AD/LDAP Connector System Requirements

Typically the AD/LDAP Connector needs to be installed by a sys admin or an operations engineer vs. a developer, since it often requires access to production resources. Following is a checklist of things they should consider ahead of the actual install:

Host servers

The Connector can be installed on an existing server, even a Domain Controller. However, more often it's installed on virtual machines provisioned just for the Connector. Regardless, the host server should have the following hardware and software specifications/configurations:

Hardware requirements

  • Architecture: x86 or x86-64

  • CPU cores: min. 1, recommended 2

  • Storage: 500MB of free space on disk

  • Operating System: The connector can run on Windows or Linux. Windows is required if Kerberos authentication will be used.

  • RAM: min. 2GB

Windows version

We recommend using a supported version of Windows Server, like Windows Server 2016 or Windows Server 2019. The connector can also run on Windows Server 2012 R2.

Time synchronization

It is very important to have the Connector host server clock automatically synchronized with an NTP server. Otherwise the connector will fail to start and report a clock skew error.

Outbound connectivity

The host server requires outbound network connectivity to the following services:

Auth0

The connector must be installed on a server with outbound connectivity to the Auth0 service at: https://{yourDomain} on port 443.

The connector can be installed and configured behind a proxy server but we don't recommend this. Enable a proxy through the environment or configuration variable HTTP_PROXY.

LDAP

The Connector must be installed on a server with access to the LDAP server on port 389 for ldap or 636 for ldaps. Before installing the Connector you should know the LDAP Connection String and the Base DN required to connect to your LDAP directory.

Inbound connectivity

You do not need inbound connectivity enabled to the Connector unless Kerberos or certificate authentication is enabled. In these cases, the server(s) on which the Connector is installed must be reachable from your users' browsers on port 443. If more than one instance of the connector is installed, you should use a load balancer to direct traffic to one connector or the another.

To learn more, read Configure AD/LDAP Connector Authentication with Kerberos or Configure AD/LDAP Connector Authentication with Client Certificates.

Service account

The Connector will be run using a service account that must be a domain user that at a minimum has read access to the directory. You will need the username/password of this account when performing the install.

One Connector per Auth0 tenant

If you establish multiple Auth0 tenants, for example to isolate development and production environments, you will need to set up an AD/LDAP connection on the Auth0 Dashboard and with an AD/LDAP Connector for each Auth0 tenant that needs this form of authentication. A Connector is tied to a specific connection within an Auth0 tenant.

It is possible to have multiple Connectors within one Auth0 tenant if you have multiple AD/LDAP directories against which users will authenticate. For example, to support different departments or customers each with their own directory. In addition, multiple Connectors can point to the same AD or LDAP directory but a Connector can only be used by one Auth0 Connection within one Auth0 tenant.

High availability

The Connector can be installed on multiple host servers for high-availability and redundancy (most organizations provision two) in case one server becomes unavailable. Each server will have the same requirements listed above. No load balancer is required as that is performed by the Auth0 server itself, unless you enable Kerberos or client certificate based authentication.

To learn more, read Deploy AD/LDAP Connectors for High Availability Environments.

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