the account to
> >>>> IPA-ize it?
> >>> You're really better off using the IPA API directly rather
> than trying
> >>> to bypass it. Why? Because we implement additional logic
> inside the
> >>> commands. If you could achieve everything IPA does by just
> modifying
> >>> an LDAP server there wouldn't be a need for IPA. A good example of
> >>> this is group membership, some of that logic is handled
> directly by a
> >>> plugin to the 389 DS, but a large part of it is implemented in
> the IPA
> >>> commands that manage users and groups. You really don't want
> to bypass
> >>> it.
> >>>
> >>> You have a number of options on how to call the IPA commands:
> >>>
> >>> 1) the ipa command line client
> >>>
> >>> 2) sending the command formatted in JSON to the server
> >>>
> >>> 3) sending the command formatted in XML-RPC to the server
> >>>
> >>> 4) calling the command from your own python code
> >>>
> >>> 5) using the web GUI
> >>>
> >>> It's really not hard to call the IPA command line client from a
> >>> program, typically this is done via a "system" command of
> which there
> >>> are a number of variants.
> >>>
> >>> The following thread has a discussion of how to invoke one of our
> >>> commands from Python code, this particular email response from
> Martin
> >>> shows how it can be done in in about half a dozen lines of code.
> >>>
> >>>
> https://www.redhat.com/archives/freeipa-users/2012-June/msg00334.html
> >>>
> >>> What I'm not understanding why you're avoiding using the
> commands we
> >>> provide. If you're not familiar with how to call another
> >>> program/process we can help you or just google it. Or is the
> problem
> >>> your existing management system does not provide you with any
> "hooks"
> >>> to execute code when an action occurs. But from everything
> you've said
> >>> so far you imply it does provide such hooks. Perhaps if you
> could be
> >>> more specific we could be more helpful.
> >> It seems that the management system in question can insert an
> entry into
> >> LDAP but can't do the "generic" hook.
> >> I bet this is the issue here.
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Thank you,
> >> Dmitri Pal
> >>
> >> Sr. Engineering Manager for IdM portfolio
> >> Red Hat Inc.
> >>
> >>
> >> -------------------------------
> >> Looking to carve out IT costs?
> >> www.redhat.com/carveoutcosts/
> <http://www.redhat.com/carveoutcosts/>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
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>
>
> --
> Thank you,
> Dmitri Pal
>
> Sr. Engineering Manager for IdM portfolio
> Red Hat Inc.
>
>
> -------------------------------
> Looking to carve out IT costs?
> www.redhat.com/carveoutcosts/ <http://www.redhat.com/carveoutcosts/>
>
>
>
>
--
Thank you,
Dmitri Pal
Sr. Engineering Manager for IdM portfolio
Red Hat Inc.
-------------------------------
Looking to carve out IT costs?
www.redhat.com/carveoutcosts/
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