Spring 3.1 LDAP Authentication Just Hangs: Where To Look?

[George Impagliazo]

Spring 3.1
Tomcat 6.*

I'm working on making a Spring 3.1 webapp, authenticating with LDAP. When I hit submit on my login page, it just hangs and after a very, very long time returns with this error message:

Reason: ldap-itc.sam.acme.com:636/o=acme.com
socket closed;
nested exception is javax.naming.ServiceUnavailableException:
ldap-itc.sam.acme.com:636/o=acme.com; socket closed


I was able to connect to my organizations LDAP server by using Softerra's LDAP browser using a real user's password and plugging in the "principal" ( with the username swapped out for "uid={0}" ), which I use in my *-security.xml file:

uid={0},ou=People,o=acme.com


I was also able to connect with a JNDI styled Java program I wrote (quoted below ). That program dumped all of the users attributes, including the password, which seems to be encrypted on the LDAP server. Do I need to tell Spring 3.1 this or encrypt the password that is collected on the login screen?

I noticed that Java program I wrote/copied/adapted specified "ssl" in the context. When I commented that out, the client program also hanged for a long time and returned with the same error message as Spring 3.1. I uncommented that out, changed "ldap://" to "ldaps://" in the client program and that worked fine.

I tried the same thing in my *-security.xml. I changed "ldap://" to "ldaps://" in the ldap url. This time the webapp did not hang, but returned very quickly with a message of

"Bad Credentials"

I tested my username and password out. They are legitimate.

I also tried typing in the encrypted version of my password, but that didn't make a difference.

I'm guessing something with SSL and/or password encryption is now my problem.

Any ideas of things I could check out?

My *-security.xml and the java LDAP demo I wrote are quoted below

Thanks.

My *-security.xml file:

    <beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"  
      xmlns:s="http://www.springframework.org/schema/security"  
      xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"  
      xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans  
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd  
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/security  
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/security/spring-security-3.1.xsd">  
       
         
      
      <s:http auto-config="true">  
        <s:intercept-url pattern="/welcome*" access="ROLE_USER" />  
        <s:form-login login-page="/login" default-target-url="/welcome"  
          authentication-failure-url="/loginfailed" />  
        <s:logout logout-success-url="/logout" />  
      </s:http>  
       
      
      
      <s:ldap-server url = "ldap://ldap-itc.sam.acme.com:636/o=acme.com"/>  
      
      <s:authentication-manager>  
        <s:ldap-authentication-provider user-dn-pattern="uid={0},ou=People,o=acme.com" />  
      </s:authentication-manager>  
      
      
    </beans>  

Here is the JNDI style LDAP Java program that WORKS with the same credentials:

mport javax.naming.*;  
import javax.naming.directory.*;  
import java.util.*;  
import java.sql.*;  
  
public class LDAPDEMO {  
  
    public static void main(String args[]) {  
  
        String lcf                = "com.sun.jndi.ldap.LdapCtxFactory";  
        String ldapurl            = "ldap://ldap-itc.sam.acme.com:636/o=acme.com";  
        String loginid            = "John.A.Smith";  
        String password           = "passowordforjohn";  
        DirContext ctx            = null;  
        Hashtable env             = new Hashtable();  
        Attributes attr           = null;  
        Attributes resultsAttrs   = null;  
        SearchResult result       = null;  
        NamingEnumeration results = null;  
        int iResults              = 0;  
  
  
        env.put(Context.INITIAL_CONTEXT_FACTORY, lcf);  
        env.put(Context.PROVIDER_URL, ldapurl);  
        env.put(Context.SECURITY_PROTOCOL, "ssl");  
        env.put(Context.SECURITY_AUTHENTICATION, "simple");  
        env.put(Context.SECURITY_PRINCIPAL, "uid=" + loginid + ",ou=People,o=acme.com");  
        env.put(Context.SECURITY_CREDENTIALS, password);  
        try {  
  
            ctx     = new InitialDirContext(env);  
            attr    = new BasicAttributes(true);  
            attr.put(new BasicAttribute("uid",loginid));  
            results = ctx.search("ou=People",attr);  
  
            while (results.hasMore()) {  
                result       = (SearchResult)results.next();  
                resultsAttrs = result.getAttributes();  
  
                for (NamingEnumeration enumAttributes  = resultsAttrs.getAll(); enumAttributes.hasMore();) {  
                    Attribute a = (Attribute)enumAttributes.next();  
                    System.out.println("attribute: " + a.getID() + " : " + a.get().toString());  
  
  
                }// end for loop  
  
                iResults++;  
            }// end while loop  
  
            System.out.println("iResults == " + iResults);  
  
        }// end try  
        catch (Exception e) {  
            e.printStackTrace();  
        }  
  
  
  
    }// end function main()  
}// end class LDAPDEMO  

Again, I'm only getting that one message and I am new to this so I would like some ideas of where to look for the problem. Thanks.

[George Impagliazo]

Admins, plese delete this post, thanks

[George Impagliazo]

I got it working. The final version of my *-security.xml is quoted below.

I took the "o=acme.com" out of the DN pattern and the LDAP worked.

I had originally put the "o=acme.com" in both the LDAP URL and the DN pattern because I am new to Spring 3.1 and LDAP, and that is similar to how it is/was done in the Java JNDI version of the LDAP demo I wrote based on the legacy code I am replacing. That demo program is quoted in the original post above.

<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"  
  xmlns:s="http://www.springframework.org/schema/security"  
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"  
  xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans  
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd  
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/security  
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/security/spring-security-3.1.xsd">  



  <s:http auto-config="true" use-expressions="true">  
    **<s:intercept-url pattern="/welcome*" access="isAuthenticated()" />** 
    <s:form-login login-page="/login" default-target-url="/welcome"  
      authentication-failure-url="/loginfailed" />  
    <s:logout logout-success-url="/logout" />  
  </s:http>  



  <s:ldap-server url = "ldap://ldap-itc.sam.acme.com:636/o=acme.com"/>  

  <s:authentication-manager>
    <s:ldap-authentication-provider user-dn-pattern="uid={0},ou=People" />
  </s:authentication-manager>

</beans>