LDAP REST API


This document describes the 389 Directory Server RESTful API

Introduction


As part of the new web-based server management console initiative, a RESTful API has been developed to handle LDAP operations/tasks over HTTP. The following document describes the RESTful characteristics of each resource. First, here is a brief background on what REST means to us. REST stands for REpresentational State Transfer, and it is a design concept for modern HTTP/HTML services. The idea is that you have resources on a server that you can read or update. These resources are accessed via HTTP URLs, and that various HTTP methods should behave in a certain way(some methods are safe, others are not). Each method acts upon these resources through their respective representations (in our case we use JSON for our resource representations - more on this later). Here is a basic description of our LDAP RESTful methods

The term idempotent means that no matter how many times you send the same request, the result is the same as if you issued the command only once. So if you issue the same PUT request to create a resource, and send it 5 times, there will only be one new resource, not 5. So if you send a PUT operation, and you don’t get a response back, you can safely resend it without worrying about creating multiple identical resources(or changing the state of that resource with each attempt). Basically you can keep resending the same request until you get a successful response. This can not be said for the other methods which are not idempotent.

So for PUT we slightly stray from the pure RESTful design, but in our case when we use it add a resource(instead of using POST), it is safe to try and re-add an entry as many times as you want, the same goes for DELETE. Once a resource is deleted, it’s gone, and there are no changes if you continue to try and DELETE that resource. Finally, GET is idempotent because it does not(should NOT) modify the state of a resource, but only return its current representation.

Authentication


Keeping our ldap servers safe is a top priority in an admin system like this. We decided the best course of action was to have a minimal rest layer, and to allow the ldap server to continue to dictate the aci and controls. This way, every part of rest is accessible to anyone, but the ldap server itself will reject your attempts to use it.

There are two ways to authenticate to the rest server.

First is with classic, http basic authentication. The details from this authentication are passed as a binddn and password to the ldap server.

curl -u 'cn=Directory Manager:password'  always http://ldapkdc.example.com:5000/v1/whoami
{
  "href": "http://ldapkdc.example.com:5000/v1/whoami", 
  "result": "dn: cn=directory manager", 
  "resultCode": 200, 
  "resultCount": 1
}

Second is with gssapi. This is a more secure, and the prefered authentication option. The configuration details of ldap to use gssapi are beyond the scope of this document.

This way a client only needs a krb5 ccache and the credentials are passed through.

klist
Ticket cache: KEYRING:persistent:1000:krb_ccache_1BEqTm7
Default principal: admin@EXAMPLE.COM

Valid starting     Expires            Service principal
25/11/15 09:32:22  26/11/15 09:32:00  HTTP/ldapkdc.example.com@EXAMPLE.COM
25/11/15 09:32:00  26/11/15 09:32:00  krbtgt/EXAMPLE.COM@EXAMPLE.COM

curl -u ':' --negotiate --delegation always http://ldapkdc.example.com:5000/v1/whoami
{
  "href": "http://ldapkdc.example.com:5000/v1/whoami", 
  "result": "dn: uid=admin,ou=people,dc=example,dc=com", 
  "resultCode": 200, 
  "resultCount": 1
}

Both of these are supported by curl, and browsers.

Our Resources


The following lists the currently implemented resources - this is a work in progress at the moment. Note, all the resource have OPTIONS and HEAD methods available so they will not be listed for each resource.


“Index” Resources


/v1/index

Method Description JSON Representation CURL Example
GET Request a representation of all the indexes on the server Index Representation curl -X GET -G “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/index”
       

/v1/index/{BACKEND}

Method Description JSON Representation CURL Example
GET Request a representation of all the indexes for the backend Index Representation curl -X GET -G “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/index/dc=example,dc=com”
       

