Set up an LDAP connector

C1 provides identity governance and just-in-time provisioning for LDAP. Integrate your LDAP server with C1 to run user access reviews (UARs), enable just-in-time access requests, and automatically provision and deprovision access.

Capabilities

Resource	Sync	Provision
Accounts
Roles (organizationalRole in LDAP)
Groups (groupOfUniqueNames in LDAP)

The LDAP connector supports automatic account provisioning and deprovisioning.

POSIX account provisioning

The LDAP connector supports provisioning posixAccount entries with automatic UID number assignment. When creating a new POSIX account, the connector can look up the highest uidNumber currently in use across all existing posixAccount entries in your directory and automatically assign the next available value.

To use this feature, configure the following account provisioning mappings:

Mapping field	Destination value	Description	Example CEL expression
RDN Key	rdnKey	The RDN attribute for the new entry	"uid"
RDN Value	rdnValue	The value for the RDN attribute	subject.profile.login
Path	path	The DN path where the account will be created	"ou=users,o=Example Org"
Suffix	suffix	The top-level entry DN (naming context)	"dc=example,dc=com"
Object Class(es)	objectClass	Must include posixAccount	["top", "person", "organizationalPerson", "posixAccount"]
Calculate the next valid UID Number	calculatePosixUIDNumber	Set to true to enable automatic UID assignment	true
Additional Attributes	additionalAttributes	Other required POSIX attributes	{"cn": "Jane Doe", "sn": "Doe", "homeDirectory": "/home/jdoe", "gidNumber": "5000"}

Automatic UID number calculation assigns uidNumber only. You must provide gidNumber manually in the Additional Attributes mapping. If you set Calculate the next valid UID Number to true, any uidNumber value provided in Additional Attributes is ignored.

Connector actions

Connector actions are custom capabilities that extend C1 automations with app-specific operations. You can use connector actions in the Perform connector action automation step.

Global actions (connector-level):

Action name	Additional fields	Description
create_ou	name (string, required), parent_dn (string), description (string)	Create an LDAP organizational unit (organizationalUnit) under a parent container. parent_dn defaults to the configured base DN; a parent outside the base DN is rejected. Idempotent — creating an OU that already exists succeeds.

To use create_ou, the connector’s bind account must have permission to add child entries under the target parent DN (by default, the configured base DN). For OpenLDAP and similar servers, this is write/add access on the parent container; for Active Directory, delegate the Create Organizational Unit objects right on the parent OU.

Resource-scoped actions (user):

Action name	Additional fields	Description
update_profile	user_id (account resource ID, required), first_name (string), last_name (string), display_name (string), email (string), custom_attributes (string map)	Set core profile fields (first name, last name, display name, email) and/or arbitrary custom LDAP attributes on an existing user. This action is scoped to the user resource type, which is what makes it discoverable and usable from C1’s attribute-push-rule feature. It also backs C1’s attribute push rule flow for LDAP users.

The update_profile action returns success (bool), updated_user (the modified user resource, re-fetched after the write; absent if the read-back failed, though the write itself still succeeded), applied (the number of attributes changed), and skipped (named fields or custom_attributes entries that were not written).

updated_user carries the resource identity, displayName, and the user trait — not the entry’s full attribute set. A value the action just wrote appears there only when it also feeds one of those: display_name through displayName, email through the trait’s email list, and a custom_attributes key only when it maps to a trait field (mail, displayName, sAMAccountName, userPrincipalName, a non-RDN uid or cn, lastLogonTimestamp, authTimestamp). first_name, last_name, and every other custom_attributes key reach the directory but do not appear in updated_user. Use applied to confirm those.

Two requirements come from the C1 side rather than from LDAP:

• user_id takes the C1 account identifier, not the LDAP DN. C1 resolves the account to the connector’s resource before dispatching the action. A DN fails inside C1 with resource <dn> with type user was not found and never reaches the connector, so it produces no connector log line and leaves the directory untouched.
• An attribute push rule must map from a single-valued attribute. The connector’s user profile carries only attributes that hold exactly one value on the entry, so a multi-valued source resolves to nothing: the rule saves and enables, and each push reports zero attributes applied.

update_profile is intended for generic LDAP directories (Active Directory and FreeIPA have their own connectors). It applies the following rules:

