topic CIFS problem in Alfresco Archive

CIFS problem

jdbrown — Tue, 15 May 2007 03:24:10 GMT

Hi, I am running Alfresco enterprise 2.0.1 deployed as a WAR within BEA WebLogic 9.2. I also connected up to the Novell eDirectory LDAP for authentication purposes. This is all running on RedHat Linux.This all works and I can successfully authenticate into the web app, but I noticed some errors at

Re: CIFS problem

gary_spencer — Tue, 15 May 2007 08:11:54 GMT

Hi,

If you've configured the main Alfresco authentication component to use LDAP rather than the built-in user database then the standard CIFS authenticator does not have access to the required hashed passwords.

The usual solution to this is to configure the CIFS server to set the authenticator type to "passthru" and specify the address of a Samba or Windows server that the Alfresco CIFS server can use for passthru authentication.

Cheers

Gary

Re: CIFS problem

jdbrown — Tue, 15 May 2007 14:12:15 GMT

Does this mean I can't use that same LDAP for CIFS authentication? Or is it possible to passthru to that LDAP server?

Re: CIFS problem

gary_spencer — Tue, 15 May 2007 14:33:38 GMT

Hi,

The problem is that LDAP doesn't store the passwords in a format that is useable by CIFS. To get around this you configure the CIFS server to use passthru authentication to a Samba or Windows server that uses the same user account information.

We're looking into other solutions to this but it's likely to require a similar approach that Samba uses with LDAP by extending the schema to add the required format of hashed passwords.

Cheers

Gary

Re: CIFS problem

jdbrown — Tue, 15 May 2007 15:17:49 GMT

So how would this work when the repository is an external NAS or SAN device? Where would the Samba server run?

As Samba may not be an option for the client, is it possible to still use LDAP for authentication for everything but CIFS and have CIFS use the internal alfresco system? If so, how is this done?

Thanks.

Re: CIFS problem

jey — Tue, 15 May 2007 15:46:41 GMT

Hi everyone,

I am currently having the same issue …

I have understand that eDirectoy (and more than this: LDAP) doesn't store password using MD4, so using it to authenticate with CIFS is impossible…

But I also don't have a domain controler (Window or Samba) … So there is no way for me to use passthrough …

I am very interrested to use LDAP for everthing but CIFS, and to use users internal to alfresco fro CIFS…

Thanks guys.

Re: CIFS problem

gary_spencer — Tue, 15 May 2007 15:59:19 GMT

Hi,

I don't think it's possible to use internal users for CIFS and LDAP for everything else as you need to change the authentication component, which is either internal user database or external via LDAP.

The neatest solution seems to use LDAP to store the MD4 version of the password that Alfresco CIFS requires, in a similar way to how Samba works with LDAP. This would save having two seperate user lists and the synchronization problems that brings, and would remove the requirement for a CIFS server for the Alfresco CIFS authentication.

This requirement is something that has only recently become hot, we're looking into it.

Cheers

Gary