/v1/index/{BACKEND}/{ATTRIBUTE}

Method Description JSON Representation CURL Example
GET Request a representation of the attribute index in the backend Index Representation curl -X GET -G “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/index/dc=example,dc=com/cn”
PUT Create a new index entry Index Representation curl -X PUT -H “Content-Type: application/json” -d JSON_REP -G “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/index/dc=example,dc=com/cn”
POST Reindex the attribute None curl -X POST -H “Content-Type: application/json” -d JSON_REP -G “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/index/dc=example,dc=com/cn”
PATCH Modify the index configuration PATCH Representation
Index Representation
curl -X PATCH -H “Content-Type: application/json” -d JSON_REP -G “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/index/dc=example,dc=com/cn”
DELETE Delete an index None curl -X DELETE -G “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/index/dc=example,dc=com/cn”
       


“Suffix” Resources


/v1/suffix

Method Description JSON Representation CURL Example
GET Request a representation of all the suffixes Suffix Representation curl -X GET -G “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/suffix”
       

/v1/suffix/{SUFFIX}

Method Description JSON Representation CURL Example
GET Request a representation of the suffix entry Suffix Representation curl -X GET “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/suffix/dc=example,dc=com”
PUT Create a new suffix entry and backend Suffix Representation curl -X PUT -H “Content-Type: application/json” -d JSON_REP -G “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/suffix/dc=example,dc=com”
PATCH Modify a suffix configuration PATCH Representation
Suffix Representation
curl -X PATCH -H “Content-Type: application/json” -d JSON_REP -G “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/suffix/dc=example,dc=com”
DELETE Delete a suffix and its associated backend None curl -X DELETE -G “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/suffix/dc=example,dc=com”
       


Replication Resources


/v1/replication

Method Description JSON Representation CURL Example
GET Request a representation of all the replication configurations Replica Representation curl -X GET “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/replication”
       

/v1/replication/{SUFFIX}

Method Description JSON Representation CURL Example
GET Request a representation of Replication Replica Representation curl -X GET “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/replication/dc=example,dc=com”
PUT Enable replication for the suffix Replica Representation curl -X PUT -H “Content-Type: application/json” -d JSON_REP -G “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/replication/dc=example,dc=com”
PATCH Modify the replication configuration PATCH Representation
Replica Representation
curl -X PATCH -H “Content-Type: application/json” -d JSON_REP -G “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/replication/dc=example,dc=com”
POST Promote/Demote Replication Role Replica Representation curl -X POST -H “Content-Type: application/json” -d JSON_REP -G “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/replication/dc=example,dc=com”
DELETE Disable replication None curl -X DELETE -G “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/replication/dc=example,dc=com”
       

/v1/replication/{SUFFIX}/agmts

Method Description JSON Representation CURL Example
GET Request a representation of all the replication agreements Replica Agreement Representation curl -X GET “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/replication/dc=example,dc=com/agmts”
POST Enable/disable/Initialize/sendupdates for all the agreements Replica Agreement Representation curl -X POST -H “Content-Type: application/json” -d JSON_REP -G “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/replication/dc=example,dc=com/agmts”
DELETE Delete all the replication agreements None curl -X DELETE -G “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/replication/dc=example,dc=com/agmts”
       

/v1/replication/{SUFFIX}/agmts/status

Method Description JSON Representation CURL Example
GET Get the status of all the replication agreements under the suffix Replica Agreement Representation curl -X GET “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/replication/dc=example,dc=com/agmts”
       

/v1/replication/{SUFFIX}/agmts/{AGMT}

Method Description JSON Representation CURL Example
GET Request a representation of the replication agmt Replica Agreement Representation curl -X GET “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/replication/dc=example,dc=com/agmts/hostA-to-hostB”
PUT Create a replication agreement Replica Agreement Representation curl -X PUT -H “Content-Type: application/json” -d JSON_REP -G “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/replication/dc=example,dc=com/agmts/hostA-to-hostB”
PATCH Modify the replication agreement PATCH Representation
Replica Agreement Representation
curl -X PATCH -H “Content-Type: application/json” -d JSON_REP -G “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/replication/dc=example,dc=com/agmts/hostA-to-hostB”
POST Initialize, send updates, enable, or disable agreement Replica Agreement Representation curl -X POST -H “Content-Type: application/json” -d JSON_REP -G “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/replication/dc=example,dc=com/agmts/hostA-to-hostB”
DELETE Delete replication agreement None curl -X DELETE -G “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/replication/dc=example,dc=com/agmts/hostA-to-hostB”
       

