OMI requests between the client and server have been up to this point authenticated via Basic auth. Basic is very simple, but not at all secure, inasmuch as the username and password are transmitted in the clear, with only Base64 encoding which is easly decoded by someone able to see the traffic on the connection. For that reason we only recommend Basic never be used on other than a secure (https) conneciton.
A more secure method of authentication uses Secure Protected Negotitation protocol (SPNEGO), which enables negotiation of the security protcol from a selection of options, Currently the only option available with omi is the NT Lan Manager protocol, version 2 (NTLMV2) which is an improvment over Basic auth in two ways.
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The password is hashed using an irreversable algorithm, so the password is more secure than Basic.
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The client and server support encryption of your data over http connections, so SSL certificates are not required.
In order to use SPNEGO with NTLM, you will need to set up both the client and the server to provide the credentials.
Note, NTLM support on gss is not available on MacOS. Solaris, HP-UX, AIX or older Linux distros can be modified to support it, but that configuration is not currently supported.
In the instructions following, the architecture x86_64 is assumed for simplicity. If you are using other architectures (for example, Power8) please make the appropriate substitutions.
OMI uses the MIT implementation of the Generic Security Services API (libgssapi_krb5.so). This is the version installed by default in virtually all systems using anything like a UNIX/Linux OS. The MIT GSS allows plugins to be installed to handle different authentication mechanisms. The NTLM protocol plugin is provided by the gss-ntlmssp package.
Both the client and host machine must be set up to use provide NTLM to the generic security services (gss) library. To do this, the gss and gss-ntlmssp packages must be installed and up to date. The packages required are:
| Linux Verison | Packages Needed |
|---|---|
| RHEL 7.3, CentOS 7.3 | krb5-workstation-1.14.1-27.el7.x86_64 or later |
| gssntlmssp-0.7.0-1.el7.x86_6 | |
| Ubuntu 16.04 (xenial) | libgssapi-krb5-2 version 1.13.2+dfsg-5 or later |
| gss-ntlmssp version 0.7.0 or later. Note: The gss-ntlmssp 0.7.0 package is currently available in Canonical's proposed ppa. | |
| Ubuntu 14.04(trusty) | libgssapi-krb5-2 version 1.14.3 or later. |
| gss-ntlmssp 0.7.0 built from sources from https://fedorahosted.org/gss-ntlmssp as gss-ntlmssp is not provided by Canonical on trusty. |
Verify that the required packages are installed using rpm or dpkg. Once that is taken care of there are some post install steps to ensure the gss-ntlmssp plugin is properly.
In order to be known to gssapi, gssntlmssp.so needs to be configured. On xenial, that requires that the file /etc/gss/mech.ntlmssp be renamed to mech.ntlmssp.conf. The file itself must contain the line:
gssntlmssp_v1 1.3.6.1.4.1.311.2.2.10 /usr/lib/x86_64-Linux-gnu/gssntlmssp/gssntlmssp.so
where the file location for the plugin shared object, gssntlmssp.so, correctly points to be shared object file. We strongly advise checking the location and ensuring it is correct. If not, edit the file with the correct location.
In ubuntu 14.04 you will have to create the mechanism file. On trusty the file is /usr/etc/gss/mech and contains entries for all of the mech plugins. To build the source, configure the source via
./configure --prefix=/usrthen build via
make and install via
sudo make install The file /usr/etc/gss/mech should have the line:
ntlmssp_v1 1.3.6.1.4.1.311.2.2.10 /usr/local/lib/gssntlmssp/gssntlmssp.so
In Centos7.3, the mechanism configuration and shared object are properly placed and ready to use. Once the gssntlmssp package is installed, no further action is necessary except the provision of credentials.
The NTLM user file is the simplest, but least secure method of getting credentials to the omi client. Clearly you want the file to be only readable by the file owner, and owned by either the user to be executing omicli or omiserver.
The format of the file is as many instances as desired of
domain:username:password
where domain is the the name of the machine or active domain. Note that the namesi are taken literally, so bob@10.1.10.93 is not the same as bob@myhost. If you want to use multiple names for a given host credential, you must have multiple entries in the credential file, so:
10.1.10.93:myself:MyPassword!
myhost:myself:MyPassword!
Of course for a server, you must have entries for everyone who will be talking to the omiserver.
The entries for the username and password on the client and server side must agree with each other, and must agree with the password entries on both sides of the omi transaction.
While the advantage of the omi file is its simplicity, the disadvantage is the presence of a plain text password in the file. A more secure approach would be to use winbind to distribute credentials.
If you find the NTLM_USER_FILE option insufficiently secure, winbind can be used to provide credentials to ntlmssp even when the machine is being used standalone. In that case, samba is set up to consider the machine to be a domain with a single member. We should note, though that winbind and samba interact. If you are using samba to mount cifs file shares, it may be necessary to modify these instructions.
