Configuring AD LDS-Claims Based Authentication in SharePoint 2010 – Step by Step

Introduction:

SharePoint 2010 provides you with the ability to set up multiple authentication providers, to provide clients or other external parties such as vendors, affiliates, etc. access to your SharePoint Sites without having to provide them with a Windows Active Directory Account. This article walks through with step-by-step instructions on how this can be easily achieved using Windows 2008 R2 Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS)

Summary:  Executing this implementation guide will help in: Setting up CBA (Claims based authentication) with AD LDS in SharePoint 2010 extranet environment.

Overview:

1. Adding AD Lds Server Role
   a. Creating AD LDS Instance
   b. Validate AD LDS instance is running
   c. Un-Install the AD LDS Instance

2. Connecting to AD LDS Server using ADSI Edit
   a. Adding a User Object & Setting Mandatory user properties & password
3. Configure CBA for the web application
4. Modifying web.config files of:
   a. Central Administration
   b. Web Application which uses CBA
   c. Security Token Service (STS)
5. Grant access to AD LDS users to SharePoint Sites.
6. Unit Testing

1. Add “Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services” Server Role

Open the Windows Server 2008 R2 Server Manager, click Roles in the navigation pane, and then click Add Roles link.

Click “Next” button

Check the box for Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services, and then click Next button

Click the Next button on the introduction page

Verify the Confirmation Installation Settings, and then click Install button.

See the installation in progress.

When the installation has completed, click Close

1(a). Create a New Instance of AD LDS

Create and AD LDS instance by clicking Start > Administrative Tools > Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services Setup.  The setup wizard screen appears.  Click Next.

We can create a new unique instance, or we can replicate an existing instance also. Here we are going with the first option. Select “A unique instance” and then click on Next.

Type the Instance Name. The instance name will help you to identify and differentiate it from other instances that you may have installed on the same server.

Specify the LDAP port numbers and then click Next.  Note that these numbers cannot be in use by any other application on the same server.

Click “Next” and select the option “Yes, create an application directory partition” and enter the partition name. I have used “CN=LDAP,DC=SharePoint,DC=COM”.   Note: It has no relation with your machine name or Active directory. This can be any new domain.

Select the File Locations.  Click Next.

Select Network service account.  This should be sufficient in most cases.  Select Next.

Select your administrator account.  Click Next.

Click on the below options.  This will be needed for extranet users’ accounts.  Click Next

Click on Next

Click Finish

1(b). Validate AD LDS instance is running

If everything configured correctly then you will see the service running under Administrative Tools > Services.

1(c) Uninstall AD LDS Instance (In case if you want to uninstall existing instance):

Go to Control Panel > Programs and Features > you will see the AD-LDS instance installed.

Select the AD LDS Instance and click on “Uninstall” to uninstall the particular AD LDS Instance.

2. Connecting to AD LDS Server using ADSI Edit

Now that our instance is complete, we are required to connect to this instance via ADSI Edit MMC snap-in.  Click on Start > Administrative Tools > ADSI Edit.  Once the MMC is loaded, right-click on the ADSI Edit node and select Connect to…

Enter the connection Properties and click OK

On successful connection, this will lead to AD LDS Server view as shown in the below screen.

2(a). Creating new users in AD LDS Instance:

We now need to create a container to store our users.  This is equivalent to an Organizational Unit in Active Directory.  Right Click on CN entry and select New > Object and select the class as container.  Click Next.

Type Users as the value, click Next and Finish

Now you will see “Users” container. We can now create our users in the “Users” container that we have just created.

Right Click on CN=Users and select New > Object, and select class as user.

Type in a user name and then click Next and Finish.

Once the user is created, we have to set:

• Reset Password
• msDS-UserAccountDisabled to False (its True by default)
• Important: Set attributes like “cn” and other properties as required by membership provider setting – otherwise users without CN attribute set will not pick by SharePoint.