/v1/replication/{SUFFIX}/agmts/{AGMT}/status

Method Description JSON Representation CURL Example
GET Get the status of the replication agreement Replica Agreement Representation curl -X GET “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/replication/dc=example,dc=com/agmts”
       

/v1/replication/changelog

Method Description JSON Representation CURL Example
GET Request a representation of the replication changelog Changelog Representation curl -X GET “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/replication/changelog”
PUT Create replication changelog Changelog Representation curl -X PUT -H “Content-Type: application/json” -d JSON_REP -G “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/replication/changelog”
PATCH Modify the replication changelog PATCH Representation
Changelog Representation
curl -X PATCH -H “Content-Type: application/json” -d JSON_REP -G “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/replication/changelog”
DELETE Delete replication changelog None curl -X DELETE -G “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/replication/dc=example,dc=com/agmts/hostA-to-hostB”
       


LDAP Operation Resources


/v1/ldap/{DN}

Method Description JSON Representation CURL Example
GET Search for a LDAP Entry (subtree scope, objectclass=*) Entry Representation curl -X GET “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/ldap/uid=mreynolds,dc=example,dc=com”
PUT Add an LDAP Entry Entry Representation curl -X PUT -H “Content-Type: application/json” -d JSON_REP -G ‘http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/ldap/uid=mreynolds,dc=example,dc=com’
PATCH Modify an entry (also used for MODRDN) PATCH Representation and
Entry Representation
or ModRDN Representation
curl -X PUT -H “Content-Type: application/json” -d JSON_REP -G ‘http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/ldap/uid=mreynolds,dc=example,dc=com’
DELETE Delete an ldap entry None curl -X DELETE -G ‘http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/ldap/cn=mreynolds,dc=example,dc=com’
       

/v1/ldap/{DN}/{SCOPE}/

Method Description JSON Representation CURL Example
GET Search for a LDAP Entry (scope) Entry Representation curl -X GET “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/ldap/dc=example,dc=com/one”
       

/v1/ldap/{DN}/{SCOPE}/{FILTER}/

Method Description JSON Representation CURL Example
GET Search for a LDAP Entry (scope, filter)) Entry Representation curl -X GET “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/ldap/dc=example,dc=com/one/objectclass=posixAccount”
       

/v1/ldap/{DN}/{SCOPE}/{FILTER/{ATTRS}

Method Description JSON Representation CURL Example
GET Search for a LDAP Entry (scope, filter, and attributes) Entry Representation curl -X GET “http://admin.example.com:9830/v1/ldap/dc=example,dc=com/sub/objectclass=posixAccount/dn,cn”
       


Configuration


The rest389 admin server should be deployed on the same server as the ldap server instance. This allows rest389 to perform local instance discovery.

The rest389 server needs r-x access to the /etc/dirsrv/slapd-/dse.ldif . This may mean the use of a process worker uid that has access from apache (see [WSGIDaemonProcess](https://code.google.com/p/modwsgi/wiki/ConfigurationDirectives#WSGIDaemonProcess) to set a user account that has r-x to this.

