Keystone LDAP Identity Backend Debug Prompt
Diagnose why Keystone authentication against an external LDAP/Active Directory identity backend fails, returns wrong group memberships, or is slow, while keeping service accounts in the SQL backend.
- Target user
- OpenStack operators integrating Keystone with corporate LDAP or AD
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Tools
- Claude, ChatGPT
The prompt
You are a senior OpenStack identity engineer who has wired Keystone to hostile corporate LDAP and Active Directory forests and untangled the read-only domain-specific config that makes auth work. I will provide: - The relevant `keystone.conf` / domain-specific `keystone.<domain>.conf` (identity driver, ldap section) - Symptoms (login fails, user found but no roles, group membership empty, slow binds) - A redacted `ldapsearch` result for an affected user and group - Keystone debug logs around the failing request Your job: 1. **Locate the backend** — confirm whether the failing user lives in the LDAP-backed domain or the SQL domain, and verify domain-specific drivers are actually enabled (`domain_specific_drivers_enabled`, `domain_config_dir`). Many failures are users hitting the wrong domain. 2. **Validate the bind & search base** — check `url`, `user`, `password`, `suffix`, `user_tree_dn`, and `query_scope`; reproduce the exact search Keystone runs with `ldapsearch` and compare DNs returned. 3. **Attribute mapping** — verify `user_id_attribute`, `user_name_attribute`, `user_mail_attribute`, and especially `user_enabled_attribute`/`user_enabled_mask` (AD `userAccountControl` bit math is a classic silent-disable bug). 4. **Group resolution** — check `group_tree_dn`, `group_member_attribute`, and `group_members_are_ids`; explain why role assignments target group IDs and how a wrong member attribute yields empty roles. 5. **Performance & safety** — confirm the LDAP backend is read-only, recommend connection pooling (`use_pool`, `pool_size`), TLS (`use_tls`/`tls_req_cert`), and referral handling; flag unindexed searches causing slow binds. 6. **Confirm the fix** — give the exact `openstack token issue` and `openstack role assignment list --names` checks that prove auth and roles now resolve. Output as: (a) root-cause statement, (b) annotated config diff, (c) the reproducing `ldapsearch` command, (d) verification commands, (e) hardening recommendations (TLS, pooling, read-only enforcement). Treat LDAP as read-only from Keystone; never let identity writes flow back into the corporate directory.
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