nextcloud / nextcloud/server

Don't hardcode LDAP/AD server addresses

Open
#16,473 9 comments 1 reaction 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

1. to develop enhancement feature: ldap
Dominant language
PHP
Stars
36.9k
Forks
5.2k
Avg merge
2d 3h
Merged PRs (30d)
713

Description

If this is already possible, apologies. I did not see this mentioned in the section of documentation that talks about setting up LDAP.

Instead of hard-coding the LDAP/AD hostname or IP address, it would be more robust to automatically detect them. A use case is situations where the AD servers are replaced with new ones and old IP addresses may not be used. Access to Active Directory/LDAP servers could (should?) be done via DNS lookups to make them resilient to changes.

Lookup the SRV records for _ldap._tcp. will give you a list of currently registered servers.

If this is not something that can be implemented easily, perhaps a suggestion can be made in the documentation: use generic hostnames that you point in DNS to active servers.

I have setup, for example, ldap.myaddomain which points to the current servers. If I deploy new AD servers, I only have to update this generic "ldap" record.

The key is: I don't have to remember to make changes to Nextcloud or a number of other services that use LDAP as well. This allows for easier, and faster, maintenance on the AD servers.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

No files, tests, or entry points are named. Start by locating the LDAP/AD server configuration and reviewing how _ldap._tcp. SRV records could be used; done means either supporting resilient server discovery or documenting a generic DNS hostname approach.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Domain
authentication
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
30/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.