If you are using GSSAPI with the server a keytab of the form “HTTP/@REALM” and should be extracted to a secure keytab location. If you are running rest389 standalone, you should run:

KRB5_KTNAME=/path/to/http.keytab python rest389-standalone.py

If you are using apache you should use

SetEnv KRB5_KTNAME /path/to/http.keytab

Constrained Delegation


If you are configuring rest389 with freeipa, you must use constrained delegation. Consider that we want to use rest389 on our a 389 instance that is not part of the IPA domain

supplier: ipasupplier.example.com
389 server: ds.example.com
389 principal: ldap/ds.example.com

First, we need to make the keytab for the rest389 service

ipa service-add HTTP/ds.example.com

Next we need to extra the keytab to the supplier.

ipa-getkeytab -s ipasupplier.example.com -k /etc/httpd/http.keytab HTTP/ds.example.com

We add the service delegation rules

ipa servicedelegationrule-add ds-http-delegation
ipa servicedelegationruletarget-add ds-ldap-target
ipa servicedelegationrule-add-target --servicedelegationtargets=ds-ldap-target ds-http-delegation
ipa servicedelegationrule-add-member --principals HTTP/ds.example.com ds-http-delegation
ipa servicedelegationtarget-add-member --principals=ldap/ds.example.com ds-ldap-target

We can now prove the delegation is working:

kvno -k /etc/httpd/http.keytab -U admin -P HTTP/ds.example.com ldap/ds.example.com


JSON Representations


Generic Result/Response Representation

All the JSON responses, for all the resources, are what the “msg” is in the result key. All the following resource representation examples are what becomes the msg in the result key

    "href": "http link to resource",
    "resultCode": "http result code",
    "resultCount": #####
    "result": msg

PATCH - Update a resource

Every resource that supports PATCH uses the JSON Patch representation: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6902 However, currently we only support “remove”, “add”, “replace” from rfc6902

[
    { "op": "remove", "path": "attr" },
    { "op": "add", "path": "attr", "value": [ "somevalue1", "somevalue2" ] },
    { "op": "replace", "path": "attr", "value": "somevalue1" }
]

Example

[
    { "op": "remove", "path": "description" },
    { "op": "add", "path": "uniquemember", "value": [ "uid=mark,dc=example,dc=com", "uid=william,dc=example,dc=com" ] },
    { "op": "replace", "path": "userpassword", "value": "5ecretPa55Phra5e" }
]

Suffix Representation

GET, PUT
-----------------------------------------------------
{
    'dn': Config DN,
    'suffix': 'ou=people,dc=example,dc=com',
    'parent': 'dc=example,dc=com',
    'state':  'backend',
    'backend':  [ BACKEND, BACKEND, ... ],
    'referral': [ LDAP URL, LDAP URL, ... ]
}

Index Representation

{
    'dn': Config DN,
    'index': ATTR,
    'systemIndex': true/false,
    'indexType': [ type, type, ... ]
    'matchingRule': [ mr, mr, ... ]
}

Replica Representations

GET
-----------------------------------------------------
{
    'dn': DN
    'ReplicaRoot': SUFFIX
    'ReplicaRole': supplier, hub, consumer
    'ReplicaType': 2
    'ReplicaFlags': 1
    'ReplicaID': 1
    'ReplicaPurgeDelay': 604800
    'ReplicaBindDN': 'uid=replica,cn=config'
    'ReplicaBindDNGroup:' DN
    'ReplicaBindDNGroupCheckInterval': 60
    'ReplicaState': <decode base64 value>
    'ReplicaName': '38475874-sdfdf-...'
    'ReplicaBackoffMin': 5
    'ReplicaBackoffMax': 300
    'ReplicaProtocolTimeout': 120
    'ReplicaReferral': REFERRAL
    'ReplicaTombstonePurgeInterval': 12000
    'ReplicaPreciseTombstonePurging': on
    'ReplicaLegacyConsumer':
    'ReplicaCleanRUV': VALUE
    'ReplicaAbortCleanRUV': VALUE
    'ReplicaChangeCount':
    'ReplicaReapActive': 0/1
}

POST - Replica promotion/demotion Representation
-----------------------------------------------------
{
    'action': 'promote/demote'
    'newrole': 'supplier, hub, consumer'
    'rid': 'newrid'  # Only for promotion to supplier
    'binddn': DN  # Only for promotion to supplier
    'newrole': 'supplier, hub, consumer'
}