• Named fields: first_name → givenName, last_name → sn, display_name → displayName, email → mail. A named field is applied only when present and non-empty; a present-but-empty named field cannot clear the attribute and is instead reported in skipped.
• inetOrgPerson requirement: only last_name (sn) is universal — it’s a MUST attribute of the base person object class. first_name (givenName, defined in RFC 4519), display_name (displayName, RFC 2798), and email (mail, RFC 4524) are permitted on an entry only by RFC 2798’s inetOrgPerson object class, so writing one of them to an entry that doesn’t carry inetOrgPerson fails loudly with LDAP result code 65 (“Object Class Violation”) — an atomic, clearly-signaled failure with no partial write, not a silent no-op.
• Custom attributes: custom_attributes maps arbitrary raw LDAP attribute names to values; an empty value clears the attribute (unlike the named fields above, where empty just means “not supplied”). Keys are used verbatim as attribute names — the named-field mapping above applies only to the named arguments, never to custom_attributes. {"user_id": "x"} therefore writes an attribute literally named user_id; it does not write uid. A name the directory does not define is refused by the server, and the result code depends on the implementation: OpenLDAP returns 17 (“Undefined Attribute Type”), ApacheDS returns 16 (“No Such Attribute”). The same goes for baton profile field names such as login and path: they are attempted as literal attribute names rather than skipped.
• Collisions: a custom_attributes key is dropped (never merged with, or overwriting, a named field’s slot) and reported once in skipped when it case-insensitively matches either one of the four named field names, or the LDAP attribute a supplied named field is writing (givenName, sn, displayName, mail). The latter only applies when that named field was actually supplied and non-empty; otherwise {"givenName": "Jane"} is an ordinary raw write.
• Not modifiable: password attributes (userPassword, or any name containing password — use credential rotation instead) and objectClass are rejected; the user’s RDN attribute (for example cn when the DN is cn=jdoe,...) is skipped, since renaming requires a different operation.
• Multi-valued attributes: setting (not clearing) a value on an attribute that currently holds more than one value returns an error instead of silently discarding the extra values; clearing (an empty value) still removes all values.
• Value types: custom_attributes carries one string per attribute, so binary attributes (jpegPhoto, userCertificate;binary) and option-tagged attributes (;lang-xx) cannot be set through this action.
• Scope: only entries within the configured user search scope (user-search-dn, falling back to base-dn) can be modified; out-of-scope or non-user DNs are rejected.

The connector’s bind account must have permission to modify the target entry.

Gather LDAP credentials

Configuring the connector requires you to pass in credentials for LDAP. Gather these credentials before you move on.

Here’s the set of credentials you’ll need when setting up the connector:

• The username and password of an LDAP account
• URL of the LDAP server, which can use either ldap: or ldaps: schemes, and optionally includes a port number

Done. Next, move on to the connector configuration instructions.

Configure the LDAP connector

To complete this task, you’ll need:

• The Connector Administrator or Super Administrator role in C1
• Access to the set of LDAP credentials generated by following the instructions above

Cloud-hosted

Follow these instructions to use a built-in, no-code connector hosted by C1.

Cloud-hosted connector not currently available.

Self-hosted

Follow these instructions to use the LDAP connector, hosted and run in your own environment.

When running in service mode on Kubernetes, a self-hosted connector maintains an ongoing connection with C1, automatically syncing and uploading data at regular intervals. This data is immediately available in the C1 UI for access reviews and access requests.

Resources

• Official download center: For stable binaries (Windows/Linux/macOS) and container images.

• GitHub repository: Access the source code, report issues, or contribute to the project.

Step 1: Set up a new LDAP connector

1. In C1, navigate to Integrations > Connectors > Add connector.

2. Search for Baton and click Add.

3. Choose how to set up the new LDAP connector:

   • Add the connector to a currently unmanaged app (select from the list of apps that were discovered in your identity, SSO, or federation provider that aren’t yet managed with C1)

   • Add the connector to a managed app (select from the list of existing managed apps)

   • Create a new managed app

4. Set the owner for this connector. You can manage the connector yourself, or choose someone else from the list of C1 users. Setting multiple owners is allowed.

   If you choose someone else, C1 will notify the new connector owner by email that their help is needed to complete the setup process.

5. Click Next.

6. In the Settings area of the page, click Edit.

7. Click Rotate to generate a new Client ID and Secret.

   Carefully copy and save these credentials. We’ll use them in Step 2.

Step 2: Create Kubernetes configuration files

Create two Kubernetes manifest files for your LDAP connector deployment:

Secrets configuration

# baton-ldap-secrets.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: baton-ldap-secrets
type: Opaque
stringData:
  # C1 credentials
  BATON_CLIENT_ID: <C1 client ID>
  BATON_CLIENT_SECRET: <C1 client secret>
  
  # LDAP credentials
  BATON_BIND_DN: <Username to bind to the LDAP server with>
  BATON_PASSWORD: <Password to bind to the LDAP server with>
  BATON_URL: <URL to the LDAP server, optionally including port number>

  # Optional: include if you want C1 to provision access using this connector
  BATON_PROVISIONING: true

See the connector’s README or run --help to see all available configuration flags and environment variables.

Deployment configuration

# baton-ldap.yaml
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: baton-ldap
  labels:
    app: baton-ldap
spec:
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: baton-ldap
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: baton-ldap
        baton: true
        baton-app: ldap
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: baton-ldap
        image: public.ecr.aws/conductorone/baton-ldap:latest
        imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
        env:
        - name: BATON_HOST_ID
          value: baton-ldap
        envFrom:
        - secretRef:
            name: baton-ldap-secrets

Step 3: Deploy the connector

1. Create a namespace in which to run C1 connectors (if desired), then apply the secret config and deployment config files.

2. Check that the connector data uploaded correctly. In C1, click Apps. On the Managed apps tab, locate and click the name of the application you added the LDAP connector to. LDAP data should be found on the Entitlements and Accounts tabs.

Done. Your LDAP connector is now pulling access data into C1.