Weblogic with Active Directory Authentication provider problem: DN for user ....: null

Question

I have a java application (SSO via SAML2) that uses Weblogic as a Identity Service Provider. All works well using users created directly in Weblogic. However, I need to add support for Active Directory. So, as per documentation:
- I defined an Active Directory Authentication provider
- changed it's order in the Authentication Providers list so that it comes first
- set the control flag to SUFFICIENT and configured the Provider Specific; here's the concerned part in config.xml:
<sec:authentication-provider xsi:type="wls:active-directory-authenticatorType">
        <sec:name>MyOwnADAuthenticator</sec:name>
        <sec:control-flag>SUFFICIENT</sec:control-flag>
        <wls:propagate-cause-for-login-exception>true</wls:propagate-cause-for-login-exception>
        <wls:host>10.20.150.4</wls:host>
        <wls:port>5000</wls:port>
        <wls:ssl-enabled>false</wls:ssl-enabled>
        <wls:principal>CN=tadmin,CN=wl,DC=at,DC=com</wls:principal>
        <wls:user-base-dn>CN=wl,DC=at,DC=com</wls:user-base-dn>
        <wls:credential-encrypted>{AES}deleted</wls:credential-encrypted>
        <wls:cache-enabled>false</wls:cache-enabled>
        <wls:group-base-dn>CN=wl,DC=at,DC=com</wls:group-base-dn>
</sec:authentication-provider>
I configured a AD LDS instance(Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services) on a Windows Server 2008 R2. I created users and one admin user "tadmin" which was added to Administrators members. I also made sure to set msDS-UserAccountDisabled property to FALSE.
After restarting Weblogic I can see that the AD LDS's users and groups are correctly fetched in Weblogic. But, when I try to connect with my application, using Username:tadmin and Password:<...> it does not work.
Here's what I see in the log file:
<BEA-000000> <LDAP Atn Login username: tadmin>
<BEA-000000> <authenticate user:tadmin>
<BEA-000000> <getConnection return conn:LDAPConnection {ldaps://10.20.150.4:5000 ldapVersion:3 bindDN:"CN=tadmin,CN=wl,DC=at,DC=com"}>
<BEA-000000> <getDNForUser search("CN=wl,DC=at,DC=com", "(&(&(cn=tadmin)(objectclass=user))(!(userAccountControl:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=2)))", base DN & below)>
<BEA-000000> <DN for user tadmin: null>
<BEA-000000> <returnConnection conn:LDAPConnection {ldaps://10.20.150.4:5000 ldapVersion:3 bindDN:"CN=tadmin,CN=wl,DC=at,DC=com"}>
<BEA-000000> <getConnection return conn:LDAPConnection {ldaps://10.20.150.4:5000 ldapVersion:3 bindDN:"CN=tadmin,CN=wl,DC=at,DC=com"}>
<BEA-000000> <getDNForUser search("CN=wl,DC=at,DC=com", "(&(&(cn=tadmin)(objectclass=user))(!(userAccountControl:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=2)))", base DN & below)>
<BEA-000000> <DN for user tadmin: null>
<BEA-000000> <returnConnection conn:LDAPConnection {ldaps://10.20.150.4:5000 ldapVersion:3 bindDN:"CN=tadmin,CN=wl,DC=at,DC=com"}>
<BEA-000000> <javax.security.auth.login.FailedLoginException: [Security:090302]Authentication Failed: User tadmin denied
  at weblogic.security.providers.authentication.LDAPAtnLoginModuleImpl.login(LDAPAtnLoginModuleImpl.java:229)
  at com.bea.common.security.internal.service.LoginModuleWrapper$1.run(LoginModuleWrapper.java:110)
So, I tried to look why do I have: <DN for user tadmin: null>. Using Apache Directory Studio I reproduced the ldap search request used in Weblogic and, sure enough, I get no results. But, changing the filter to only "(&(cn=tadmin)(objectclass=user))" (NOTICE, no userAccountControl), it works; here's the result from Apache Directory Studio:
#!SEARCH REQUEST (145) OK
#!CONNECTION ldap://10.20.150.4:5000
#!DATE 2014-01-23T14:52:09.324
# LDAP URL     : ldap://10.20.150.4:5000/CN=wl,DC=at,DC=com?objectClass?sub?(&(cn=tadmin)(objectclass=user))
# command line : ldapsearch -H ldap://10.20.150.4:5000 -x -D "[email protected]" -W -b "CN=wl,DC=at,DC=com" -s sub -a always -z 1000 "(&(cn=tadmin)(objectclass=user))" "objectClass"
# baseObject   : CN=wl,DC=at,DC=com
# scope        : wholeSubtree (2)
# derefAliases : derefAlways (3)
# sizeLimit    : 1000
# timeLimit    : 0
# typesOnly    : False
# filter       : (&(cn=tadmin)(objectclass=user))
# attributes   : objectClass
#!SEARCH RESULT DONE (145) OK
#!CONNECTION ldap://10.20.150.4:5000
#!DATE 2014-01-23T14:52:09.356
# numEntries : 1
(the "[email protected]" is defined as userPrincipalName in the tadmin user on AD LDS)
As you can see, "# numEntries : 1" (and I can see as result the entry "CN=tadmin,CN=wl,DC=at,DC=com"  in Apache Directory Studio's interface); if I add the userAccountControl filter I get 0.
I've read that the AD LDS does not use userAccountControl but "uses several individual attributes to hold the information that is contained in the flags of the userAccountControl attribute"; among those attributes is msDS-UserAccountDisabled which, as I said, I already set to FALSE.
So, my question is, how do I make it work? Why do I have "<DN for user tadmin: null>" ? Is it the userAccountControl ? If it is, do I need to do some other configuration on my AD LDS ? Or, how can I get rid of the userAccountControl filter in Weblogic?
I didn't seem to find it in config files or in the interface: I only have "User From Name Filter: (&(cn=%u)(objectclass=user))", there's no userAccountControl.
Another difference I noticed is that, even though in Weblogic I have set ssl-enabled flag to false, in the logs I see ldaps and not ldap ( I'm not looking to setup something production-ready and I don't want SSL for the moment ).
Here are some other things I tried but did not change anything:
- the other "msDS-" attributes were not set so I tried initializing them to some value
- I tried other users defined in AD LDS, not tadmin
- in Weblogic I added users that were imported from AD LDS in Roles and Policies> Realm Roles > Global Roles > Roles > Admin
- I removed all userAccountControl occurrences that I found in xml files in Weblogic (schema.ms.xml, schema.msad2003.xml)
Any thoughts?
Thanks.

Answer 1

I managed to narrow it down: the AD LDS does not support the userAccountControl.
Anyone knows how I can configure my Active Directory Authentication Provider in Weblogic so that it does not implicitly use userAccountControl as filter?
<BEA-000000> <getDNForUser search("CN=wl,DC=at,DC=com", "(&(&(cn=tadmin)(objectclass=user))(!(userAccountControl:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=2)))", base DN & below)>