laps-runner

LAPS4LINUX Runner

The runner is responsible for automatically changing the admin password of a Linux client and updating it in the LDAP directory. This assumes that Kerberos (krb5-user) is installed and that the machine is already joined to your domain using Samba's net ads join, PBIS' domainjoin-cli join or the adcli join command (recommended). realm join is also supported as it internally also uses adcli resp. Samba.

A detailed domain join guide is available on my website (attention: only in German).

The runner should be called periodically via cron (example). This does not mean that the password will be rotated every time the cron job runs - it decides by the expiration time stored in the LDAP directory when the password needs to be changed.

Please make sure that usermod (for changing the password in the local database) is in you crontab $PATH (this is the default in Debian and Ubuntu based systems, but may not in other distros).

Installation

It is recommended to use the installation package provided on the Github releases page.

Manual installation in a Python venv:

# install available python modules globally to avoid duplicate install in venv
apt install python3-venv python3-pip python3-setuptools python3-gssapi python3-dnspython krb5-user libkrb5-dev

python3 -m venv venv --system-site-packages
venv/bin/pip3 install .

venv/bin/laps-runner

Configuration

Please configure the runner by editing the configuration file /etc/laps-runner.json.

Configuration Values

• server: Array of domain controllers with items like {"address": "dc1.example.com", "port": 389, "ssl": false}. Leave empty for DNS auto discovery.
• domain: Your domain name (e.g. example.com). Leave empty for DNS auto discovery.
• use-starttls: Boolean which indicates wheter to use StartTLS on unencrypted LDAP connections (requires valid server certificate).
• client-keytab-file: The Kerberos keytab file with the machine secret.
• cred-cache-file: File where to store the kerberos ticket for the LDAP connection.
• native-laps: true to store the password as JSON string in the LDAP attribute, as specified by Microsoft (Native LAPS). false to store it as plaintext (Legacy LAPS).
• security-descriptor: The security descriptor (SID) for pasword encryption (Native LAPS only). Leave empty (set to null) to disable encryption. Important: if you enable encryption, you should also change ldap-attribute-password to msLAPS-EncryptedPassword!
• history-size: The amount of password entries to keep in history. If not set or 0, no password history will be written.
• ldap-attribute-password: The LDAP attribute name where to store the generated password. Must be a string, not a list.
• ldap-attribute-password-history: The LDAP attribute where to store the password history. Must be a multi-value text field. If empty, no password history will be written.
• ldap-attribute-password-expiry: The LDAP attribute where to store the password expiration date. Must be a string, not a list.
• hostname: The hostname used for Kerberos ticket creation. Leave empty to use the system's hostname.
• password-change-user: The Linux user whose password should be rotated.
• password-days-valid: The amount of days how long a password should be valid.
• password-length: Determines how long a generated password should be.
• password-alphabet: Determines the chars to use for password generation.

Important:

• If native-laps is false, you should set ldap-attribute-password to ms-Mcs-AdmPwd and ldap-attribute-password-expiry to ms-Mcs-AdmPwdExpirationTime.
• If If native-laps is true and security-descriptor not set or null, you should set ldap-attribute-password to msLAPS-Password and ldap-attribute-password-expiry to msLAPS-PasswordExpirationTime.
• If If native-laps is true and security-descriptor is set to a valid SID in your domain, you should set ldap-attribute-password to msLAPS-EncryptedPassword and ldap-attribute-password-expiry to msLAPS-PasswordExpirationTime.
• While it is technically possible to save the password history unencrypted, Microsoft did not designated this. By default, in Active Directory, the only password history attribute is msLAPS-EncryptedPasswordHistory. Therefore, you should only configure the runner to store a password history when using password encryption too.

You can call the runner with the -f parameter to force updating the password directly after installation. You should do this to check if the runner is working properly.

Hostnames Longer Than 15 Characters

Computer objects in the Microsoft Active Directory can not be longer than 15 characters. If you join a computer with a longer hostname, it will be registered with a different "short name". You have to enter this short name in the config file (setting hostname) in order to make the Kerberos authentication work. You can find out the short name by inspecting your keytab: sudo klist -k /etc/krb5.keytab.

Set the hostname option to null (default) to use the system's normal host name.

Troubleshooting

If the script throws an error like kinit -k -c /tmp/laps.temp SERVER$ returned non-zero exit code 1, please check what happens when you execute the following commands manually on the command line.

sudo kinit -k -c /tmp/laps.temp COMPUTERNAME$
sudo klist -c /tmp/laps.temp

Please replace COMPUTERNAME with your hostname, but do not forget the trailing dollar sign.

Support

If you like LAPS4LINUX please consider making a donation using the sponsor button on GitHub to support further development.

You can hire me for commercial support or adjustments for this project. Please contact me if you are interested.