About automated password synchronization
If your enterprise environment has multiple data management systems, each having its own password policy and dedicated user authentication mechanism, you may face one or more of the following issues:
- Because users have to remember multiple passwords, they may have difficulty managing them. Some users may even write down their passwords. As a result, passwords can be easily compromised.
- Each time users forget one or several of their numerous access passwords, they have to ask administrators for password resets. This increases operational costs and translates into a loss of productivity.
- There is no way to implement a single password policy for all of the data management systems. This too impacts productivity, as users have to log on to each data management system separately in order to change their passwords.
With Synchronization Service, you can eliminate these issues and significantly simplify password management in an enterprise environment that includes multiple data management systems.
Synchronization Service provides a cost-effective and efficient way to synchronize user passwords from an Active Directory domain to other data systems used in your organization. As a result, users can access other data management systems using their Active Directory domain password. Whenever a user password is changed in the source Active Directory domain, this change is immediately and automatically propagated to other data systems, so each user password remains in sync in the data systems at all times.
You need to connect Synchronization Service to the data systems in which you want to synchronize passwords through special connectors supplied with Synchronization Service.
Steps to automate password synchronization
To automatically synchronize passwords from an Active Directory domain to another data system, complete these steps:
- Install Capture Agent on each domain controller in the Active Directory domain you want to be the source for password synchronization operations.
Capture Agent tracks changes to the user passwords in the source Active Directory domain and provides this information to Synchronization Service, which in turn synchronizes passwords in the target connected systems you specify.
For more information on how to install Capture Agent, see Managing Capture Agent.
- Connect the Synchronization Service to the Active Directory domain where you installed Capture Agent in step 1.
Alternatively, you can configure a connection to Active Roles that manages the source Active Directory domain.
- Connect the Synchronization Service to the data system where you want to synchronize user object passwords with those in the source Active Directory domain.
- For some target data systems (such as SQL Server) you must specify the data you want to participate in the password synchronization by configuring an SQL query.
- If the target data system is an LDAP directory service accessed via the generic LDAP connector, you must specify the target object type for which you want to synchronize passwords and the attribute where you want to store object passwords.
- Ensure that user objects in the source Active Directory domain are properly mapped to their counterparts in the target connected system.
For more information about mapping objects, see Mapping objects.
Synchronization Service automatically maps objects between the source Active Directory domain and the target connected system if you configure sync workflows to manage the creation and deprovision operations between the source AD domain (or Active Roles that manages that domain) and the target connected system.
For more information on sync workflows, see Synchronizing identity data.
- Create a password synchronization rule for the target connected system.
For more information, see Creating a password sync rule.
After you complete the above steps, the Synchronization Service starts to automatically track user password changes in the source AD domain and synchronize passwords in the target connected system.
If necessary, you can fine-tune the password synchronization settings by completing these optional tasks:
Managing Capture Agent
Capture Agent is required to track changes to the user passwords in the Active Directory domain you want to be the authoritative source for password synchronization operations. To synchronize passwords, you must install Capture Agent on each domain controller in the source Active Directory domain.
Whenever a password changes in the source Active Directory domain, the agent captures that change and provides the changed password to the Synchronization Service. In turn, the Synchronization Service uses the provided information to synchronize passwords in the target connected systems according to your settings.
In this section:
Installing Capture Agent manually
You can use this method to manually deploy Capture Agent on each domain controller in the source Active Directory domain.
To manually install Capture Agent
- Run one of the following files supplied with the Synchronization Service installation package:
- On a 32-bit domain controller, run the file SyncServiceCaptureAgent_7.6.1_x86.msi.
- On a 64-bit domain controller, run the file SyncServiceCaptureAgent_7.6.1_x64.msi.
You can find these files in the Solutions folder on the Active Roles distribution media.
- Step through the wizard to complete the agent installation.
You can perform an unattended installation of Capture Agent as follows.
To perform an unattended installation
On a 32-bit system, enter the following syntax at a command prompt:
msiexec /i "<Path to SyncServiceCaptureAgent_7.6.1_x86.msi>" /qb
INSTALLDIR="<Path to installation folder>" REBOOT="<Value>"
On a 64-bit system, enter the following syntax at a command prompt:
msiexec /i "<Path to SyncServiceCaptureAgent_7.6.1_x64.msi>" /qb
INSTALLDIR="<Path to installation folder>" REBOOT="<Value>"
In the above syntax:
Table 122: Arguments
INSTALLDIR |
Specifies the installation folder for the Capture Agent. When this argument is omitted, the following default installation folder is used:
%ProgramFiles%\One Identity\Active Roles\7.6.1\SyncServiceCaptureAgent |
REBOOT |
Allows you to suppress a system restart in a situation where a restart is required for the Capture Agent installation to complete.
To suppress the restart, use the following syntax: REBOOT="ReallySupress" |