Grouper Real-Time Provisioning

Getting Started with Real-Time Provisioning

Real-time provisioning is the incremental provisioning of groups, stems, and memberships triggered from the Grouper change log. Incremental provisioning is distinguished from full provisioning in that only a single or subset of an attribute's values are provisioned.

Real-time provisioning is available from the provisioning service provider (psp, formerly known as ldappcng) as of version 2.1.0. It should be possible to install and configure the psp for Grouper versions 1.6 and up.

These instructions assume that Grouper subjects are already provisioned to your ldap directory, and makes use of the vt-ldap based ldap source adapter.

These instructions target Mac OS X, other platforms should be similar.

Requirements

• Grouper API (requires Java 6 and a database)
• provisioning service provider  (psp)
• ldap directory

Installation

Once you have a working Grouper API installation, you will need to install and configure the psp.

Install Grouper using the Grouper Installer

You do not need to install Grouper again if you already have a working Grouper API deployment.

To install Grouper, download and run the Grouper Installer, available as of version 2.0, and follow the prompts.

curl http://www.internet2.edu/grouper/release/2.1.0/grouperInstaller.jar -O
java -jar grouperInstaller.jar

You may want to unlimit the number and size of the Grouper log files by commenting out or removing those limits in grouper.apiBinary-2.1.0/conf/log4j.properties.

# log4j.appender.grouper_event.MaxFileSize                = 1000KB
# log4j.appender.grouper_event.MaxBackupIndex             = 1
# log4j.appender.grouper_error.MaxFileSize                = 1000KB
# log4j.appender.grouper_error.MaxBackupIndex             = 1

Install the Provisioning Service Provider

Download and unpack the psp.

The distribution name is of the form
 grouper.psp-2.1.0-SNAPSHOT.tar.gz
or
 grouper.psp-2.1.0-SNAPSHOT.zip.

curl http://www.internet2.edu/grouper/release/2.1.0/grouper.psp-2.1.0-SNAPSHOT.tar.gz -O
tar xzf grouper.psp-2.1.0-SNAPSHOT.tar.gz

Copy jars located in lib/custom from the psp distribution to the Grouper API installation. Many jars are dependencies of the Shibboleth attribute resolver and may not be necessary in your deployment.

cp -vR grouper.psp-2.1.0-SNAPSHOT/lib/custom/ grouper.apiBinary-2.1.0/lib/custom/

Copy example configuration files located in conf from the psp distribution to the Grouper API installation.

cp -vR grouper.psp-2.1.0-SNAPSHOT/conf/psp-example-grouper-to-tivoli/ grouper.apiBinary-2.1.0/conf/

Configuration

Configure the Provisioning Service Provider

The psp configuration files are :

The configuration files for Grouper ldap subjects are :

Configure the Ldap Connection in ldap.properties

Change the default base DN for ldap searches to match your ldap directory :

edu.vt.middleware.ldap.baseDn = dc=example,dc=edu

Configure authentication and encryption :

edu.vt.middleware.ldap.serviceUser=cn=Manager,dc=example,dc=edu
edu.vt.middleware.ldap.serviceCredential=secret

Change the default base DN (container) for provisioning people and groups :

# The base DN for groups.
edu.internet2.middleware.psp.groupsBaseDn = ou=groups,dc=example,dc=edu
# The base DN for people.
edu.internet2.middleware.psp.peopleBaseDn = ou=people,dc=example,dc=edu

Configure the Ldap Connection in sources.xml

Change the base DN in the multiple search configuration elements :

 <param-name>base</param-name>
 <param-value>ou=people,dc=example,dc=edu</param-value>

For versions of the ldap source adapter previous to 2.1.0, there is a bug which will throw a NullPointerException if the following is not present :

<search>
    <searchType>searchSubjectByIdentifierAttributes</searchType>
    <param>
        <param-name>filter</param-name>
        <param-value>
            (&amp;(uid=%TERM%)(objectclass=person))
        </param-value>
    </param>
    <param>
        <param-name>scope</param-name>
        <param-value>SUBTREE_SCOPE</param-value>
    </param>
    <param>
        <param-name>base</param-name>
        <param-value>ou=people,dc=example,dc=edu</param-value>
    </param>
</search>

Real-Time Provisioning Beta-Testing

Grouper Subject Sources

Provisioning Targets

Provisioning memberOf

The groups that a member is a member of may be provisioned to the memberOf attribute. Some LDAP implementations, such as Active Directory, automatically maintain the memberOf attribute. OpenLDAP maintains the memberOf attribute automatically via the memberOf overlay. The value of the memberOf attribute is typically a group DN.

Provisioning eduMember

The eduMember objectClass defines the isMemberOf and hasMember attributes, whose values are identifiers which are not DNs.

Provisioning eduCourse

The eduCourse objectClass defines course related attributes.

Provisioning Structure

The group provisioning structure may be either flat or bushy. A flat structure provisions all groups into a single container. A bushy structure provisions groups hierarchically.

For example, the DN of a group with name 'edu:stem:group' in a flat structure looks like : 

dn: cn=edu:stem:group,ou=groups,dc=example,dc=edu

while the DN of a group with name 'edu:stem:group' in a bushy structure looks like :

dn: cn=group,ou=stem,ou=edu,ou=groups,dc=example,dc=edu

Membership Structure

Given groupA with memberA and groupB with memberB :

dn : cn=groupA,ou=groups
member: cn=memberA,ou=people

dn: cn=groupB,ou=groups
member: cn=memberB,ou=people

If groupB is added as a member to groupA, how do you want groupA to be provisioned :

everything :

dn : cn=groupA,ou=groups
member: cn=memberA,ou=people
member: cn=memberB,ou=people
member: cn=groupB,ou=people

immediate :

dn : cn=groupA,ou=groups
member: cn=memberA,ou=people
member: cn=groupB,ou=people

The everything membership structure handles applications which may not support nested groups and represents the nested structure of the group memberships.

The same membership structure applies to memberOf :

everything :

dn: cn=memberB,ou=people
memberOf: cn=groupB,ou=groups
memberOf: cn=groupA,ou=groups

immediate :

dn: cn=memberB,ou=people
memberOf: cn=groupB,ou=groups