OpenLDAP does multimaster replication and is the backend for DNS records and the Kerberos database.
The hardest part was figuring out OpenLDAPs configuration syntax, especially the correct ldif incantations for things like nested group memberOf= queries, schemas, and ACLs. It's somewhat inscrutable... Nowadays an LLM could do it for you at least.
At $job we use Linux / sssd, and I always found it super bloated and rather unreliable. It's nice coming home to FreeBSD and old boring stuff like pam_krb5 and nslcd. It just works.
The "ipa" command provided by FreeIPA for managing users/groups/etc is super convenient though.
As a long time Linux user on personal machines, I found myself for the first time a couple of years ago needing to support a small team and given them all login access to our small cluster. I figured, hey it's annoying to coordinate user ids over these machines, I should just set up OpenLDAP.. little did I know.. honestly I'm pretty handy at dealing with Linux but I was shocked to discover how complicated and annoying it was to set up and use OpenLDAP with NFS automounting home directories.
For the first time in my life I was like, "oh this is why people spend years studying system administration.."
I did get it working eventually but it was hard to trust it and the configuration GUI was not very good and I never fully got passwd working properly so I had to intervene to help people change their passwords.. in the end we ended up just using manually coordinated local accounts.
The whole time I'm just thinking, I must be missing something, it can't be this bad.. I'm still a bit flabbergasted by the experience.
For each of my "domain controllers, I run: OpenLDAP, an MIT Kerberos KDC, and a PowerDNS server. The KDC and PowerDNS both get their data from LDAP on 127.0.0.1, and LDAP changes are synchronized between all the nodes.
This is convenient because you don't have to synchronize zone files on multiple hosts.
I use custom /bin/sh-based config management system, but you can probably get the gist of it here:
https://github.com/cullumsmith/infrastructure/blob/master/sc...
https://github.com/cullumsmith/infrastructure/blob/master/fi...
It's still possible to configure OpenLDAP via the slapd.conf file. The old roadmap called for ditching configuration file support in 2.5 IIRC, but it proved hugely unpopular so the file works to this day. The new configuration style is mainly useful for live updating of access rules and indexing.
The costs usually come from complexity: every new user needs its credentials, guidance to services and help in error situations. New services need to be integrated to existing systems. But those won't go away, be the system anything.
Tenable has been pushing an internal initiative to eliminate all AD use. This action speaks volumes considering they acquired an AD security company and sell a product specifically designed to secure AD.
The consequences of a compromised AD domain are drastic. We should not try to build the same vulnerabilities into Linux environments, but it’s undeniable there is value in leveraging FreeIPA et al. to interoperate with legacy environments.
But, I wonder if Microsoft might reverse their stance on EntraID being SaaS; with the handwringing about sovreignty from Europe.
Back when "the deal" was made with Microsoft to basically embed itself into the digital ecosystem of every government, major institution and company in Europe: it was not the case that a member of the european parliament could have their mail disabled arbitrarily by Microsoft- such a thing was technically possible through a lot of hoops but it was significantly less feasible.
If Microsoft was to reverse course then I'm sure it would stop all the handwringing, even if people would continue to use the EntraID product in reality.
Of course, you can still run local AD which synchronizes with Entra, but that means you get the worst of both worlds: you are paying for the cloud software but still have to manage your own servers.
I have seen the exact opposite, with people moving to things like jumpcloud, keycloak, authentik, etc.
Authentik and others can be deployed as docker containers that can be deployed any way you wish.
> I meant the classic Windows AD company LAN like solutions where the clients, server and network are tightly coupled.
In any mixed environment these days of Windows PCs, MacOS, and Linux, yeah, you can use a SaaS like jumpcloud with support for all of them, or you can integrate them into the ldap/kerb backend of your choice. Bonus points if your network devices are using RADIUS auth to the same identity source.
- Freeipa is Linux AD, includes DNS, dogtag, and OpenLDAP.
- SSSD is how linux machines authenticate with a central directory. this includes AD.
- nss is the order of operations in which the system attempts lookups against various directories for services.
- pam is the subsystem of authentication in linux.
- kerberos is a ticket based authentication system started by MIT and popularized by Microsoft.