Winbind is a part of the samba suite. There are a number of good explanations and tutorials avaiable such as https://www.samba.org/samba/docs/man/Samba-HOWTO-Collection/idmapper.html discussing winbinds role, but in short it provides credential caching from the machines password provider, and idmapping from the Windows SID to and from the UNIX UID.
To use winbind for credentials,
- install needed packages
- modify the file /etc/nsswitch.conf to use winbind as a password source,
- setup /etc/samba/smb.conf to perform the needed credentials and id mapping.
The credentials are cached from an sssd identity provider, which may be ldap or an active directory provider.
The simplest way of establishing a credential source through winbind is to attach to an active directory domain controller.
If the system does not have a winbind service set up to provide credentials, the omicli will expect credentials to be provided in the file ~/.omi/ntlmcred. For security, the omi client expects the .omi directory must be owned by the user with permissions 700. The file ntlmcred must be owned by the user with permissions 600.
You should have credentials provided for every combination of host and user you intend on using. The hostname and ip address are not resolved in the credentials, so 10.1.10.17 and "bobs-host" are different credentials and must be separately specified.
We recommend that you provide the user name and password on the command line as well as the credentials file. The credentials file will be consulted first, with winbind used to acquire the credential after the file if it is available.
So, in ~/.omi/ntlmcred :
my_host:myself:my-passwd!
On the command line:
omicli -host my_host -u myself@zmyhost -p my-passwd! gi requestor/cool/provider { cool-thing key 1 }Since it is the most secure, by default, only NTLM authentication via winbind is configured in omiserver. There may be reasons why this would not be desirable for a particular implementation, in which case it is possible to define a credential file, using the same format as described for the client.
If this method is used, use of the file is specified by setting the option
NtlmCredsFile=/etc/opt/omi/.creds/ntlm
in the configuration file omiserver.conf. The file then refered to by the server for credentials. Like certificate directories, the server requires permissions of 700 for the directory and 600 for the file. Both the file and directory must be owned by root (for 1.4.0 or later version, both the file and directory must be owned by omi account). If the correct permissions and ownership are not set the file will be ignored with an error in the server log.
The creds/ntlm file must contain credentials of each authorized user with each domain (including hostname). IP addresses in the NTLM domain are treated as different from hostname, so a separate entry is required for each.
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The omi client requests authentication using the username and optional password to acquire a stored credential. It does not use the user name and password directly. The credential is acquired either from winbind or a local credentials file in ~/.omi.
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The client uses the Generic Security Services API (gssapi) to initate a negotiation with the server. Currently this negotiation will always end up using NTLM if it succeeds.
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The server uses gssapi to accept the negotiation using the credential sent by the client.
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Once NTLM protocol is agreed upon, the server accepts the connection based on the sent credential matching the stored credential on the server. Again, the credential is either acquired from winbind or a local credentials file.
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Once the server has verified the credential, it uses PAM to acquire the user information.
So, to validate you need
- A credential stored on the client side.
- A matching credential stored on the server side.
- The same credential validated via PAM.
For if the user and password are incorrect, the credentials will not be accepted.
An example of how this can happen is in omicli (a similar thnag can happen in powershell).
On the bash command line:
omicli ei -u desthost\user -p password ....
Looks fine, but will be sent to the server as 'desthost^user'. The backslash must be doubled to get passwd into an argument.
Then the correct form would be:
omicli eu -u desthost\\user -p password ....
A more reliable thing to do would be to skip the backslash altogether and use 'user@desthost'.
Similarly, when the host command line above is checked, the credential needs to have a credential for 'desthost'. If instead 10.1.173.145 or whatever is passed in, there must be a separate entry using that ip address for a hostname, similarly ipv6 addressees, multihomed addresses, etc.
If the host is connected to an active directory domain and winbind is configured, you may use those domain credentials without additional configuration.
On the server side, the considerations are the same as the client to the extent that you need to ensure your winbind or file based credential includes all of the users who will be authorised to use the omi server.
The symptoms of this would be either not authenticating or only authenticating when on https or unencrypted http channels.
- If the client or server are MacOS or Unix, the problem is that these platforms do not support negotiated NTLM.
- If the client or server are Linux, Ubuntu 16.04, RHEL 7.3 or CentOS 7.3, ensure the packages listed earlier are updated.
- If the client or server is 32 bit, and you needed to build NTLM SSP, ensure that the architecture matches the system
via
file /lib64/gssntlmssp/gssntlmssp.so(getting the wrong one has been known to happen).
WinRM and powershell settings TBD
You might get the error "Could not connect" when you run omicli command to remote server.
- First, check if you enabled the HTTP or HTTPS port in /etc/opt/omi/conf/omiserver.conf.
- Next, check if your HTTP or HTTPS port is opened with firewall. Note that firewall configuration is a system issue, so check your system documentation. The following commands may resolve your issue, but check system documentation to be certain:
- To open 5985 port on CentOS 7.X OS:
firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=5985/tcp --permanent - To open 5985 port on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS x64 OS:
iptables -I INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 5985 -j ACCEPT
- To open 5985 port on CentOS 7.X OS: