Salt's External Authentication System (eAuth) allows for Salt to pass through command authorization to any external authentication system, such as PAM or LDAP.
The external authentication system allows for specific users to be granted access to execute specific functions on specific minions. Access is configured in the master configuration file and uses the access control system:
external_auth:
pam:
thatch:
- 'web*':
- test.*
- network.*
steve:
- .*
The above configuration allows the user thatch to execute functions in the test and network modules on the minions that match the web* target. User steve is given unrestricted access to minion commands.
Note
The PAM module does not allow authenticating as root.
To allow access to wheel modules or runner modules the following @ syntax must be used:
external_auth:
pam:
thatch:
- '@wheel' # to allow access to all wheel modules
- '@runner' # to allow access to all runner modules
- '@jobs' # to allow access to the jobs runner and/or wheel module
Note
The runner/wheel markup is different, since there are no minions to scope the acl to.
Note
Globs will not match wheel or runners! They must be explicitly allowed with @wheel or @runner.
The external authentication system can then be used from the command-line by any user on the same system as the master with the -a option:
$ salt -a pam web\* test.ping
The system will ask the user for the credentials required by the authentication system and then publish the command.
To apply permissions to a group of users in an external authentication system, append a % to the ID:
external_auth:
pam:
admins%:
- '*':
- 'pkg.*'
With external authentication alone, the authentication credentials will be required with every call to Salt. This can be alleviated with Salt tokens.
Tokens are short term authorizations and can be easily created by just adding a -T option when authenticating:
$ salt -T -a pam web\* test.ping
Now a token will be created that has a expiration of 12 hours (by default). This token is stored in a file named .salt_token in the active user's home directory.
Once the token is created, it is sent with all subsequent communications. User authentication does not need to be entered again until the token expires.
Token expiration time can be set in the Salt master config file.
Salt supports both user and group authentication for LDAP.
LDAP configuration happens in the Salt master configuration file.
Server configuration values:
auth.ldap.server: localhost
auth.ldap.port: 389
auth.ldap.tls: False
auth.ldap.scope: 2
Salt also needs to know which Base DN to search for users and groups and the DN to bind to:
auth.ldap.basedn: dc=saltstack,dc=com
auth.ldap.binddn: cn=admin,dc=saltstack,dc=com
To bind to a DN, a password is required
auth.ldap.bindpw: mypassword
Salt users a filter to find the DN associated with a user. Salt substitutes the {{ username }} value for the username when querying LDAP.
auth.ldap.filter: uid={{ username }}
If group support for LDAP is desired, one can specify an OU that contains group data. This is prepended to the basedn to create a search path
auth.ldap.groupou: Groups
Once configured, LDAP permissions can be assigned to users and groups.
external_auth:
ldap:
test_ldap_user:
- '*':
- test.ping
To configure an LDAP group, append a % to the ID:
external_auth:
ldap:
test_ldap_group%:
- '*':
- test.echo
Docs for previous releases are available on salt.rtfd.org.
Latest Salt release: 2014.7.2
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