In order to add a directory user group, an Appliance Administrator must add an Active Directory or LDAP server as an identity provider.

Next, the Authorizer Administrator or the User Administrator can add directory user groups.

The Security Policy Administrator, Authorizer Administrator, and User Administrator can add local user groups. For more information, see Adding a user group..

Import consideration

All users who are part of a directory import user group must have complete and valid attributes. If the attributes for a user are not complete and valid, the user is not imported and the import continues.

Port

The standard global catalog port, 3268 (LDAP), must be open on the firewall for every Windows global catalog server in the environment and SPP Appliance to communicate for directory management tasks (for example, adding a directory account, a directory user account, or a directory user group). LDAP uses port 389 for unencrypted connections. For more information, see the Microsoft publication How the Global Catalog Works.

Time

Because Microsoft Active Directory does not have a Time Zone attribute, when you add a directory group, the default time zone is set for all imported accounts to (UTC) Coordinated Universal Time. To reset the time zone, open each imported account in Users and modify the Time Zone on the Location tab.

To add a directory user group

  1. Navigate to Security Policy Management > User Groups or User Management > User Groups.
  2. Click  New User Group from the toolbar and select Directory User Group.
  3. In the Directory Group tab:
    1. Select a directory.
    2. For Filter Search Location, use Browse to select a container within the directory. This option is not available for Starling directories.
    3. The Include objects from sub containers check box is selected by default indicating that child objects will be included in your search. Clear this check box to exclude child objects from your search. This option is not available for Starling directories.

    4. In the Contains field, enter a full or partial directory group name and click Search. Or leave blank to return the first 1,000 items.

      The text search is not case-sensitive and does not allow wild cards. SPP searches each domain of a forest. You can search on partial strings. For example, if you enter "ad" in the search box, it will find any directory group that contains "ad."

    5. Select a group name from the results displayed in the Select the group to add grid.

    6. At the bottom of the Directory Group dialog, select the Automatically link Managed Directory Accounts check box to have existing managed directory accounts set as linked accounts on the imported user. This option is not available for Starling directories.

      Based on the setting of the identity provider's Managed Objects attribute, the attribute values are used to match up with existing managed directory accounts in Safeguard. The Safeguard user’s set of linked accounts will periodically synchronize with the directory and be overwritten with the values from the directory. Any changes to the linked accounts made manually to the user are lost at the next directory synchronization (see Sync additions every under Management tab (add asset)).

  4. In the Authentication tab, set the primary and secondary authentication. If you are importing users, Safeguard sets the primary and secondary authentication providers for new users. If a directory user group member already exists as a user in Safeguard, their authentication properties are not changed. To change authentication settings on existing Safeguard users that are members of the group, you must manually invoke the /UserGroups/{id}/SynchronizeAndUpdateProviders API method.
    Directory groups require the forest root domain to be visible and available for identity and authentication set on Appliance Management > Safeguard Access > Identity and Authentication. For more information, see Available Domains for Identity and Authentication (for Active Directory)..

    1. The Authentication Provider field defaults to the directory (or the forest root name for Active Directory) from which the group came.

      All newly created Safeguard users that are imported from the directory user group will have their primary authentication provider set to use the directory domain from which their user originates. For an Active Directory forest with multiple domains, the domains must be marked as Available Domains for Identity and Authentication. If a user is a member of a group, but their domain is not marked as Available for Identity and Authentication, the user will not be imported. For more information, see Adding identity and authentication providers..

      You can use either an External Federation or Radius server as each user’s primary authentication provider. During an import process, the directory attribute that was specified for External Federation Authentication or Radius Authentication will be used to set the user’s Email Address or Name Claim (for External Federation) or Login name (for Radius) property. See the External Federation settings attribute and Radius settings attribute for more information.

    2. Select the Require Certificate Authentication check box to require that the user logs in to Safeguard using their domain issued user certificate or SmartCard. This option is only available when the directory user group comes from Microsoft Active Directory and the Authentication Provider is also set as that directory.

    3. You can require the user to log in with two-factor authentication. Users being imported must have their contact information complete in order to successfully create a user in Safeguard.
      1. Select the Require Secondary Authentication check box. For more information, see Requiring secondary authentication log in..
      2. Choose the secondary Authentication Provider for all users of the directory user group. Use valid combinations of identity and authentication providers. For more information, see Identity and Authentication..

  5. On the Permissions tab, select any of the administrative permissions and/or the Personal Password Vault permission to be assigned to each member of the Directory Group. For each group member, the selected permissions of the group will be combined with any existing permissions that have already been granted explicitly or by some other Group to which they belong. For more information, see the Permissions tab (add user).
    During synchronization of a Directory Group, a user may be identified as no longer being a member. In this case, the selected permissions of the Directory Group are removed from the user unless the user is also a member of another Group from which they inherit the permission. SPP does not keep track of nor distinguish between an explicitly assigned permission versus one that was assigned via a Group.

    IMPORTANT: The Personal Password Vault permission, like any other permission, can be set explicitly on a user or inherited from a Group. If a user with the Personal Password Vault permission stores one or more personal passwords and then later has the permission revoked, either explicitly or by having been removed from all Groups from which they inherited it, the user will no longer be able to access Personal Password Vault features. But the user’s data within the vault will still be maintained. If at any point the user is granted the Personal Password Vault permission again, they regain access to all of their existing data.

  6. Click OK. On an import, the directory user group is created and the assigned users appear when the import process is complete.

  7. After adding the information, you can edit the following directory group settings and the directory synchronization process will be triggered in the background.

    • Directory Group tab: Select or clear the Automatically link Managed Directory Accounts check box.

    • Authentication tab: Change the authentication providers.

      NOTE: Changing the authentication providers will only effect newly imported users. Existing users will not have their authentication providers updated. To change authentication settings on existing Safeguard users that are members of the group, you must manually invoke the /UserGroups/{id}/SynchronizeAndUpdateProviders API method.

    • Permissions tab: Change the permissions.