PingDirectory

Validating ACIs before migrating data

Identify any access control instruction (ACI) syntax problems before migrating data.

Many directory servers allow for a less restrictive application of their access control instructions so that they accept invalid ACIs. For example, if an Oracle directory server encounters an access control rule that it can’t parse, it ignores the rule without providing a warning, and the server might not offer the intended access protection.

The PingDirectory server rejects any ACIs that it can’t interpret, which ensures that data access is limited as intended. However, this can cause problems when migrating data with existing access control rules to PingDirectory.

To validate an ACI, PingDirectory provides a validate-acis tool in the bin directory on UNIX or Linux systems or in the bat directory on Windows systems. The validate-acis tool identifies any ACI syntax problems before you migrate data. The tool can examine access control rules contained in either an LDIF file or an LDAP directory and write its result in LDIF with comments providing information about any problems that were identified.

Each entry in the output contains a single ACI. If an entry in the input contains multiple ACIs, then it can be present multiple times in the output, each time with a different ACI value. The entries contained in the output contains only ACI values. All other attributes are ignored.

Validating ACIs from a file

Use the validate-acis tool to process data contained in an LDIF file.

About this task

The validate-acis tool ignores all attributes except aci and ignores all entries that do not contain the aci attribute. You can use any existing LDIF file that contains access control rules.

Steps

  1. Run the validate-acis tool and specify the input file and output file.

    Choose from:

    • UNIX or Linux: bin/validate-acis

    • Windows: bat\validate-acis

    If the output file already exists, the existing file contents are re-written. If no output file is specified, the results are written to standard output.

    Example:

    $ bin/validate-acis --ldifFile test-acis.ldif --outputFile validated-acis.ldif

    Result:

    # Processing complete # Total entries examined: 1
# Entries found with ACIs: 1
# Total ACI values found: 3
# Malformed ACI values found: 0
# Other processing errors encountered: 0

  2. Open the output file and review the results.

    Example:

    For example, the validated-acis.ldif file generated in the previous step reads as follows.

    # The following access control rule is valid
dn: dc=example,dc=com
aci: (targetattr!="userPassword")
  (version 3.0; acl "Allow anonymous read access for anyone";
    allow (read,search,compare) userdn="ldap:///anyone";)

# The following access control rule is valid
dn: dc=example,dc=com
aci: (targetattr="")
  (version 3.0; acl "Allow users to update their own entries";
    allow (write) userdn="ldap:///self";)

# The following access control rule is valid
dn: dc=example,dc=com
aci: (targetattr="")
  (version 3.0; acl "Grant full access for the admin user";
    allow (all) userdn="ldap:///uid=admin,dc=example,dc=com";)

    Example:

    If the input file has any malformed access control instructions (ACIs), then the generated output file will show what was incorrectly entered. For example, if userPassword in the test-acis.ldif file does not have quotation marks around it, the output file reports an error. The following command uses the --onlyReportErrors option to write any error messages to the output file only if a malformed ACI syntax is encountered.

    $ bin/validate-acis --ldifFIle test-acis.ldif --outputFile validated-acis.ldif \
  --onlyReportErrors

    Result:

    # Processing complete
# Total entries examined: 1
# Entries found with ACIs: 1
# Total ACI values found: 3
# Malformed ACI values found: 1
# Other processing errors encountered: 0

    The output file shows the following message.

    # The following access control rule is malformed or contains an unsupported
# syntax: The provided string '(targetattr!=userPassword)(version 3.0; acl
# "Allow anonymous read access for anyone"; allow (read,search,compare)
# userdn="ldap:///anyone";)' could not be parsed as a valid Access Control
# Instruction (ACI) because it failed general ACI syntax evaluation
dn: dc=example,dc=com
aci: (targetattr!=userPassword)
  (version 3.0; acl "Allow anonymous read access for anyone";
    allow (read,search,compare) userdn="ldap:///anyone";)

# The following access control rule is valid
dn: dc=example,dc=com
aci: (targetattr="")
  (version 3.0; acl "Allow users to update their own entries";
    allow (write) userdn="ldap:///self";)

# The following access control rule is valid
dn: dc=example,dc=com
aci: (targetattr="")
  (version 3.0; acl "Grant full access for the admin user";
    allow (all) userdn="ldap:///uid=admin,dc=example,dc=com";)

Validating ACIs in another directory server

Use the validate-acis tool to examine access control instructions (ACIs) in data that exists in another directory server that you are planning to migrate to the current server.

About this task

The tool helps to determine whether the PingDirectory server accepts those ACIs.

Steps

  • Run the validate-acis tool.

    Choose from:

    • UNIX or Linux: bin/validate-acis

    • Windows: bat\validate-acis

    Provide arguments that specify:

    • The address and port of the target PingDirectory server

    • Credentials to use to bind

    • The base DN of the subtree containing the ACIs to validate

      Example:

      $ bin/validate-acis

      Result:

      # Processing complete # Total entries examined: 1
# Entries found with ACIs: 1
# Total ACI values found: 3
# Malformed ACI values found: 0
# Other processing errors encountered: 0