- ldap is a directory for information and authentication data
- DNS should not need an explanation.
Active Directory is the exact same byzantine architecture, the only reason you dont complain about it is because Microsoft has hidden nearly every meaningful internal from you with fun buttons and dropdowns like a childs toy.
Make no mistake, when it breaks it is much more cataclysmic in its complexity. major multinational corporations can spend weeks with external consultants and even Microsoft themselves trying to debug it. Most failure modes result in rebuilding the entire directory from scratch out of the sheer futility of trying to recover anything. things as simple as an OS update can cause the complete failure of the directory, replication, kerberos key subsystem, or even the ADUC tool you use to interface with any of this. Most of the time your only solution is to wait for MS to release a fix.
FreeIPA isnt complete. it doesnt include things like group policies or account expiration but its infinitely easier to debug. its individual components are well documented and offer standalone debug and trace features. most if its components have existed longer than their competitive Microsoft offerings, or at very least vastly outscale and outperform them.
Kubernetes is just as complex, but cloud providers will happily bill you by the nanosecond for the gentle equivalent of Microsofts buttons and dropdowns. Microsoft will gladly bill you for "cloud" based AD. You can just as easily deploy local users in ansible.
If an "OS upgrade" nukes your directory, that means you're running a single DC. The question is... why would you do that?
Thanks, that sentence made my day.
I have always been convinced it was on purpose. It's the point where you were supposed to decide paying Redhat is actually a good idea and nowadays it pushes towards a cloud based authentication solution you can integrate.
Realistically, who has any interest in fixing the mess?
Fwiw, all Red Hat LDAP products are based on 389DS because they thought OpenLDAP had too many pain points or something.
Okta is a multi billion dollar company, there is a lot of venture opportunity in this space.
I wanted to set up a central authority - i don’t care about multi master or even resilience to failure in that central authority.
But even a small setup is relatively complicated. I remember yp setup in the early ‘90s looked complicated but it is a piece of cake compared to modern systems. They provide a lot, but they don’t scale down - and it feels to me that they are complicated much more than is required for their feature list.
Take LDAP, for example - it is only “lightweight” compared to the thing it replaced. But it is ridiculously complicated for what it is. It is designed for a bandwidth-scarce, intermittent connection world; for a modern world, I’d just put it all in an SQLite database and rsync it all over the place (and use remote queries, the replicas only used for offline validation).
https://blog.hofstede.it/integrating-freebsd-15-with-freeipa... [1] .
_Only then_ I read https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2026/02/18/native-freebsd-ker... [2]
[1] is more high level. [2] is a bit more detailed.
I treat my blog also as a place where I keep and maintain my FreeBSD documentation/information.
So there are several motivations for this:
- Keep and maintain personal version with more code snippets that I can copy/paste fast.
- More detailed commands and outputs.
- Some additional improvements that may be useful – like local console login.
Hope that helps.
Better yet you’ll want to encrypt that file in some way when transferring it
I want to deploy domain at my home lab, but there are only FreeBSDs and Windows (client versions, on desktops and laptops)... I don't want to install Linux.
- https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2024/03/10/keycloak-on-freebs...
Hope that helps.
Regards,
vermaden
To my question, does anyone know if FreeIPA now supports integration with Samba including password auth for non domain members? Or is it still limited to Kerberos?
What was the problem with Heimdal? The FreeBSD wiki says they used an old version, but why not upgrade to a newer version of Heimdal instead of switching to an entirely different implementation?
Basically, an 8.0 release is super pent up -- years. It's got lots of very necessary stuff, including support for the extended GSS-API "cred store" APIs, which are very handy. Lots of iprop enhancements, "virtual service principal namespaces", "synthetic client principals", lots of PKINIT enhancements, modern public key cryptography (but not PQ), etc.
The issue is that the maintainers (myself included) have been busy with other things. But the pressure to do a release has ramped up significantly recently.
And this [1] says for interoperability reasons.
[0] https://docs-archive.freebsd.org/doc/11.1-RELEASE/usr/local/...
[1] https://freebsdfoundation.org/project/import-mit-kerberos-in...
Are you disputing the FreeBSD Foundation document?