Reset Password

Right click on user and select “Reset Password”.

msDS-UserAccountDisabled

Right Click on your newly created user object and select properties.

Scroll down and locate the msDS-UserAccountDisabled attribute and set it to False.

$Dom = "LDAP://server.domain.com/CN=Users,CN=LDAP,DC=SharePoint,DC=COM"
$Root = New-Object DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry $Dom

# Create a selector and start searching from the Root of AD
$selector = New-Object DirectoryServices.DirectorySearcher
$selector.SearchRoot = $root
# Filter the users with -like "CN=Person*". Note the ForEach loop
$adobj= $selector.findall() | where {
$_.properties.objectcategory -like "CN=Person*"
}
foreach ($person in $adobj)
{
$prop=$person.properties
Write-host "First name: $($prop.givenname) Surname: $($prop.sn) User: $($prop.cn)"
}
Write-host "There are $($adobj.count) users in the $($root.name) domain" 
read-host  # just to keep the screen stay open

3. Configure CBA for the web application

For new web application:

• Go to Central Administration > Application Management
• Click on Manage Web Applications
• Click New
• Select Claims Based Authentication
• Check the Enable Windows Authentication box
•  Check the Enable ASP.NET Membership and Role Provider checkbox
            * In the Membership provider name edit box, type LDAPMembershipProvider          * In the Role provider name edit box, type LDAPRoleManager

For existing web applications:

• Go to Central Administration > Application Management
• Click on Manage Web Applications
• Select the target web application and click on authentication providers in ribbon
• Enter the above authentication settings

Once Successful configuration, on hitting the SharePoint site, you should get:

4. Modifying web.config files

We have to change 3 web.config files totally.

1. To get the users from ADLDS to central administration site we have to change web.config of Central Administration site.
2. To get the users from ADLDS to the web application which we created to work CBA, we have to change its web.config.
3. To login to the site using claims based authentication, it uses security token service application. So, we have to change its configuration file.

4(a). Update Central Administration site’s web.config:

• Open the Central Administration site’s web.config file
• Find the <system.web> entry
• Paste the following XML directly below it ( or just before:  </system.web>  <system.webServer>)

 <providers>
      <add name="LdapMembershipProvider" otherrequireduserattributes="sn,givenname,cn" port="389" scope="Subtree" server="server.domain.com" type="Microsoft.Office.Server.Security.LdapMembershipProvider, Microsoft.Office.Server, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" usercontainer="CN=Users,CN=LDAP,DC=SharePoint,DC=COM" userdnattribute="distinguishedName" userfilter="(ObjectClass=person)" usernameattribute="cn" userobjectclass="person" usessl="false">
   </add>
  </providers>
</membership>
 
<rolemanager defaultprovider="AspNetWindowsTokenRoleProvider" enabled="true">
       <providers>
          <add dnattribute="distinguishedName" groupcontainer="CN=Users,CN=LDAP,DC=SharePoint,DC=COM" groupfilter="(ObjectClass=group)" groupmemberattribute="member" groupnamealternatesearchattribute="cn" groupnameattribute="cn" name="LdapRoleManager" port="389" scope="Subtree" server="server.domain.com" type="Microsoft.Office.Server.Security.LdapRoleProvider, Microsoft.Office.Server, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" userfilter="(ObjectClass=person)" usernameattribute="cn" usessl="false">
       </add>
     </providers>
</rolemanager>

Double check whether the <membership> and <rolemanager> entries only exist ones. Delete any double entries.