Replication Agreement Representations

GET, PUT
-----------------------------------------------------
{
    'dn': DN
    'ReplicaName':
    'ReplicaBindMethod': 'SASL/GSSAPI, SIMPLE  '
    'ReplicaBindDN': cn=dm
    'ReplicaBindCredentials': secret
    'ReplicaHost': vm-192.abc.idm.lab.eng.brq.redhat.com
    'ReplicaPort': 389
    'ReplicaRoot': dc=abc,dc=idm,dc=lab,dc=eng,dc=brq,dc=redhat,dc=com
    'ReplicaTransportInfo': LDAP
    'ReplicatedAttributeList':
    'ReplicatedAttributeListTotal':
    'ReplicaConnTimeout': 120
    'ReplicaRefresh': start
    'ReplicaSchedule':
    'ReplicaBusyWaitTime':
    'ReplicaSessionPauseTime':
    'ReplicaEnabled':
    'ReplicaStripAttrs':
    'ReplicaFlowControlWindow':
    'ReplicaFlowControlPause':
    'ReplicaRUV': []
    'ReplicaMaxCSN':
    'ReplicaBeginRefresh':
    'ReplicaLastUpdateStart': 20151109201346Z
    'ReplicaLastUpdateEnd: 20151109201346Z
    'ReplicaChangesSentSinceStartup': base64
    'ReplicaLastUpdateStatus':
    'ReplicaUpdateInProgress':
    'ReplicaLastInitStart':
    'ReplicaLastInitEnd': 20151109201336Z
    'ReplicaLastInitStatus':
    'ReplicaReapActive':
    'ReplicaStatus':
    # Window Sync Attributes
    'WinsyncDirectoryReplicaSubtree': DN
    'WindowsReplicaSubtree': DN
    'WinsyncNewWinUserSyncEnabled': 'on/off'
    'WinsyncNewWinGroupSyncEnabled':'on/off'
    'WinsyncWindowsDomain': VALUE
    'WinsyncDirsyncCookie': BASE64-VALUE
    'WinsyncInterval': INTERVAL
    'WinsyncOneWaySync':
    'WinsyncMoveAction':
    'WinsyncWindowsFilter':
    'WinsyncDirectoryFilter':
    'WinsyncSubtreePair':
}

POST
-----------------------------------------------------
{
    'action': 'enable/disable/initialize/send_updates'
    'target': 'all (default), winsync, ds'
}

POST Error Response - lists agreements that were not updated
-----------------------------------------------------
{
    'result_status': TEXT
    'agreements': [agmt_dn, agmt_dn,...]
}

Replication Status Representation

Returns a list of agreements and their current replication status

GET
------------------------------------------------------
{
    [
        {
            'agreement': name,
            'suffix': replicated suffix,
            'consumer_host': host,
            'consumer_port': port,
            'status_code': 0 = in sync, -1 not in sync,
            'status_text': 'status message'
        },
        {
            'agreement': name,
            ...
            ...
        }
    ]
}

Changelog Representation

GET
-----------------------------------------------------
{
    'dn': DN:
    'ChangelogDir':
    'ChangelogMaxEntries':
    'ChangelogMaxAge':
    'ChangelogCompactDBInterval':
    'ChangelogTrimInterval':
    'ChangelogMaxConcurrentWrites':
    'ChangelogEncryptionAlgorithm':
    'ChangelogSymmetricKey':
}

Monitor Representations

<work in progress>

LDAP Entry Representation

A list of “entries” is returned, even for a single entry.

[
    {
       "dn": "DN",
       "attrs": {
                     "ATTR": ["VALUE", "VALUE"],
                     "ATTR": ["VALUE"],
                     ...,
                     ...
                }
    },
    {
       "dn": "DN",
       "attrs": {
                     "ATTR": ["VALUE", "VALUE"],
                     "ATTR": ["VALUE"]
                     ...,
                     ...
                }
    }
]

MODRDN Request Representation

{
    'newrdn': NEWRDN
    'newsuperior': NEWSUPERIOR
    'deleteoldrdn': 1 or 0
}
Last modified on 1 March 2024