Update the  <PeoplePickerWildcards> entry with below  code:

<PeoplePickerWildcards>
<clear />
<add key=”AspNetSqlMembershipProvider” value=”%” />
<add key=”LdapMembershipProvider” value=”*”/>
<add key=”LdapRoleManager” value=”*”/>
</PeoplePickerWildcards>

4(b). Update Web application’s web.config:

Update the web.config with the below code

<membership defaultprovider="i">
      <providers>
    <add name="LdapMembershipProvider" otherrequireduserattributes="sn,givenname,cn" port="389" scope="Subtree" server="server.domain.com" type="Microsoft.Office.Server.Security.LdapMembershipProvider, 
    Microsoft.Office.Server, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral,
     PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" usercontainer="CN=Users,CN=LDAP,DC=SharePoint,DC=COM" userdnattribute="distinguishedName" userfilter="(ObjectClass=person)" usernameattribute="cn" userobjectclass="person" usessl="false">

        <add name="i" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.Claims.SPClaimsAuthMembershipProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c">
      </add></add></providers>
    </membership>
    <rolemanager cacherolesincookie="false" defaultprovider="c" enabled="true">
      <providers>
    <add dnattribute="distinguishedName" groupcontainer="CN=Users,CN=LDAP,DC=SharePoint,DC=COM" groupfilter="(ObjectClass=group)" groupmemberattribute="member" groupnamealternatesearchattribute="cn" groupnameattribute="cn" name="LdapRoleManager" port="389" scope="Subtree" server="server.domain.com" type="Microsoft.Office.Server.Security.LdapRoleProvider, 
    Microsoft.Office.Server, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, 
    PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" userfilter="(ObjectClass=person)" usernameattribute="cn" usessl="false">
        <add name="c" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.Claims.SPClaimsAuthRoleProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c">
      </add></add></providers>
    </rolemanager>

Update the <PeoplePickerWildcards> as below:

<PeoplePickerWildcards>
<clear />
<add key=”AspNetSqlMembershipProvider” value=”%” />
<add key=”LdapMembershipProvider” value=”*”/>
<add key=”LdapRoleManager” value=”*”/>
</PeoplePickerWildcards>

4(c). Update security token service’s web.config:

·         Open the Internet Information Services Manager

·         Expand the Sites, and then SharePoint web Services, explore SecurityTokenServiceApplication to edit its web.config file

Pate the below code between <system.web>  and </system.web> </configuration>

<membership>
       <providers>
          <add name="LdapMembershipProvider" otherrequireduserattributes="sn,givenname,cn" port="389" scope="Subtree" server="server.domain.com" type="Microsoft.Office.Server.Security.LdapMembershipProvider,
     Microsoft.Office.Server, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, 
    PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" usercontainer="CN=Users,CN=LDAP,DC=SharePoint,DC=COM" userdnattribute="distinguishedName" userfilter="(ObjectClass=person)" usernameattribute="cn" userobjectclass="person" usessl="false">
       </add></providers>
    </membership>

    <rolemanager enabled="true"> 
       <providers>
          <add dnattribute="distinguishedName" groupcontainer="CN=Users,CN=LDAP,DC=SharePoint,DC=COM" groupfilter="(ObjectClass=group)" groupmemberattribute="member" groupnamealternatesearchattribute="cn" groupnameattribute="cn" name="LdapRoleManager" port="389" scope="Subtree" server="server.domain.com" type="Microsoft.Office.Server.Security.LdapRoleProvider,
     Microsoft.Office.Server, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, 
    PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" userfilter="(ObjectClass=person)" usernameattribute="cn" usessl="false">
       </add></providers>
    </rolemanager>

5. Add users to SharePoint site

After completing all the above steps, we have to grant access to the users to SharePoint site.

Set the Web application level user policy:

·         Navigate to Central Administration > Application Management  > Manage web applications

·         Select the target extranet web application and click on “User Policy” from ribbon

Click on Add users

·         Click Next

·         In the add users window, click on address book

·         Enter the user name, make sure the LDAP names are retrieved

6. Unit Test: Verify LDAP Authentication works

Create a user in LDAP, Grant access to a SharePoint site, Open the SharePoint Site; enter the LDAP user name and password.

Make sure you are successfully logged-in into the SharePoint site.